Anybody else reading the new Stephen King short story anthology?

Cafe Society
1

I’m about halfway through, reading the title story, Everything’s Eventual. All the stories are pretty good so far. I was cringing while I read the first one…a paralyzed man wakes up on the autopsy table, able to see and hear everything but unable to tell the coroner, who’s about to start cutting into him, that he’s still alive.

So far King’s written a brief little “This is how this story came about” before or after each tale. There’s even a “pre-quel” Roland story…Roland is searching for Walter…this is before The Gunslinger, I think.

I think King is at his best with the short story…he says in the forward that he doesn’t write the good ones, he just uncovers them, like artifacts. Sort of like what Michaelangelo said about sculpting…the art was already there, he just took off the extra pieces. He’s written some wonderful and not so wonderful books, but I love the myriad ways his mind works, and how he comes up with all the different macabre stories.

2

Crap! Now I’ll have to buy it. Well, at least I can wait for the paperback.

3

Don’t wait! Support your local library! That’s what I did, and I found Roland’s tale to be fantastic.

4

What are you, a mind reader? I just got the book on Saturday. Good stuff so far.

Don’t worry too much, Mr. Blue Sky, because the Roland story is the same that was featured in the “Legends” short story anthology by… by… crap, I can’t remember. Even better is that he confirms the existence of DT5! Whooo!

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The “Legends” anthology is edited by Robert Silverberg. Went over to the bookcase and there it was. D’oh!

6

Got it from the library and read about 2/3rds of it. One in particular pissed me off. “The Death of Jack Hamilton” stopped suddenly and launched into an entirely different story. That’s when I checked the page numbers and found an entire signature missing (a sig is a section of a book, about 30 pages long,)

Apart from that, King’s pretty good, but this one seemed flat to me. (SOME SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW) “LT’s Theory of Pets” kinda rambled and ended up nowhere. The collapse of LT’s marriage was supposed to evoke some sympathy in us, but while we see his attachment to her, I didn’t get any insight into it. It was there, and we’re supposed to accept it.

“Everything’s Eventual” was a pretty good story featuring the usual King themes: youngster with a supernatural power to discover and master, the mysterious government agency or company that turns corrupt.

I liked the one about the graffiti collector contemplating suicide, although, again, I don’t know much about why he wants to do it. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, and it speaks more toward King’s beliefs about writing and its importance to him (the fellow develops such an attachment to his notebook that it interferes with his plan.)

Did anyone notice how many of the stories deal with failing marriages and relationships? At least three in 14 stories; is he paying more atttention to this?

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I noticed that too, but I don’t think that it’s only this collection. I think there are a good many short stories of his tha deals with bad or failing marriages. Or maybe the few just stand out in my mind.

I finished it a while ago, and I loved pretty much all of the stories except Lunch at Gotham Cafe.

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I read most of it this weekend. I really enjoyed “Everything’s Eventual” and the short story with Roland. “LT’s Theory” was kind of a let-down, the “Deja Vu” story (can’t rem. the name just now} kinda creeped me out in a confusing sort of way. I think my favorite so far was the ending of “Everything’s Eventual” and I was really excited about DT5!! I only hate that I have to go back and re-read parts of Wizard and Glass to remember how it ended. Do you think he’ll ever finish the series? Huh? Huh? I am soooo excited!

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Well, in the foreword to “The Little Sisters of Eleuria” he said that DT 5 (“Wolves of the Calla”) is done, so we’ll see that some time this year. When he announced his retirement earlier this year (?) he said there’s probably be another book or two beyond that. So he says the end is in sight; barring accidents, comets crashing into the earth or other things of that nature, it looks like he’s going to finish the series in the next couple of years.

Thank heavens for that. I would hate to read five books and have him die without finishing the dratted thing, or turn into the next Robert Jordan (coming soon! Wheel of Time book 57!)

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The Road Virus one scared me too…yikes! Such a typical ghost story told around a campfire…pesch, did you tell the library about the missing sig? I had that in my copy of Shogun…a few missing pages.