Riding the Bullet (2001)

Great presentation of King's novella and Garris' screenplay/director's notes. ( )

I am a huge Stephen King fan, but hate to say that I really did not enjoy this short story. There was a fair amount of suspense as Allen makes his way to the hospital and has his 'encounter', but after that the story just went downhill for me...or perhaps I just didn't get the ending. ( )

The story was pretty good. Typical King. I enjoyed reading it, and especially liked the ending. ( )

I had not read anything by Stephen King, so I picked this up on a whim because it was short. It struck me as just a typical hitchhiking/ghost story kids might tell over a campsite in the woods. I'll have to try one of his earlier works. ( )

On March 14, 2000, shortly after his nearly fatal accident, King published Riding the Bullet as an e-book, exclusively, as his introduction to electronic publishing. Simon and Schuster worked with Softlock offering the 67-page novella for $2.50, payable by credit card.

On the first day the demand for download was so high that Softlock suffered a lockup, preventing eager readers from accessing Riding the Bullet for a few days. Loyal King readers complained that availability was limited to those with credit cards, e-readers, and pcs. Mac owners couldn't download the book. Barnes and Noble and Amazon offered the download for free.

In 2002 Riding the Bullet was published as one of 14 short stories in Everything's Eventual. In 2004 a movie version was released. ( )