Nightmares & Dreamscapes
by Stephen King
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Book Summary Information
Author: Stephen KingEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-06-30
ISBN: 1439102562
Number of pages: 912
Publisher: Pocket Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9781439102565
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Nightmares & Dreamscapes
Book Review: Good fun, lots of chills
Summary: 4 Stars
This collection is chock full of everything King aficionados love, and it'll easily hook the uninitiated. There are many different samples on display, from one of King's true oldies (a Castle Rock story originally published in a college literary magazine, and feeling its roots very deep...when the autumn pumpkins get loving detail, you know it's a young man's voice) to something he finished in about three days in the year this was published. They are, for the most part, very good, full of story and gab, which is what you expect from King. I especially liked 'Popsy', which is a sort of child abductor revenge fantasy meets vampire tale (parents everywhere are confronted with their greatest nightmare and must give a cheer at the end), 'Suffer the Little Children', which kept me up for HOURS later that night, 'Rainy Season', which walks the line between horror and humor very well (the only time King tips his hand is when he name drops 'The Lottery'...you'll see what I mean), and 'Umney's Last Case', since it's clever and I'll gobble up anything Raymond Chandler-esque.
There are actually only a couple of bumps in the road. King's Sherlock Holmes story is passable Conan Doyle, at best. If you want a BRILLIANT modern attempt, read Neil Gaiman's 'A Study in Emerald.' King probably gets a moderate grade because Holmes requires icy precision, subtle restraint and a wry, nimble style of writing, and King, much as I love him and much as he has great talent, is not especially gifted in those areas. (I could be wrong, but I think Holmes makes a pussy joke somewhere in there...reader, I cringed.)
Still, there is much to enjoy here. I won't give a blow by blow of everything I liked (which was a lot), and everything I didn't (which was a little.) Instead, I'll take on two stories, my favorite and the one I liked least.
Crouch End- King goes to Lovecraft country, and I absolutely didn't want it to end. Everything you love about King-- the sense of place and character, dialogue and dialect, rising sense of terror, and flat out crazy, tentacled monsters living under the city streets-- is here. It's also one of the best examples of story and mood working together, instead of fighting with each other. A young couple visiting London go to meet the husband's colleague in Crouch End. The moment they enter the suburb, I became unsettled. It got worse from there. The wife, who (spoiler) lives to tell the tale, notices the strange orange light, the claw-handed child, the people with rat heads (but she imagined it...?), the one-eyed cat who seems to become a vagrant under a bridge later. The woman's tale is interspersed with the kindly officers at the police station, who listen to her story and don't know what to make of it. The editing in this tale is very good, so that the action unfolds as you might see it on television or at the movies. I won't say what happens to the husband, or how it ends, but it's very satisfactory, very frightening, and also very creepy. I had to turn on the lights when I was done, and it was only afternoon. King's command of the British dialect in this is nearly always spot on, and he makes everyday things in the light of day appear sinister and evil. The plotting, writing, everything is good here. Happily, most of the collection falls into this area, though I think this is the best example of the book.
Home Delivery- Unfortunately, everything that is right about Crouch End is wrong about Home Delivery. The story starts out as some kind of Lifetime movie, with an incredibly mousy woman, unable to cope without a man. She once married a dashing sailor, you know, who showed her love, until...until he was drowned at sea. Now, weak minded and pregnant, she must face the void alone. And then the zombies eat the president. Not kidding. That's basically the next line. King's instincts here are wrong, between trying to play all this nonsense dead serious and the wall to wall folksiness of EVERY F---ING SITUATION. The down home charm is one of the reasons I like King, but if you were up in a space shuttle, watching space worms eat your compatriots' brains (don't ask, it'll make sense) and knowing you're next, would your last musings to the world via satellite be 'I did so like all of them, especially the fat guy who dug around in his nose.' Yeah, it's a British character. King's knack for the Brit dialect vanished on this one. Sometimes, it does seem like King will be folksy if it kills him. Then the pregnant woman fights the Ray Harryhausen (in my mind) sailor husband back from the grave, zombies you know. And the men of the island town machine-gun the whole graveyard. And the woman is happy that she'll have a home delivery. Probably the two greatest failings here were the decision to, as I said, play it straight, and the relentless down home chat. Honestly, Steve, I know you have an ear for dialogue. I BELIEVE YOU.
Still, snark ended, this is a very good, creepy read, excellent for curling up with on a dark night. Going through it, piece by piece, you see and understand how much love King has for the craft, how hard he works at it, and how much joy it brings him. It's bound to bring you happiness as well, even if it's the squirming, terrified kind of happiness. It'll do.
Summary of Nightmares & Dreamscapes
New to Pocket Books? Stephen King backlist?the short story collection containing the story "Dolan?s Cadillac," soon to be released as a feature film starring Christian Slater and Wes Bentley.
With numerous unforgettable movies based on his short stories?including Shawshank Redemption, 1408, and The Green Mile?readers will be delighted to rediscover this classic collection, also released as a television mini-series and on DVD. Featuring twenty short horror stories, a television script, an essay, and a poem, Nightmares and Dreamscapes contains unique and chilling plots including everything from dead rock star zombies to evil toys seeking murderous revenge. It will be treasured by King fans new and old.
Many people who write about horror literature maintain that mood is its most important element. Stephen King disagrees: "My deeply held conviction is that story must be paramount.... All other considerations are secondary--theme, mood, even characterization and language."
These fine stories, each written in what King calls "a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism," prove his point. The theme, mood, characters, and language vary, but throughout, a sense of story reigns supreme. Nightmares & Dreamscapes contains 20 short tales--including several never before published--plus one teleplay, one poem, and one nonfiction piece about kids and baseball that appeared in the New Yorker. The subjects include vampires, zombies, an evil toy, man-eating frogs, the burial of a Cadillac, a disembodied finger, and a wicked stepfather. The style ranges from King's well-honed horror to a Ray Bradbury-like fantasy voice to an ambitious pastiche of Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. And like a compact disc with a bonus track, the book ends with a charming little tale not listed in the table of contents--a parable called "The Beggar and the Diamond." --Fiona Webster
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