Customer Rating:  
Summary: A Bizarre Mix of Good and Bad
Comment: I am an avid reader of King and have read him enough to say that Nightmares and Dreamscapes is definitely worth reading. Probably second best after Night Shift. It has horror as well as Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Literary, Crime, even a Sherlock Holmes Story! Some of my personal favorites are Suffer the Little Children, The Moving Finger, You know they got a Hell of a Band, Home Delivery, Crouch End, and The House on Maple Street. For those of you who say this is one of King's worst collections or most of the stories are bad are just fooling yourselves. For one thing, this collection has some of his most unique works. And as far as originality goes, there are plenty of those too. For instance, Suffer the Little Children, a dark, chilling story about a schoolteacher who thinks her students are actually monsters disguised as children, clearly resembles the awesome stories in Night Shift. And how many Zombie stories have you read where the source of the infestation is Outer Space?
And who can forget the Dark, Otherwordly atmosphere of Crouch End? a fantastic Mythos story. I will admit there are some bad ones, Popsy, Chattery Teeth, Sneakers, My Pretty Pony, but with clever realistic thrillers like Dolan's Cadillac and fun Horror/Fantasies like You know they got a Hell of a Band, you can't go wrong with this collection
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Free SF Reader
Comment: Here's a collection of 20 short stories, a script, a poem, a parable and an article on...
Little League baseball.
Which is the best thing in the book, amazingly enough. You realise this after forgetting how long you had been reading it, wondering what the hell will happen to this motley team of kids. Personal interest in this situation obviously raised Mr. King's work to a championship level well above your average local sports reporter's scribblings.
There are three standout, excellent stories, and a bunch of other good work, to give this group of tales an average of 3.75.
An eclectic mix. You aren't going to have a King without horror - not unless some publisher goes crazy, anyway. However, odd science fiction, some crime stories, a fantasy or two of the not really horrific kind, as opposed to people rending vampires earlier on in the book, or batmen later. There's even a Sherlock Holmes pastiche.
I'd give this a 4.75 overall as a job extremely well done. The author even recounts at the end how each story came to be, and manages that rather well, too.
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : Dolan's Cadillac - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : The End of the Whole Mess - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : Suffer the Little Children - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : The Night Flier - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : Popsy - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : It Grows on You - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : Chattery Teeth - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : Dedication - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : The Moving Finger - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : Sneakers - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : You Know They Got a Hell of a Band - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : Home Delivery - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : Rainy Season - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : My Pretty Pony - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : The Ten O' Clock People - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : Crouch End - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : The House on Maple Street - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : The Fifth Quarter - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : The Doctor's Case - Stephen King
Nightmares and Dreamscapes : Umney's Last Case - Stephen King
Camouflage pit, large, for highway animal.
4 out of 5
Calm mind lost.
4 out of 5
Have to shoot the little monsters, don't interrupt.
3.5 out of 5
Invisible, and pisses blood. Not good. Piss myself the ordinary way, very likely.
4.5 out of 5
Kidnappers should pick the human ones.
4.5 out of 5
Castle Rock survivors.
3 out of 5
I'm taking you home, my chomping little hero.
4.5 out of 5
Spoof eater curse signing time.
3.5 out of 5
Digitus impudicus extendis dunnyus takeoverus.
3.5 out of 5
Music biz mule dunny ghost.
4 out of 5
I do not want to be just like Buddy Holly.
4 out of 5
Need a zombie plan.
3.5 out of 5
Toad-poppin bad time in town tonight.
3.5 out of 5
Time is fleeting, grandpaness takes its toll.
3 out of 5
Anti-smoking anti-batmen squad.
4 out of 5
Mythos scoffer mortality.
4 out of 5
Renovation liftoff.
3 out of 5
Treasure map crim gives 'em a bath.
3.5 out of 5
Watson works one out ahead of the master, but they have to decide what to do with the criminals.
3.5 out of 5
Private eye story life swap Peoria pivot.
4 out of 5
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Stories Collection
Comment: This is the book for you if you like short stories, actually "You know they got a hell of a band" is a good one. Not all the stories are good, but you can have a good time reading them. If you like long stories I would recommend you another books like "The Shinning" or "It".
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fun Collection of King's Short Stories, Read Introductory Essay
Comment: I would recommend this book just for the introductory essay (see below).
[Note: I made some Mormon angry because of my negative reviews of books out to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews almost as fast as they are posted.]
So your "helpful" vote is greatly appreciated. Thanks
King is a master writer, and I enjoyed this collection. I loved "Umney's Last Case" (evocative of 1930s crime fiction). Also liked the "House on Maple Street" (it kept me turning the pages).
The book is worth it for the introductory essay by Steven King. Here are some of the great lines from that essay, and I hope they make my short review worth reading.
Steven King wrote:
"When I was a kid I believed everything I was told, everything I read, and every dispatch sent out by my own overheated imagination. This made for more than a few sleepless nights, but it also filled the world I lived in with colors and textures I would not have traded for a lifetime of restful nights. I knew even then, you see, that there were people in the world--too many of them, actually--whose imaginative senses were eight numb or completely deadened, and who lived in a mental state skin to colorblindness."
Robert McCammon said something similar his brilliant coming-of-age novel, "Boy's Life"
"See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God's sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic they knew made them ashamed and sad of what they'd allowed to wither in themselves."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Recording
Comment: I love taking long drives, and when I take those long drives, I love listening to audiobooks. Let me set the stage: when I listened to Nightmares and Dreamscapes, I was on my way to 29 Palms from Texas, all by myself, via back roads. Dark, unlit, deserted back roads. Somewhat unwisely, I popped this tape in around 8pm, somewhere in New Mexico, just as the sun was starting to set and make everything shadowy. Needless to say, the stories were a bit scarier than they would have been had I read them safely in my own, well-lit house with the alarm system at the ready. I credit (blame!) the actors for this, for they were outstanding! For example:
Crouch End: read by Tim Curry, quite possibly the scariest man in existence. I was familiar with the Cthulu myth, but to hear it through the imagination of Stephen King and the excellent, creepy and threatening Mr. Curry was terrifying.
Rainy Season: the very idea of maniacal toads raining from the sky is absurd, and the voice of Lisa Simpson doesn't seem scary at all. But put the two together on a dark, deserted road and you have a recipe for real fear.
The rest of this volume of stories is very good, if thought-provoking rather than terrifying. Vengeance lovers, rejoice! Dolan's Cadillac is a must-read (listen), as is The House on Maple Street.
|
