Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993)

Stephen King talks a lot. I swear I only got through this one on sheer stubbornness. 14176 locations, what does that translate to in pages? 8000? Now I remember why I never used to read anthologies in tree book. Why do authors (or publishing houses, who knows which,) insist on putting so many short stories in a single volume, that you could easily use the tome to reinforce your home's retaining wall?

I have at least two more of these bricks on the bookcase (one by Lewis Shiner that contains 41 stories, 41!) that, being realistic, I'll probably never read, unless I start lifting weights again.

Kindle is trying to trick me... lulling me into a false sense of "you can doooo eeeeet! you can read this 8000 page book, doooo eeeet!"

And when it's all said and done, in a year, I'll probably still only remember the same two stories from this collection that I remember from the last time I read it, 10 years ago.

Those were:

"Chattery Teeth" - which is so awesome because windup toys are the coolest ever, especially when they're on your side,

and

"You Know They Got a Hell of a Band" - because I think of it sometimes when I see one of those turnoffs from a state highway that goes off into the trees to some little town that nobody has ever heard of, and has a population of 100. It's like evil Sasquatch! Festival.

This time I might also manage to remember "Dolan's Cadillac" because any horror story that depends on trajectory math, just tickles my not-so-inner nerd.

There were a few other stories in here that I really liked, (even if I soon might not remember them,) but there were just so damn many. Not as many as Shiner's, but still enough that I'm mostly just relieved to shelve this and call it finished. ( )

A collection of horror stories by the matster. Not as focused as his precious anthologies, N&D has something for everybody. ( )

because this is a book of short stories, this is a bit of a mixed bag. on average, i suppose, somewhere around 2.5-3 stars. i didn't like all of what was in here, although i also didn't actively dislike any of the stories. there were two vampire stories and one zombie story - neither topic interests me at all and i was disappointed when that ended up being the subject matter, but like all of stephen king's stories, it's actually less about that subject matter and more about the feelings and the characters, so even those stories weren't bad. just not my favorites. speaking of favorites, there are a couple of really stand out stories in this volume that are truly superb. and i really liked how virtually every single story in here references reading and specific authors. i love how often he does that in general, and it was really obvious when seen in this format. ( )

This is a great collection of stories. I read it when it first came out, but I didn't remember much other than really liking it overall, so I re-read it this year. And I still loved it. That's not unexpected, but well, sometimes the shining childhood memories are brighter than the fact. Luckily that wasn't the case here. I loved the Twilight Zone feel of a lot of these stories. They seem recognizable on the exterior, but then scratch the surface and things aren't... quite... right.

As much as I want to, I'm not going to review each story in this book. There are a lot of them, and I could say a goodish amount about each of them. But here's my list of the stories, in preference order.

Umney's Last Case
Crouch End
The End of the Whole Mess
Suffer the Little Children
Rainy Season
Dedication
Dolan's Cadillac
The Ten O'Clock People
Home Delivery
My Pretty Pony
The House on Maple Street
Popsy
The Moving Finger
Chattery Teeth
The Beggar and The Diamond
You Know They Got a Hell of a Band
The Night Flier
The Doctor's Case
It Grows On You
Sorry, Right Number
Sneakers
The Fifth Quarter
Head Down
Brooklyn August ( )

A real box of SK gems, with a couple of duds just to keep you going. ( )