Technically only two stories in here are related to the Dark Tower series, but I thought it would be fun to read them all. These are the first examples of King's horror fiction that I've ever read, and I was very jealous of his storytelling prowess on more than one occasion. There is a lot of humor and pathos mixed in, but also lots of great scares. Some of my favorites:"Autopsy Room 4": A modern twist on Poe's "The Premature Burial".
"All That You Love Will Be Carried Away": A travelling salesman collects weird roadstop graffiti.
"The Road Virus Heads North": A horror writer buys a macabre painting at a garage sale where all sales are final.
"1408": A cynical ghost hunter plans to stay another night in another "haunted" hotel room.
"Riding the Bullet": A college student hitchhiking home to see his mother in the hospital must make a terrible choice.
The two stories related to the Dark Tower are also very good. "The Little Sisters of Eluria" is an episode from Roland's lonely quest through Mid-World on the trail of the man in black. Other than having Roland as a main character, it has very little to do with his quest - just a very scary bump in the road. This one could have been an X-Files episode.
Meanwhile, the title story (which I've heard relates to the last DT book) is an ingenious work, written in first person by a nineteen-year-old boy named Dinky Earnshaw with a bizarre psychic power. Employed by a mysterious company to exercise his power in what they claim is "the greater good of mankind", Dinky dinks along in pleasant ignorance until one day when he sees his work in the newspaper...
Each of these stories is a delightful vignette - some creepy, some suspenseful, some shocking, some sad. There were a lot more happy endings than one might suspect, though I guess someone does have to live to tell the tale.
Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 pleasantly ignorant Dinkys
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