The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

I think I prefer King's shorter works, because often with his novels I find he can go on and on and on, run out of steam and then slap a crappy ending on it. With shorter works, at least the bad endings come before you've invested so much in the story.

Not that he's a bad writer - in fact, it's because you can get so lost in the worlds he creates that the bad endings are like a slap in the face.

(I found it quite funny to find, in one of the story ‘intros', a complaint from the author that the TV movie ‘I Bury The Living' was wrecked by its denouement, and his wish that someone would remake and fix it. How about you rewrite the end of Needful Things, then, Steve?!)

His ability to sketch a scene or a character with a few strokes is on display in this volume, as is his imagination, some fantastic ideas (what if...) and - dare I say it - even one killer ending. He also showcases that he doesn't have to rely on horror or sci-fi to tell a good tale. In fact, all of my favourites here are just these kind of stories: character studies.

‘Morality' is a brilliant thought experiment riffing on the old premise: what would you do for a million dollars? ‘Premium Harmony' and ‘Herman Wouk is Still Alive' are two stunning little vignettes of desperate lives and sorry ends.

‘Under the Weather' is a great little tale of delusion (with the second best ending of the book); ‘Blockade Billy' is a proper Boys Own sporting adventure, (with a Kingian twist); and ‘Drunken Fireworks' is a pretty hilarious tale of back country one-upmanship.

I also enjoyed his attempt at poetry in the style of the Ancient Mariner: ‘The Bone Church' telling the maniacal tale of death and hallucinations deep in the jungle, in the voice of a man driven mad by the experience and faring worse than those who never made it back.

Most of the ‘typical' King stories here were of course entertaining and fun to read (a Kindle that predicts the future, a malevolent devil in the guise of a small boy, a monster car from another dimension) but for me, the glory of this collection are the stories that ditch the silly gimmicks and get to the heart of who we are.

King includes an anecdote about meeting a lady in the supermarket who recognises him as the author of “scary stories” that she doesn't care for. Instead she prefers “uplifting stories, like ‘Shawshank Redemption'”.

“I wrote that, too” he says.

“No you didn't” the lady replies, and goes on her way.

This sums up how I feel about this book, and perhaps King in general. He has such capacity for hope and beauty and can startle us with a view of ourselves and the human condition (I think this is why his horror leaves us so breathless and engaged) - but this element of his range is often lost or ignored in the majority of his books.

King clearly writes what he loves, and that, mainly, is horror. But it's a shame that his chosen genre and populist tag overshadows his talents, and that critics and fans alike overlook these less fantastical revelations of his skill.