Status
Available
Call number
Call number
F Kin
Series
Genres
Collection
Publication
Viking (1990), Edition: 1st, 784 pages
Description
A domestic flight makes an unusual stopover in the land of "The Langoliers; " a writer confronts the reality of his success in "Secret Window, Secret Garden; " after being scolded by "The Library Policeman, " you'll never return a book late again; and once again the community of Castle Rock finds itself besieged by a nasty pooch in "The Sun Dog."
Subjects
Original publication date
1990-09-02
Similar in this library
It by Stephen King
User reviews
LibraryThing member LisaMorr
Four novellas by Stephen King: The Langoliers; Secret Window, Secret Garden; The Library Policeman; and The Sun Dog, which I rated as 4* or 4.5* each. I liked The Langoliers best and The Sun Dog least, but at 4*, still very good. Vintage Stephen King, looking at different fears - fear of flying,
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fear of past transgressions catching up with you, fear of forgotten childhood abuse remembered, and fear of the supernatural. Show Less
LibraryThing member Stahl-Ricco
"Let the dead stay dead." Good advice! And still, I opened the cover, and began...
Four novellas in this volume. First story, "The Langoliers", has a freaky scenario - what if you wake up on a jetliner to discover most of the passengers and crew to me missing? Especially rough was the terror of a
The second tale, "Secret Window, Secret Garden", is much too much like King's book "The Dark Half". Confusingly so.
#3, "The Library Policeman" is King at his strongest. He turns one of my favorite places, a library, into a scary-as-hell nightmare! My favorite of the three!
And the last tale, "The Sun Dog". A prequel to "Needful Things". Again, King uses his skills to turn a Polaroid camera into something evil. But this story is much too long in developing, pun intended. It would have worked much better as a short, short story.
Four novellas in this volume. First story, "The Langoliers", has a freaky scenario - what if you wake up on a jetliner to discover most of the passengers and crew to me missing? Especially rough was the terror of a
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blind girl! Only 11 people remain on the plane, but why? And where did the people on the ground go? My favorite part of this story? The black bearded guy who slept through the whole damn thing!The second tale, "Secret Window, Secret Garden", is much too much like King's book "The Dark Half". Confusingly so.
#3, "The Library Policeman" is King at his strongest. He turns one of my favorite places, a library, into a scary-as-hell nightmare! My favorite of the three!
And the last tale, "The Sun Dog". A prequel to "Needful Things". Again, King uses his skills to turn a Polaroid camera into something evil. But this story is much too long in developing, pun intended. It would have worked much better as a short, short story.
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LibraryThing member jseger9000
A collection of four King novellas. Unlike his earlier novella collections, here each one is firmly rooted in the Horror field.
The Langoliers
First up is The Langoliers. A red eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston passes through some sort of rip in reality. Only those asleep at the time make it
I liked The Langoliers quite a bit. The whole thing is just so bizarre. It is original and nobody reading the book through the first time is likely to guess at where it is headed. I do think that the make-up of the survivors was a bit... lucky I guess (considering the tasks they had to accomplish in the story). But that's my only real gripe with it.
Secret Window, Secret Garden
Secret Window, Secret Garden reads like a sort of half brother to The Dark Half. Almost like King finished that book but still had some thoughts about writers and writing that he wanted to get off his chest and he whipped up this novella.
Mort Rainey is a successful novelist going through a bad time. He’s in the process of divorcing his wife and is staying at their isolated cabin when a visitor arrives. The man gives his name as John Shooter from Missouri and he claims that Mort stole one of his stories. The man must be crazy, his claim cannot be true. But Mort learns Shooter is violent as well
Secret Window, Secret Garden just chugs right along, drawing you further and further in to Mort’s struggle with a crazy man. King’s foreshadowing of later events is excellent and there were a couple of heart stopping moments as we learn there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
The end reminded me heavily of the final scene in Psycho, where the psychologist explains what happened. In both cases, it felt sort of tacked on. But in this story there was so much to be explained it was probably a necessary sin. And the twist at the end was a nice finale.
The Library Policeman
The Library Policeman isn't popular among King fans, but I enjoyed it. He started with an idea that sounds funny, but he played it straight. A man borrows a couple of books from the library and they are lost. The librarian is serious about getting those books back and she dispatches the Library Policeman. There's a lot more going on in the story than my summary provides, but I wanted to avoid spoilers.
