January's SK Flavor of the Month - Night Shift

Thought I'd start the thread a little early. I probably won't even begin the book for another couple of weeks myself.

So Night Shift will be our first batch of short stories. Can't think of any good or practical way to organize a discussion of short stories. I suppose a free-for-all will work unless anyone can come up with something better (and more sane)?

I've picked out a few stories from the book in the past (the less famous ones in fact), so I'm looking forward to reading the book all the way through. Finally reading Children of the Corn, Trucks and The Ledge.

I remember really liking I am the Doorway and Gray Matter, so it'll be nice to visit them again too.

I haven't started yet but it is sitting here, looking at me. I am really excited to read Night Shift. I haven't read it for many years, 20 or more, just like all the other King books so far but this is one of the books that I don't remember much about.

Quitters Inc. and Gray Matter are a couple of stories that seem to have rooted themselves into the base of my skull. They're always there, in the back of my mind.

Eek. For some reason I thought we were doing The Stand...am still working my way through After Sunset, but can pull a switcheroo. Loved Night Shift the first couple of times through it.

I just finished it, I had listened to some of the stories, but not all on CD last year. I love quitters inc. and The Ledge, and the last rung on the ladder is a great a story too.

That one sticks out because it is not a horror story really, but still shows King's great writing ability. It makes me wonder about how his editors received that story when he first tried to publish the collection. This is his first set of stories, and he had only publish 2 or 3 books at that point (that's what I gathered, I could be wrong). I wonder how they felt about this horror writer branching out into other realms so soon? This was all before my time so I am curious.

Can't remember the Ladder story, so I'll have to wait until I get to it again. Finished Jerusalam's Lot & Graveyard Shift so far.

JL is one of my favorites and I have it in a huge, oversized book with very creepy illustrations so I read that version instead of the one in NS. It's very reminicient of Lovecraft in the way it deals with an ancient evil being and its cult. The Worm is so very vile in concept and it fits nicely here. Also reminds me of a-non Cthulhu story of Lovecrafts called Rats in the Walls...for obvious reasons, and it is very similar in the tale itself. Another story it reminds me of is Sticks by Karl Edward Wagner in the way it deals with animated cadavers in dank cellars and their connection to ancient, New England cults. Popular themes all.

Graveyard Shift isn't as elegant, but it's fun in a gross out sort of way. Not sure what the deal with Hall was...did he mean to kill himself or is it just a happy accident? Seriously, he didn't seem all that upset about his fate once he knew that of the Foreman. Weird.

I listened to the CD version in 2007, so a lot of them are still pretty fresh for me. The Ledge was easily my favorite of the stories. I also liked Battlefield, which was a bit silly but fun and fast-paced, and The Last Rung on the Ladder.

Bookmarque, I remember wondering about the deal with Hall also. I got the impression he's supposed to be somewhat embittered, perhaps fatalistic or somewhat suicidal.

I found it interesting how JL, which might be King's most straightforwardly Lovecraftian story, is set in the 19th century, which provides King with a rationale for using a more archaic, hence Lovecraftian, style. Gray Matter, which is probably the funniest story in the collection, is also an homage of sorts, this time to Arthur Machen's Novel of the White Powder.

Does anyone know when these stories were written? Some seem a bit underdeveloped, and I wonder if it's the earlier, less-confident King of Carrie.

My copyright says 1976 and from the intro it seems he had only published 3 novels. Carrie, 'Salems Lot, and The Shining . , and the stories themselves were written earlier than the collection was published, So its definitely early King.

According to the front of the copy I have -

Graveyard Shift - 1971
I Am the Doorway - 1971
Battleground - 1972
the Mangler - 1972
the Boogeyman - 1973
Trucks - 1973
Gray Matter - 1973
Sometimes They come Back - 1974
Night Surf - 1974
The Lawnmower Man - 1975
Strawberry Spring - 1975
One for the Road - 1976
Children of the Corn - 1977
I Know What You Need - 1976
the Man Who Loved Flowers - 1977

I'm done reading Jerusalem's Lot and Graveyard Shift. They are as spooky as I remember. And the rats! *shiver*

I'm in the middle of Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer and Ending an Ending by Danny Birt. As soon as I finish one of those, probably tomorrow, I'll begin Night Shift. I'm excited about reading these stories again.

I have Ending an Ending sitting here looking at me. I'm just finidhing The House Next Door and then.....it's Danny's book!

#12 cal- I have The House Next Door waiting on me, too. Where will I find the time? I guess I could stay away from LT. Nah, that's not going to happen!

The House Next Door is worth it. I've read it twice. It's a bit dated (who acts like that these days, honestly?), but it's fun and a nice interpretation of the haunted house. Unique.

In the last couple of days I read –

Gray Matter – ew. Another case of aliens or some foreign substance taking over and altering a human, albeit a somewhat degenerate and unattractive human. Reminds me of I Am The Doorway and The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verill. Typical cliffhanger type ending though…the writer is still caught up in the situation and we don’t know if it will end well or not. Effective, but kind of played. I guess at this stage in his career though, it was still novel.

Battleground – fun revenge tale, but because we don’t exactly know why (it’s implied, never specified) it has less effect. I also would have liked a bit more info on why this guy deserved such a fate. Yeah, yeah, he’s an assassin…but why should I relish his attack by tiny army men? I did like the bit with the SURRENDER note. What would they have done if he had?

Trucks – shades of Christine and The Mist. Again we have unexplained phenomena trapping a band of puny humans inside a building. This time it’s trucks and a menace they are. Very effective villainizing such a trusted and familiar set of objects. I felt the frustration of the counterman when others went to do the trucks bidding and fill up the tanks. Again the ambiguous ending with the narrator wishing there were people in the planes flying over head and waiting for the day when all the trucks mechanisms grind down and fuse into a mass of rust.

The Mangler – oh how King likes to terrorize us with possessed machines. This one we think can be contained because it’s not mobile. One thing that was difficult for me is picturing what this piece of equipment actually looks like. I picture some sort of giant, automated ironing board or something. This story probably comes from his time working in a laundry and can imagine the horror of demonic and bloodthirsty machines surrounding him in the noisy, steamy, claustrophobic workroom.

The Boogeyman – I remembered the upshot of this one and was looking for little clues and giveaways. There are none and that’s why the ending gives that little jolt. I also liked the characterization of the haunted man. King didn’t make him attractive at all and gave us lots of reasons to hate the man for bringing this fate upon his innocent family. Until the end we wonder if he’s just a crazy and controlling asshole.

I checked out the book from the library so I could read the stories not included on the CD, which I think are about 4 or 5.

So far I've read I Am the Doorway and Trucks, which were pretty good. I thought the sense of being trapped and under siege in Trucks was quite effective. I thought there was a real sense of the trucks as being sort of alien, since their motivations and senses would be so different.

On another note, I was thinking of the grimoires that show up in the collection. I Know What You Need features The Necronomicon (among some other works), Jerusalem's Lot features The Mysteries of the Worm (aka De Vermis Mysteriis, if you're going old school), and Sometimes They Come Back features a book named Raising Demons. The first two are obviously Lovecraftian (though Mysteries was created by Robert Bloch), but the third happens to be the name of a Shirley Jackson book. Considering King's fondness for Jackson, I suspect that's intentional.

I just finished up the last two stories in Night Shift that I hadn't read before, "The Children of the Corn" and "One for the Road." Both were pretty good, and I wonder why they were left off the audiobook. "One for the Road" is a great little coda to Salem's Lot and nice and scary. I was also a bit surprised by how much I enjoyed "The Children of the Corn," perhaps because I've come to associate it with a series of progressively worse '80s horror movies.

One point that came to mind, though, when reading Children was something I brought up before about some of the stories seeming a bit underdeveloped. I now think that might be a bit inaccurate, but I still think there's a certain clunkiness to some of the plotting. This came to mind in the scene in the church, right after Burt discovers the book with all the names and dates. He seems to whipsaw pretty dramatically from oblivious to being really aware of what's happened.

It could be argued that's not entirely unrealistic, but dramatically it is a bit jarring. And it's not the only story that seemed to be exhibit this. I remember thinking "The Mangler" was quite good, except that the sudden exposition about the Hand of God that took me out of the story. I had a similar reaction to parts of Carrie, such as the documenting of Carrie's heart rate during her practicing telekinesis.

I think there is a marked shift with Salem's Lot, which struck me as more elegant than Carrie.

I am so happy I decided to reread this. It's been about 20 years since I read it last, and through much younger eyes. The stories are great. Giving me the creeps all over again.

I forgot how well King writes a good, scary short. I was impressed with the images that he conjured up in my mind.

Is Night Surf like a mini intro for The Stand? I realize in the stand the bug was man-made, not so in the short, but some of the principle sounds the same.

klarsenmd and cal - Same here for me! I don't read alot of short stories, but these are definitely worth the time. A good scare is fun now and then.

I think both Night Surf and Jerusalem's Lot are story ideas that stuck with him, so he went back later and expanded them. I don't think Night Surf was purposely set in the same 'world' as The Stand.

So I finally started Night Shift yesterday. I'm still plowing through Jerusalem's Lot. It's fun seeing King do a Lovecraft pastiche, isn't it? However even within the first twenty pages (all I've read so far) King is a monumentally better writer than Lovecraft ever was.

Even his purposely-purple-prose seems less of an affectation than Lovecraft's usually is. (Sorry, I didn't mean to start my discussion of one author by running down another whom I respect.)

My copy also had a nice intro by John D. MacDonald (and a cover blurb for Maximum Overdrive!). It was pretty sweet to read him praising this 'up and coming kid' Stephen King.

I've read up through I Am The Doorway. I liked Jerusalem's Lot a lot better than I remembered and loved the plain yucky atmosphere he captured in Graveyard Shift, but agree with bookmarque in #6. Why did Hall act the way he did? It seemed a little forced to me.

Okay, so I’ve read The Mangler and The Boogeyman.

The Mangler is a story that is terrific when read, but seems so silly when I tried to explain it to my wife. I think that is a credit to Stephen King’s talent as a writer. He took what was such a silly idea and made it a page turner of a story.

I didn’t mind the exposition about the Hand of Glory, but I did think it might have worked better if it was inserted in the middle of the exorcism. As it was, you knew it was doomed to fail as they started it. I wonder why he didn’t have them start it, show the machine acting up, break away with the exposition and then come back to the characters as they realized they are way in over their heads?

I can’t believe that anyone would ever pick that story for film treatment though.

As for The Boogeyman, something I never ‘got’ about that story: (Spoilers follow!) Was Dr. Harper supposed to be the boogeyman all along? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for the boogeyman to have gotten Dr. Harper in the few seconds our hero was checking on the nurse?

As a side note, I have been watching the movies made from the SK books as I finish them. For Night Shift that could become a real project as there was Graveyard Shift, The Mangler, Cat’s Eye, Children of the Corn, Maximum Overdrive, Sometimes They Come Back and (if it were available on DVD) the Night Shift Collection which had short films of The Woman in the Room and The Boogeyman.

P.S. There was also The Lawnmower Man, but I figure S.K.’s lawsuit keeps me from having to watch that.

yes...Dr. H was a ruse since the Boogeyman took the Dr. Harper mask off at the end.

Its even harder to watch them because they are all bad, cheesy, movies :). I love him on paper, but it rarely goes well at the movies.

Yeah, I'll skip the movies. Except for Creepshow. That is awesome.

I want my CAKE Bedelia!

