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Stephen King: Full Dark, No Stars

lenny nero

lenny nero

New Member
Collection of 4 novellas, coming in November:

922
The story opens with the confession of Wilfred James to the murder of his wife, Arlette, following their move to Hemingford, Nebraska onto land willed to Arlette by her father.

Big Driver
Mystery writer, Tess, has been supplementing her writing income for years by doing speaking engagements with no problems. But following a last-minute invitation to a book club 60 miles away, she takes a shortcut home with dire consequences.

Fair Extension
Harry Streeter, who is suffering from cancer, decides to make a deal with the devil but, as always, there is a price to pay.

A Good Marriage
Darcy Anderson learns more about her husband of over twenty years than she would have liked to know when she stumbles literally upon a box under a worktable in their garage.

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Odd cover. I don't like it.

But awesome. I like his novellas (vs. his short stories. I don't like short stories in general. But novellas are bad ass). I wonder which one will be turned into a movie. :p
 
A while back, someone noted the paperbacks have better cover art than the hardbacks. Clearly FDNS is continuing with this tradition ;).
 
Odd cover, yes. And rather boring.

The ones I own in hardcover have pretty awesome cover art (Under the Dome, Lisey's Story, Duma Key, The Dark Tower VII). Nothing can beat the cover art for Wolves of the Calla, though :D

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Just started this, glad to see it's only 368 pages after wading through the last two gigantic tomes by him.
 
I'm not a fan of short story collections but i'll buy it and read it purely because i've got and read pretty much everything else hes written
 
I wasn't too wowed by the second story. Rape-revenge stories, especially rape-revenge stories trying to pretend they're not, always make me want to give the writer a bit of a sideways glance. Not bad, just a bit... gratuitous? (Plus, anytime a writer uses "wherefore art thou" to mean "where are you" I want to smack them upside the head with the collected works of Shakespeare.)

The third one was fun, though. Brilliant little deconstruction of the ol' sell-your-soul-to-the-devil plot. The souls of humans have become poor and transparent things, indeed.
 
I'm about halfway through the last one. Of the first 3, the second story is the weakest, although, I did like the protag though, she had a snarky attitude.
 
Stephen King is my all time favorite author. Yes it's true what most people say, he can run on a bit, bit if you immerse yourself in this "run on" the atmosphere practically seeps from the page. I haven't read this one yet. I'll be waiting for dark and stormy nights.
 
Full Dark, No Stars - Full review, three stars

Ah yes, Stephen King, the horror writer who supposedly has mellowed a bit in his old age and tried to become a "proper" writer who doesn't need monsters and ghosts to tell a story. And sure enough, of the four stories in Full Dark, No Stars, only one has any real supernatural element (though the narrators might beg to differ). But that doesn't mean this is King the good-natured baseball fan who wrote Stand By Me; the old guy is firmly in horror mode, though the focus is more clearly on the evil that men do.

Make no mistake, this is a violent, dark piece of work. The one story that does rely on the supernatural - "Fair Extension", a rather brilliant little twist on the old sell-your-soul-to-the-Devil plot - is the only one where King lets loose his sense of humour, and even then, it's just to hammer home the idea that in the early 21st century of religious fanatism, war as entertainment and celebrity worship, human souls have become so worthless that even Satan prefers cash. The rest of the stories are (to varying degrees of success) depressingly realistic; spousal abuse, rape, murder - and, saddest of all, our tendency to not want to see it. "1922" is probably the most successful story, a mixture of Steinbeck and Poe set in rural Nebraska in the years before the great depression, where a local farmer decides to murder his wife and make his son a co-conspirator. Which would have worked out fine, if not for the rats...

At the same time, despite all the despair and violence, it's not a Richard Bachman book. That's the name King uses when he just wants to get brutal. Here he has a point to make, a question he tackles from different angles in all four stories and is about as subtle about as King can be: the ripple effects of violence, the responsibilities not only of those who perpetrate it but those who let it happen - who don't see, who don't want to see, who willingly or not help to cover it up because it's just easier to live with yourself that way. The result, like I said, varies; especially "Big Driver", King's take on the rape-revenge story, ends up about as blunt and just a tiny bit too pleased with itself as most rape stories written by men. But overall it's a fine outing for the increasingly just-adequate King; a book that doesn't just say there are dark sides to humanity, but actually lets supposedly good people explore them.

:star3:
 
Just finished this one. It has plenty of gore and violence.

I'll rate each story on there own

1922 :star5:

Big Driver :star4:

Fair Extension :star3:

A Good Marriage :star4:
 
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