It's not uncommon to see an author take a short story and expand it in to a novel. Here it felt like King took the concepts from It (a monster that returns in cycles, sustaining itself on children) and turned it in to a novella.
The Sun Dog
In The Sun Dog, which acts as both a stand-alone story and a prelude to Needful Thngs, King’s last Castle Rock novel, a boy receives a Polaroid Sun 660 camera for his fifteenth birthday. No matter what he points it at, the camera takes a picture of a mysterious black dog.
Writing about that Castle Rock must be like stepping into a pair of comfortable old shoes for King. There was a sense of ease to the storytelling that made this story feel deeper than the others (and I never think of King as shallow). I suppose it’s because he is so intimately familiar with the town and its people that he knows what is going on behind the scenes. Relationships that aren’t mentioned in the story still color his characters. As a result, The Sun Dog was my favorite of the novellas (though all of them were very good reads).
The Langoliers
First up is The Langoliers. A red eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston passes through some sort of rip in reality. Only those asleep at the time make it
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through. They find they may well be the last people on the planet, but what is that rumbling noise in the background?I liked The Langoliers quite a bit. The whole thing is just so bizarre. It is original and nobody reading the book through the first time is likely to guess at where it is headed. I do think that the make-up of the survivors was a bit... lucky I guess (considering the tasks they had to accomplish in the story). But that's my only real gripe with it.
Secret Window, Secret Garden
Secret Window, Secret Garden reads like a sort of half brother to The Dark Half. Almost like King finished that book but still had some thoughts about writers and writing that he wanted to get off his chest and he whipped up this novella.
Mort Rainey is a successful novelist going through a bad time. He’s in the process of divorcing his wife and is staying at their isolated cabin when a visitor arrives. The man gives his name as John Shooter from Missouri and he claims that Mort stole one of his stories. The man must be crazy, his claim cannot be true. But Mort learns Shooter is violent as well
Secret Window, Secret Garden just chugs right along, drawing you further and further in to Mort’s struggle with a crazy man. King’s foreshadowing of later events is excellent and there were a couple of heart stopping moments as we learn there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
The end reminded me heavily of the final scene in Psycho, where the psychologist explains what happened. In both cases, it felt sort of tacked on. But in this story there was so much to be explained it was probably a necessary sin. And the twist at the end was a nice finale.
The Library Policeman
The Library Policeman isn't popular among King fans, but I enjoyed it. He started with an idea that sounds funny, but he played it straight. A man borrows a couple of books from the library and they are lost. The librarian is serious about getting those books back and she dispatches the Library Policeman. There's a lot more going on in the story than my summary provides, but I wanted to avoid spoilers.
It's not uncommon to see an author take a short story and expand it in to a novel. Here it felt like King took the concepts from It (a monster that returns in cycles, sustaining itself on children) and turned it in to a novella.
The Sun Dog
In The Sun Dog, which acts as both a stand-alone story and a prelude to Needful Thngs, King’s last Castle Rock novel, a boy receives a Polaroid Sun 660 camera for his fifteenth birthday. No matter what he points it at, the camera takes a picture of a mysterious black dog.
Writing about that Castle Rock must be like stepping into a pair of comfortable old shoes for King. There was a sense of ease to the storytelling that made this story feel deeper than the others (and I never think of King as shallow). I suppose it’s because he is so intimately familiar with the town and its people that he knows what is going on behind the scenes. Relationships that aren’t mentioned in the story still color his characters. As a result, The Sun Dog was my favorite of the novellas (though all of them were very good reads).
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LibraryThing member Crayne
Four stories, too short to be novels and too long to be short stories, packed together in one volume. Four stories of inconsistent quality. The Langoliers has a very interesting premise, strong and well-developed characters (I'm thinking of you, Mr. Toomey) for the length of the story and is
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well-executed. Secret Window Secret Garden starts off intriguing, but turns predictable soon enough. Still well worth the read though. The Library Policeman once again starts off strong, showing all the signs of being a classic King ghost story. And then it veers off into 'what did he snort?!?' territory. I could see what it could have been and I was terribly disappointed by the road it took. The Sun Dog follows the same pattern. I'm guessing King wanted to tie into the Hounds of Tindalos in an effort to modernize Lovecraftian horror, but again it falls flat on its back as the shadow of what could have been eclipses the actual story. Show Less
LibraryThing member camarie
I may repeat myself, but King is the only author that makes me scared for my life just with his stories. Urban legends don't worry me, serial killers, rapists down a dark street, and home invasion robbers don't make me think twice. Those people I can deal with, but every time I read a Stephen King
I originally bought it because I had seen the movie "Secret Window" and loved it, and I knew if King wrote the book I would love it too. Mind you, I was about 19 at this time. The story was well written and did not disappoint until the end, which was exactly the opposite of the movie. Although, the movie and book having different endings makes the story all the scarier. There is also the story of the Langoliers, about people on a plane that find themselves in an alternate reality. Breathtaking. The Sun Dog, I appreciated because it reminded me of Goosebumps stories, but not childish. Awesome. My favorite story was The Library Policeman, about a traumatized boy grown up and confronting his library policeman. None of the stories are a disappointment and they are fast reading.
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story, I know true fear. I love my life so much more because of it.I originally bought it because I had seen the movie "Secret Window" and loved it, and I knew if King wrote the book I would love it too. Mind you, I was about 19 at this time. The story was well written and did not disappoint until the end, which was exactly the opposite of the movie. Although, the movie and book having different endings makes the story all the scarier. There is also the story of the Langoliers, about people on a plane that find themselves in an alternate reality. Breathtaking. The Sun Dog, I appreciated because it reminded me of Goosebumps stories, but not childish. Awesome. My favorite story was The Library Policeman, about a traumatized boy grown up and confronting his library policeman. None of the stories are a disappointment and they are fast reading.
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LibraryThing member Lukerik
Four EZ readin stories. Nothing heavy nothing scary. King claims they're all horror but The Langoliers is more technically straight fantasy, and that's the best. It's certainly the only one I remembered since I 1st read this in the early 90s. Last year I saw my manager was reading it. 'Oh,' I said
'Thanks for that Luke,' she said 'I'm only ten pages in.'
Secret Window, Secret Garden is like a short version of The Dark Half. As long as you haven't read that then you'll be able to enjoy this without guessing what's happening TOO early.
The Library Policeman is like a blessedly short version of It. If he can do it in a couple of hundred pages why make us suffer through 1000?
The Sun is the most laboured and has bad special effects. Disappointing.
Overall, this is a great pass-the-time book.
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'That's the one where blah blah blah...''Thanks for that Luke,' she said 'I'm only ten pages in.'
Secret Window, Secret Garden is like a short version of The Dark Half. As long as you haven't read that then you'll be able to enjoy this without guessing what's happening TOO early.
The Library Policeman is like a blessedly short version of It. If he can do it in a couple of hundred pages why make us suffer through 1000?
The Sun is the most laboured and has bad special effects. Disappointing.
Overall, this is a great pass-the-time book.
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LibraryThing member tootstorm
Four Past Midnight is a wonderful collection of four ‘short’ novels Stephen King wrote in the late ’80s. They include the Langoliers, a light-hearted adventure romp that revels in its own ridiculousness; Secret Window, Secret Garden, the closing of a thematic trilogy King wrote about the
[N.B. This review features images and formatting specific to my book site, dendrobibliography: Check it out here.]
Most of the four novels are wonderful, among my favorite work from Stephen King even under the weight of their own cheesiness and fluff, particularly…
The Langoliers
Despite having never read this before, every beat of the Langoliers was familiar and comfortable. I grew up with the ’90s TV miniseries — awful largely from hammy acting and corny special effects — and loved it despite its faults. It’s also, despite those faults, remarkably close to the novella. Most of the dialogue and the pacing seemed unaffected by the translation between mediums.
Mr. Toomey, one of King’s strongest, most developed villains, still gives the same screaming rants, pulls the same delusional stunts; Bob Jenkins, a mystery writer, still lectures the the logic of the plot to both other characters and the readers, forcing banal exposition; the Dinah, a young blind girl, is still the same prescient and wise pre-teen (whose disability gives her magic powers) as seen in many other Stephen King stories.
The Langoliers, about a plane that flies through a thinny (a la the Dark Tower) into a frozen fragment of the past, is corny, unbelievable, and amazingly fun. Even knowing the answers to the mystery of the empty Bangor International Airport our passengers find themselves in, I wasn’t any less fascinated by the decaying world or the approaching balls of razor-teeth and hair, or in watching our passengers try to escape with their lives both from the langoliers and Mr. Toomey’s collapsing mental state.
If I have one complaint, it’s that most characters don’t speak like real people. Much of the dialogue is exposition, boring explanations and logical debates over what is going on around them. The magic of this story is in the monsters, not the people.
Secret Window, Secret Garden
Secret Window, Secret Garden is Stephen King’s final attempt at the trials and tribulations of being a writer, of the horrors that the writing process itself invokes. The Dark Half tackled the same concept just a year earlier (but in a more on-the-nose fashion, with lots of blood and guts and murder). Misery came first, and remains the most successful of the ‘trilogy.’
Author Mort Rainey (i.e., Stephen King) is struggling with his writing amidst an ugly divorce. He’s still stuck on the spite that divorce inspired in him: He lashes out at everyone, blames others for his problems, an spends a lot of his time depressed, napping, and otherwise hiding from the world. He’s not pleasant.
A stranger shows up on his doorstep with a damning accusation: Mort Rainey plagiarized a story from him years earlier. This stranger, John Shooter, never published this story, making how Mort Rainey could have plagiarized it suspect. (This is based on a real incident from Stephen King’s life.) Regardless of the proof Rainey offers for his ownership of the story, Shooter’s actions quickly escalate and he starts removing evidence and threatening the lives of Rainey’s family.
This is the closest King feels he came to telling the story right — the story of the writing process — but it’s not perfect, and still feels fairly slim. (Misery’s still the best attempt.) The ending, differing wildly from the movie, is sudden and unsatisfying, not quite living up to the atmosphere of the prior 150 pages. Still, that atmosphere was foreboding and addictive, and a step above the Dark Half, which told the same story with three times as many pages and cliches.
The Library Policeman
King states in the introduction that he started the Library Policeman as a black comedy, and it devolved into horror naturally. I wouldn’t say the transition is necessarily natural — it seems like a jarring and confusing genre switch — but it provides a unique charm to the story. Library Policeman‘s silly, at points, and moves from being a light-hearted love story wrapped in a ridiculous concept of childhood spooks (the library police of the title, coming after Sam Peebles for not returning his books on time) into some of King’s darkest and most demented horror he’s ever written.
The transition is so disturbing, this story is often regarded with loathing by Stephen King fans. Without spoilers, I thought the mystery of the library policeman unraveled exceptionally.
It was disturbing, though, particularly ‘the scene’ that makes this story so maligned. Far more-so than Pet Sematary, often regarded as one of King’s scariest and most violent.
The meat of the story follows Sam Peebles, who offers to give a speech to a drunken community gathering at the last minute. Without any experience in public speaking, he visits the local library for the first time to check out some helpful books from an eerie librarian. He loses the books, misses the return deadline, and suddenly finds himself followed the librarian and her policeman. It sounds ridiculous, but: Wow. A disturbing town history of hidden murders and monsters (and a lot of ties to King’s greater mythology around It and the Dark Tower) quickly unravels.
The Sun Dog
The Sun Dog is a wonderful idea that devolves into predictable gore and guts. The story of a cursed Polaroid camera, printing only photos in slow motion of a demonic, mangy dog (a la Cujo, also set in Castle Rock) lunging towards the photographer is deeply unsettling and mysterious — but the end result is disappointing given the setup.
Like the Library Policeman, the narrative feels uncertain of itself, and it switches perspectives and directions halfway through. We stop following the hero, Kevin, who received the camera for his 14th birthday, and instead focus on the camera’s next owner, the anti-hero Pop Merrill — a selfish but quick-witted miser and wannabe mafioso. Like many of King’s more shallow villains, he’s a misogynistic piece of dirt who, when he’s not bullying people into servitude, spends his free time thinking about sexually punishing every woman in sight or watching porn on a dirty couch in a dirty apartment.
Pop Merrill’s interesting when he’s painted as both good and bad, looking out for the people of Castle Rock by getting them to punish themselves for their own vices; but when we start peeling away his layers, when we see he’s as shallow and evil as can be, I didn’t want to read about him or his attempts to unlock the camera’s secrets. He was boring, evil, and his ultimate fate could be seen a mile away: Unlike with the Library Policeman, once the style and tone of the Sun Dog shifts focus to Pop Merrill, the story loses its mystery.
