I am a huge fan of SK's short stories and there were a couple in this book I thoroughly enjoyed... particularly 1408.
What did you think?
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I am a huge fan of SK's short stories and there were a couple in this book I thoroughly enjoyed... particularly 1408.
What did you think?
The Road virus heads north is an incredibly freaky tale
yeah... I loved that one as well... really creeped me out.
Love this book so much. Great choice for book of the month. I'm crazy about every one of the stories but I swear I love the title story the best. There's just something about it that really gets me.
If I were forced to pick a least favorite it'd be All That You Love Will Be Carried Away. While still a great story, it does'nt speak to me as much as its fellows.
I can understand why The Man in the Black Suit won a prize. What a piece of storytelling. At once terrifying and poignant.
Little Sisters of Eluria was an unexpected treat and left me craving even more stories of Roland's younger years.
Lunch at the Gotham Cafe.....EEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee....teehee.
Okay, I've been babbling. I haven't participated in one of the books of the month discussions before, so I obviously don't know what I'm doing and I'll just see how it unfolds before trying to participate again :D
Great choice for BotM, O. I love this book and have thumbed through these stories several times. Little Sister's is my favorite but I gotta give some love to Riding the Bullet and The Man in the Black Suit.
I have to say that I loved the title story, Everything's Eventual, just because I had read DT7 first, and it was great to run into Dink again and get his backstory. I admit I have my own habit of drawing mirks and fouders on the margins of the page.
I was also gleefully terrified by The Road Virus Heads North...shuddering even now...
Wow, how tastes differ! It's my very favorite of all King short stories. The rest in this collection was just passable... with some pretty good pieces, like Lunch at the Gotham Cafe and 1408.Quote:
Originally Posted by ksmithcats
nice book choice. :D
all that you love will be carried away really touched me. the image of him driving across the country and collecting those pieces of people in his little notebook - little jokes, little pieces of hatred, little cries for help. that really spoke to me. and the ending - never really knowing, just standing there with him as he waits for the wind to die. for me that was real story telling.
that feeling, you can only say what it is in french. i have nightmares that happen like that. where i'm living the same thing over and over and i know that something is wrong but i don't know what. yet another story that he really got me with. and he got me in a visceral, very real way.
1408 just scared the fuck out of me. still does. i can still hear that voice in my head, that voice on the phone. "this is nine, this is nine. this is god damn fucking nine. all your friends are dead!" god, i had nightmares about that voice for a fucking week after i read that fucking story. no kidding.
L.T.'s theory of pets (i use the capitals because if i don't it looks funny) is one of the best stories i've ever heard king read. i've loaned it to so many people. and i've gotten into arguments with people (not just people here) about what really happened to L.T.'s wife and what it means that he would rather imagine her working as a hooker than imagine her dead by the axe-man. but god i love king's take on animals and the husband/wife relationship. it's funny as hell.
i thought the lucky quarter was a neat little story. i found myself hoping it would really happen for her.
the man in the black suit didn't really do much for me when i read it. when i listened to john cullum's reading of it it scared the holy hell out of me. the way he says "big fish" is absolutely terrifying. seriously - if you haven't heard his reading of it i'll loan it to you. the man is amazing.
everything's eventual rocked. completely and absolutely. and when i finished it i read it again and wished i could find out what else happened. and how he escaped, and what he did next. i guess that's the mark of good story telling, eh?
i didn't care for the death of jack hamilton. don't know why, i found it kind of boring for some reason. i think i have to read it again a couple of times.
in the death room was very frightening because i could see something like that happening. shit, it probably has happened. how's that for sad.
autopsy room four felt very familiar to me for some reason. i don't know if i had read it before somewhere or what. but it seemed like i knew what it was and why before i got through the third page. so i was really, really bored.
i hated the riding the bullet. i was bored and felt like it was very contrived. maybe that's another one i need to give a second chance. i even tried it on audio (that usually turns the trick for me) but it just put me to sleep.
the road virus heads north was really, really cool. do you guys remember that old show "the night gallery"? it felt like one of those episodes to me. only this time the painting actually did come to life. and man, what a vicious fucking painting it was too.
lunch at the gotham cafe was amazing. god i hated his ex (or soon to be ex) wife. i was actually hoping she would get killed. bitchy of me i know but she was just so fucking bitchy. and by the way?