#26 - That was the impression I got, which is why I found the story a little disappointing. (I loved it until right up to the ending.) A man responsible for the death of his children, whether directly or indirectly, is inherently creepy. A monster out of EC comics can be creepy but is also a little harder to take seriously. The end seemed like more of a surprise than a convincing linkage of those two elements.

I didn't mind at all that the boogeyman was 'real' (though it would have been pretty interesting if it was some split personality of Billings), but it would have worked better if he had been hiding in the closet and had killed Dr. Harper at the end. The idea of the boogeyman being real enough to play psychotherapist through the whole story just didn't work for me and seemed extra silly. It didn't fit the rest of the story and felt like SK was trying to add an extra twist to the story that just didn't work.

And yeah Madcow, they are all pretty chessy (some better than others though), but hey, I went and saw the 3D remake of My Bloody Valentine this weekend, so I can obviously stand some cheese. It is a shame that SK isn't better represented better on the screen. Brian DePalma, Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter and especially George Romero and Frank Darabont have done right by him though.

I'd agree, it's not the reality of the boogeyman as the way that reality is presented. I wasn't disappointed by the reality of the boogeyman, but by the way the surprise ending seemed to sort of sidetrack a lot of the tension of the father's guilt. I think something like the boogeyman killing the shrink would not have the problem and would have been a better ending.

So I've read Gray Matter and Battleground.

Battleground is okay. A fun concept for sure, but so far that one and Night Surf have been my least favorite stories. It was adapted very well by the kids of Richard Matheson and Jim Henson in the otherwise lackluster miniseries of Nightmares and Dreamscapes. Worth renting the first disc for it if you have Netflix.

Gray Matter though, I'm not sure what it is about that one, but it's such a fun little gross-out story. I love that the cause of the problem is never really explained and the regional voice of the narrator gave me the feeling that I was sitting in the store with that group, listening to him spin his yarn.

Trucks is up next. I've never read that story, so I'm looking forward to it.

Did you know that aside from SK's own adaption as Maximum Overdrive it was adapted a second time as a TV movie called (appropriately enough) Trucks?

Maximum Overdrive is a guilty pleasure, I'll admit to it right now. SK himself has since called it a moron movie, but I still watch it every once in a while. The only thing that really bothered me about that movie (aside from Yeardley Smith as the new wife) was the Green Goblin face on the front of the lead truck. What was King thinking? Still, it's goofy and fun and a kid gets run over by a steam roller. What's not to love?

Heh, I love Maximum Overdrive "Curtis are you dead yet!?"

Read Trucks which I liked quite a bit.

I'm in the middle of Sometimes The Come Back. I'm not so sure what I think of it so far. I like the writing and the main character, but the story just isn't gripping me. Also, I didn't understand why they didn't just call the cops when Chip told him he was scared. I guess that woulda killed the story dead though.

Well, I finished, reviewed and rated Night Shift. Wow, that last story The Woman in the Room, what a gut punch that one was, huh?

I read the story in two sittings (I was at a doctor's appointment). At first I was empathizing with the main character and thought what he was doing was best, but at the end of the story, I was no longer so sure. He sure seemed to be reading a lot into his mom's actions.

Frank Darabint did a short film adaptation of this one as one of King's Dollar babies that King praised quite a bit. You used to be able to pick it up on VHS (as part of a video called The Night Shift Collection) along with a short film of The Boogeyman. I'd always meant to rent it. Now I really wish I had rented it.

Is anyone still here?

I'm here, just started Night Shift, just finished Graveyard shift. I might have to put back down as I have two library books that are due.

I was thinking about One for the Road this morning. It was a terrific, scary little story.

Anyway, I was thinking of what it would be like living in the town next to 'Salem's Lot. All the rumors that would build up over the years.

On the Discovery Channel, every few years there will be a fad of paranormal research shows. I think King should write a story about one of those shows sending a crew all these years later to investigate the ruins of 'Salem's Lot. Sort of a King take on something like The Blair Witch Project.

(Touchstones are wonky. 'Salem's Lot is bringing up The Mouse on the Mile? Oh well. At least the author is correct.)

That sounds like a good idea, jseger.

Finished the book yesterday. It was my first time through and I really, really enjoyed it.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Least Favorite Story: Probably "The Boogeyman" because the ending was just a bit too over the top for me. I also didn't like the main character so I didn't necessarily care what happened to him.

Favorite Story: Much harder to pick, but I really liked "The Last Rung On The Ladder." There were no supernatural elements to it (not that I didn't like those in the other stories) but it was just simple and direct, and I really came to care about the characters in just a few short pages. Great story.

Biggest Shock: Call me crazy but I was shocked by "The Man Who Loved Flowers." Don't ask me why, you'd think by the time I came to the end of a book of stories where every one has a twist ending I would have been expecting it, but I was just completely thrown for a loop. I was just thinking while I was reading it that he was a happy-go-lucky guy off to see his girlfriend. But anyway, I really liked this one too if only because I was so surprised.

I haven't finished reading Night Shift. I should finish this weekend and then start The Stand.

I don't know if I had a favorite or least favorite story. I guess my least favorite was Night Surf. Neat setup and all, but it just didn't grab me. I suppose that doesn't bode well for February and The Stand!

Also, I really liked The Boogeyman up till the end. That was kinda weak after such a great setup. The ending did sorta drag it down to one of my least favorites.

I actually kind of liked Night Surf, though it's almost more of a mood piece than a story proper, but I did like how that apocalyptic mood was set in a short span.

If I had to pick a weakest story, it'd probably be I Know What You Need. It sort of raises some interesting ideas before becoming a really "hokey boy uses the voodoo/Necronomicon to manipulate the girl he's been obsessed with since grade school" story.

Oh yeah! I forgot all about I Know What You Need! Yeah, that's easily my least favorite story. It was more interesting when he had an unexplained power he wasn't aware of than what the ending revealed.

Good memory Carlos.

Night Surf seems like an homage to Ray Bradbury to me...it's structure and angle, even the language. Am I the only one?

I think I liked Strawberry Spring and Sometimes They Come Back best.

#41 The Stand is so much better than Night Surf. Don't worry.

I disliked Battleground. I watched the made for TV version before reading and that was in my head the whole time. Ruined it.

I'm reading this late (I came in at The Stand), but thought I'd add my bit in case anyone else is playing catch-up...

Jerusalem's Lot - like jseger said, a Lovecraft pastiche. Liked it a lot.

Graveyard Shift - it's been mentioned already, but the motivations of one of the characters was a bit off. Started okay but got silly and over-the-top, and wasn't the strongest story.

Night Surf - well-written mood piece.

I am the Doorway - interesting, readable, but didn't make an impression on me. I think it's a personal taste issue (the sci-fi elements - I'm not one for sci-fi really).

The Mangler - hugely entertaining. Not a lot of people could carry this off. It really should be ridiculous, but it's gripping, slightly gory but not graphic - I like the way it lets the reader picture the gore (the idea that the machine tried to fold its victim was worse than any description of blood and guts). I liked the hand of glory twist too.

The Boogeyman - this is my third reading of Night Shift, and each time I've had a different reaction to this story. First time I was completely sucked in, and the twist scared me because I did not see it coming. Second time I remembered the twist, so there was no scare, and I thought it was silly to have the boogeyman dressed as a doctor with his own office. Without the jump it was a disappointment. Third time I really liked it. Yes, it's set up for the jump and yes, if you know the twist it's a disappointment, but it is a very readable story, horrifying in its way (the dead babies, the dad leaving the boogeyman to get the last one to save himself). The villain and ending were very E.C. comics, and the boogeyman standing there at the end, saying "so nice..." was really creepy.

Hey, glad you're playing catch-up. I guess you can already see what I had to say about the various stories, so I won't rehash it. I agree that The Boogeyman felt very E.C. Comics, though overall that wasn't one of my favorites.