A collection of twenty stories, covering horror, science fiction, suspense, irony, and general darkness. There are some misfires in here for me - the plotless rat phobia exploitation of "Graveyard Shift", the bizarre group portrayed in "Night Surf", the possessed toy soldiers of "Battleground". But many of these are excellent slices of Twilight Zone-esque fiction.
Several stories deal with an ancient, unfathomable - in some cases extraterrestrial - evil intruding itself into the present, in the finest Lovecraftian tradition. Others point the way toward King's future career of taking normal, humdrum things and making them scary. Still others involve nothing supernatural at all, yet are just as intense. Some highlights for me include:
"I Am the Doorway" - An astronaut who orbited Venus comes back with something germinating in his body."The Mangler" - Through a bizarre set of circumstances, an industrial laundry press is possessed.
"Trucks" - A somewhat goofy premise (vehicles gaining murderous sentience), but the story is so tense and claustrophobic, I have to give it props.
"The Ledge" - A cuckolded mob boss forces his wife's lover to walk around the outside of his 43rd floor penthouse on a 5-inch ledge. I was sweating and dry-mouthed the whole time I was reading.
"Quitters, Inc." - A word-of-mouth company has a 98% success rate getting clients to quit smoking, but their methods are not revealed until you sign the contract.
"Children of the Corn" - A couple travelling through rural Nebraska find a murdered child on the highway, with the closest town eerily deserted, the only church desecrated, and the tall, rich corn whispering all around...
I'm not sure which is my favorite. The selection is broad and satisfying. I'll end with the two stories related to 'Salem's Lot. The first, "Jerusalem's Lot", has little to do with the novel other than geography, but it's another great entry in the Lovecraft category, with apostate Puritans, a family curse, and a tense narrative told through letters that never get sent. The other, "One for the Road", is a haunting vignette that takes place a few years after the novel ends, when a traveller and his family are stuck in a blizzard just inside the town limits...
The stories here are well-written, distinctive, economical, and generous. And most importantly, scary! Recommended if you want to be unsettled.
Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 possessed laundry presses
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