"that dog! how many times have i told you you cannot have that dog in here?" "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
the little sisters of eluria. man, i need to read that story again. cause i just hated it. in a big, bad, why is this even on paper kind of way. maybe cause i wasn't ready to go back into roland's past. maybe cause i wasn't ready to see someone fall in love with him. maybe cause i was just so pissed at how the story ended. i don't know. but i haven't read it since the first time i read the book (and i've read the book several times since then).
I loved this collection. I'm not...well, I wasn't, a fan of short stories until I read this book and it really got me into them.
My favourite was probably the title story, because I love Dinky Earnshaw.
We should have much more posts here.
I am reading this book and I love it so much. Let me write down how I feel about these short stories and my thoughts about them.
The Man in the Black Suit
I loved this story so much. It caught me. I felt the little boy's fear in my teeth. This story brings up so many questions... Why did the Devil lie to the boy? Did he want to have some fun? Or did he mean to eat the boy alive? I have no idea... I am sure he had an amazing time with that little kid but I am not sure he wanted to hurt his body. I don't think he was hungry for human flesh. He was hungry for his fear and he knew that the little boy would never be able to forget him. He got what he wanted. Killing the boy would have ruined most of the fun.
All That You Love Will Be Carried Away
Nice story. I liked it a lot.
I don't think the man killed himself... he had so many things in his life and he couldn't let them go. When he called back his wife the second time to talk about the vet... I started to hope very hard that he wouldn't do it. I felt he wouldn't. That second call...
I am sure he was planning to kill himself.
When he made his life depend on some kind of light... I got sure he wouldn't do it. No way. He grabbed life so much. He didn't want to keep on living the way he did but he wanted to live.
Aaaand suddenly we got to the end of the story. :)
The Little Sister of Eluria
I am in love with this one. Truly.
1408
I am not that type of person who can get scared easily by a movie or a book but after this short story I felt so uncomfortable for hours. I heard noises... I am sure there are noises all the time around me because the walls are very thin where I live but now they disturbed me.
The way things vanished and appeared in the pictures... so deadly frightening. I used to be afraid (as a kid) to become a part of a picture on the wall and get out of my normal life. To be a painting and not to be able to escape. To stay there forever just watching the people who can walk and love and live. Strange fear... but I used to have it.
This book brought its memory back.
And in 5 seconds I can go home and it means I can keep on reading on the bus. :)
Yeah, this totally freaked me out as well. *shiver* The made for tv movie they did was sort of crap.Quote:
Originally Posted by flaggwalkstheline
anyways, I just listened Dinky's tale the other day. I highly recommend you listening to Justin Long reading. So good.
:o
Does he read that? I have always considered him a perfect Eddie.
And do you think he was the Axe-man, too?Quote:
Originally Posted by turtlesong
I bought this book first and foremost for The Little Sisters of Eluria. After I finished it, I decided to give the other stories a go. I've never really read short stories before, not on purpose anyways.
So far I can't really connect with short stories enough to enjoy them. I just finished "All You Love Will Be Carried Away" and it left me feeling "what was the point?"
The Man in the Black Suit was ok but it could have been better. Autopsy Room Four was pretty good I thought.
That's as far as I've gotten with the book though. I'll probably read one or two more of them and if none of them catch my interest it's going on the book shelf to forever collect dust -- or at least until I feel like reading about Roland again.
Go for L.T.'s theory of pets. It's my favourite so far you might like it, too. It's better than many books.Quote:
Originally Posted by The King of Kings
The Losers Club podcast on the book: