Skeleton Crew: Stories - Softcover

King, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501143506 ISBN 13: 9781501143502

Publisher: Scribner, 2016

The #1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the 1986 Locus Award for Best Collection, Skeleton Crew is “Stephen King at his best” (The Denver Post)—a terrifying, mesmerizing collection of stories from the outer limits of one of the greatest imaginations of our time.

“Wildly imaginative, delightfully diabolical...King once again proves to be the consummate storyteller” (The Associated Press).

A supermarket becomes the place where humanity makes its last stand against destruction. A trip to the attic becomes a journey to hell. A woman driving a Jaguar finds a scary shortcut to paradise. An idyllic lake harbors a bottomless evil. And a desert island is the scene of the most terrifying struggle for survival ever waged. This “wonderfully gruesome” collection (The New York Times Book Review) includes: “The Mist”; “Here There Be Tygers”; “The Monkey”; “Cain Rose Up”; “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut”; “The Jaunt”; “The Wedding Gig”; “Paranoid: A Chant”; “The Raft”; “Word Processor of the Gods”; “The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands”; “Beachworld”; “The Reaper’s Image”; “Nona”; “For Owen”; “Survivor Type”; “Uncle Otto’s Truck”; “Morning Deliveries (Milkman No. 1)”; “Big Wheels: a Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman No. 2)”; “Gramma”; “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet”; and “The Reach.”

King is best known for his iconic, immersive long novels, but he is also a master of the short story, and this is a magnificent collection.

Review:

In the introduction to Skeleton Crew (1985), his second collection of stories, King pokes fun at his penchant for "literary elephantiasis," makes scatological jokes about his muse, confesses how much money he makes (gross and net), and tells a story about getting arrested one time when he was "suffused with the sort of towering, righteous rage that only drunk undergraduates can feel." He winds up with an invitation to a scary voyage: "Grab onto my arm now. Hold tight. We are going into a number of dark places, but I think I know the way."

And he sure does. Skeleton Crew contains a superb short novel ("The Mist") that alone is worth the price of admission, plus two forgettable poems and 20 short stories on such themes as an evil toy monkey, a human-eating water slick, a machine that avenges murder, and unnatural creatures that inhabit the thick woods near Castle Rock, Maine. The short tales range from simply enjoyable to surprisingly good.

In addition to "The Mist," the real standout is "The Reach," a beautifully subtle story about a great-grandmother who was born on a small island off the coast of Maine and has lived there her whole life. She has never been across "the Reach," the body of water between island and mainland. This is the story that King fans give to their friends who don't read horror in order to show them how literate, how charming a storyteller he can be. Don't miss it. --Fiona Webster

About the Author:

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Finders Keepers, Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel), Doctor Sleep, and Under the Dome. His novel 11/22/63—a recent Hulu original television series event—was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller as well as the Best Hardcover Book Award from the International Thriller Writers. He is the recipient of the 2014 National Medal of Arts and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1501143506
• ISBN 13: 9781501143502
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 672