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A short story collection is like a box of chocolates -- you
never know what you’re gonna get when you bite into each story. But, at the same time,
you get plenty of variety.
I read Everything’s Eventual in the
format that seems to be the hip way to read King these days -- on ebook (you can get it
for Microsoft
Reader or Adobe
Reader). After all, King was one of the ebook-publishing pioneers, as he discusses
at length in the introduction to the book (an introduction that will touch anyone who
writes for the sheer love of it -- like I do).
The fourteen stories in
this collection cover the full range of King stories: suspenseful, bizarre, gory,
horrifying, and just plain creepy... King notes that he created the book’s table of
contents in a totally random way -- but it worked out perfectly. The collection opens
with “Autopsy Room Four,” an eerie story from the point of view of a body on the autopsy
room table -- a body that may or may not be a dead body.
There aren’t
many really low points in this collection -- though “Lunch at the Gotham Café” was a bit
too stomach-turning for me and “The Little Sisters of Eluria” was a little too close to
fantasy to suit my tastes. But I loved most of the stories in the collection -- like the
title story, about a kid with “a good job” and “L.T.’s Theory of Pets,” about a man who
came home one day to find that his wife had left and took the dog with her. “The Road
Virus Heads North,” a story about a creepy painting that appears to be prophetic, is one
of my favorites, as is “Luckey Quarter,” the final story -- about a Nevada chambermaid
and her dream tip.
As an added bonus, each story includes the author’s
comments -- a conversation with the reader about what, exactly, was going on in King’s
head when he wrote it. You’ve always wondered what goes on in Stephen King’s head,
didn’t you? I know I did... So here’s your chance to find out -- and, in the meantime,
you’ll get to read some great stories, too.
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