Richard Chizmar

It’s 2026, and now-Senator Gwendy Peterson is taking a ride into space, to the Many Flags space station where she will observe climate patterns on Earth and serve as a goodwill ambassador for the private space agency that operates the shuttle. Rather more importantly, she carries with her the button box and the imperative to send it out into space before it can cause even more damage than the recent COVID pandemic. Unluckily for her, Gwendy is suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s and, show more worse, there is an enemy aboard the space station who seeks to steal the button box away from her…. This is the final novel in the button box trilogy and it definitely goes out with a bang, in the tradition of such works. I like that Gwendy is still fighting, still alert to danger and still trying to do the right thing despite her failing mind; I also like the way the insidious disease of Alzheimer’s is shown from the point of view of the sufferer, although of course we have no way of knowing if that portrayal is entirely accurate. Unlike some of Mr. King’s villains, this story’s evil person is not *always* evil, but instead has sparks of humanity from time to time, giving that character a bit more depth. And as someone born in November, I must very heartily cheer on Boris - something you will only understand when you have read the book! As with all trilogies, it is absolutely vital to have read the first two volumes (“Gwendy’s Button Box” and “Gwendy’s Magic Feather”) before starting this one, but you won’t be sorry you did; recommended. show less

Welcome back to Castle Rock, Maine, home to numerous Stephen King stories. Clearly nothing bad is going to happen here. Gwendy is twelve when she meets the man in the little black hat. A slightly pudgy girl, Gwendy is determined to slim down before school starts up in the fall. The Man in the little black hat seems to know all about her, and he offers her guardianship of a strange little box with multicolored buttons. The Man explains that the box controlls everything. And while it will give show more her what she needs, it can also take things away.

This is a perfect little book, only 175 pages, but Chizmar squeezes a hell of a lot of stuff into this book. We see Gwendy grow up, and the relationship between her and the mysterious box grows and changes with her. The box is almost like a character in and of itself, a constant, lurking presence suffusing the entire story with a subtle menace. Gwendy herself is a fully realised character, complex and sympathetic.

I know most people either love or hate short stories and novellas, but if Gwendy’s Button Box is an indication of what the genre can do, then bring ’em on! show less

I had one of those ennui-ridden days yesterday. I had the time and the inclination to read but none of the books I'd downloaded called to me. I nibbled at a couple of them but I couldn't taste them. My imagination couldn't get any traction. So I opted for novelty as an antidote to listlessness and searched for something short and satisfying that I could read in an afternoon. I found 'Gwendy's Button Box', a novella co-authored by Stephen King (a go-to comfort read author for me) and Richard show more Chizmar (who I wasn't familiar with) nd consumed it in an afternoon.

I was glad that I'd opted for the audiobook version. Maggie Siff's narration was engaging and soothing and soon I was lost in another Castle Rock story in the 1970s, this time following a decade of the life of a young girl called Gwendy after she has an encounter with an extraordinary man who gifts her a box that is both a blessing and a curse.

I liked Gwendy, as Stephen King intended me to. She is brave, disciplined, mostly kind and is as honest with herself as any of us are capable of being. She's not perfect and she's very young so some of her decision are not a wise as they might be but those things just made her easier to engage with.

The box... well the box is terrifying. It's like handing a child a nuclear bomb and saying "Only press the button if you're sure it's the right thing to do". To make things worse, the box establishes a silently symbiotic relationship with Gwendy, offering her rewards that build dependency and reshape her life to the point where her ownership of her achievements is undermined and she questions the truth of her own identity.

This is a 'thought experiment' story, a 'What if?' speculation about power and choice and consequences, a reflection on the Spiderman truism that 'With great power comes great responsibility' that, in Stephen King's hands, also becomes the life story of a nice young girl whose childhood is ended early by an understanding that the world is not a safe place and that destruction is just a press of a button away, whether that button is in the hands of Nixon or Brezhnev or by Gwendy herself.

I was cruising along happily in the story but I couldn't see how it could be brought to an end, unless it turned into another 'IT' and one decade became three and I was watching Gwendy decide if Y2K would end the world.

The ending, when it came, was dramatic and a little sad but a little too neat and too cosy to be entirely satisifying. Still, my ennui was gone. I'd had an entertaining afternoon and I was ready to read something else.

Then I found that Stephen King's 'The Music Room' had been added as a bonus story. It's short, stylised and delightfully dark and twisted. Just the amuse-bouche I needed to clear my palette and move on to my next book.

The last thing on the audiobook is a conversation between Stephen King and Richard Chizmar about their collaboration on this story. The two of them were internet friends who often exchanged emails and chatted about things. One of those things was a story that Stephen King had started but couldn't find a way to finish. He'd sent it to Richard Chizmar, who turned it into the 'Gwendy's Button Box' I'd just read. Of course, the geek in me desperately wanted to see what the story looked like before the collaboration started and I found myself going back over the story in my head to see if I could find the join.

There are two more Gwendy novellas but I'm not heading there just now. Maybe the next time ennui has me it's grip, they can help me get free.

Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample of Maggie Siff's narration.

https://soundcloud.com/simonschuster/gwendys-button-box-audiobook-excerpt show less

October Dreams 2 – Edited by Richard Chizmar & Robert Morrish
⭐ 3.75 / 5

This follow-up to the original October Dreams opens and closes in fine form. The early stories—especially Mr. Dark’s Carnival and Stephen Graham Jones’s Universal Horror—cut straight to what Halloween should be: mortal unease, guilt made flesh, and the suspicion that the dead have simply been standing beside us all year. The final stretch returns to that level of darkness, with strong pieces from writers like show more John Skip and James A. Moore giving the book the sharp teeth it needs.

The middle section, though, drifts too deep into reminiscence. The “Halloween Memories” essays, charming as concept, often feel more manufactured than remembered, and many of the stories around them share that sentimental glow. After a while, the nostalgia dilutes the dread; it becomes less a haunted anthology and more a scrapbook of autumn afternoons.

Still, the book’s best tales justify the journey. When it’s good, it’s really good—poignant, eerie, and aware that Halloween’s sweetness only matters because decay waits underneath. Shorter and more focused than the first volume, October Dreams 2 lands as an uneven but worthy companion: a reminder that the spirit of October is equal parts childhood wonder and adult reckoning. show less