The first half was as wonderful as the prior novellas; the concluding half as disappointing as any stereotypical King ending. The events of the Sun Dog lead into Needful Things, ‘the last Castle Rock story’ published in 1991 — not the camera itself (which is alluded to), but the characters and the disasters of this book are discussed at length by surviving family.
I was sad to see this as the closing novella in an otherwise strong collection. The Sun Dog wasn’t bad, mind you, just a few steps back from the magic of the Library Policeman or the Langoliers.
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power of storytelling; the Library Policeman, in which a man is haunted by his childhood fears, traumas, and a monster feeding on the emotional turmoil of children; and the Sun Dog, a lead-in to Castle Rock’s final moments in Needful Things, and in which a demonic monster works its way across dimensions through a Polaroid camera.[N.B. This review features images and formatting specific to my book site, dendrobibliography: Check it out here.]
Most of the four novels are wonderful, among my favorite work from Stephen King even under the weight of their own cheesiness and fluff, particularly…
The Langoliers
Despite having never read this before, every beat of the Langoliers was familiar and comfortable. I grew up with the ’90s TV miniseries — awful largely from hammy acting and corny special effects — and loved it despite its faults. It’s also, despite those faults, remarkably close to the novella. Most of the dialogue and the pacing seemed unaffected by the translation between mediums.
Mr. Toomey, one of King’s strongest, most developed villains, still gives the same screaming rants, pulls the same delusional stunts; Bob Jenkins, a mystery writer, still lectures the the logic of the plot to both other characters and the readers, forcing banal exposition; the Dinah, a young blind girl, is still the same prescient and wise pre-teen (whose disability gives her magic powers) as seen in many other Stephen King stories.
The Langoliers, about a plane that flies through a thinny (a la the Dark Tower) into a frozen fragment of the past, is corny, unbelievable, and amazingly fun. Even knowing the answers to the mystery of the empty Bangor International Airport our passengers find themselves in, I wasn’t any less fascinated by the decaying world or the approaching balls of razor-teeth and hair, or in watching our passengers try to escape with their lives both from the langoliers and Mr. Toomey’s collapsing mental state.
If I have one complaint, it’s that most characters don’t speak like real people. Much of the dialogue is exposition, boring explanations and logical debates over what is going on around them. The magic of this story is in the monsters, not the people.
Secret Window, Secret Garden
Secret Window, Secret Garden is Stephen King’s final attempt at the trials and tribulations of being a writer, of the horrors that the writing process itself invokes. The Dark Half tackled the same concept just a year earlier (but in a more on-the-nose fashion, with lots of blood and guts and murder). Misery came first, and remains the most successful of the ‘trilogy.’
Author Mort Rainey (i.e., Stephen King) is struggling with his writing amidst an ugly divorce. He’s still stuck on the spite that divorce inspired in him: He lashes out at everyone, blames others for his problems, an spends a lot of his time depressed, napping, and otherwise hiding from the world. He’s not pleasant.
A stranger shows up on his doorstep with a damning accusation: Mort Rainey plagiarized a story from him years earlier. This stranger, John Shooter, never published this story, making how Mort Rainey could have plagiarized it suspect. (This is based on a real incident from Stephen King’s life.) Regardless of the proof Rainey offers for his ownership of the story, Shooter’s actions quickly escalate and he starts removing evidence and threatening the lives of Rainey’s family.
This is the closest King feels he came to telling the story right — the story of the writing process — but it’s not perfect, and still feels fairly slim. (Misery’s still the best attempt.) The ending, differing wildly from the movie, is sudden and unsatisfying, not quite living up to the atmosphere of the prior 150 pages. Still, that atmosphere was foreboding and addictive, and a step above the Dark Half, which told the same story with three times as many pages and cliches.
The Library Policeman
King states in the introduction that he started the Library Policeman as a black comedy, and it devolved into horror naturally. I wouldn’t say the transition is necessarily natural — it seems like a jarring and confusing genre switch — but it provides a unique charm to the story. Library Policeman‘s silly, at points, and moves from being a light-hearted love story wrapped in a ridiculous concept of childhood spooks (the library police of the title, coming after Sam Peebles for not returning his books on time) into some of King’s darkest and most demented horror he’s ever written.
The transition is so disturbing, this story is often regarded with loathing by Stephen King fans. Without spoilers, I thought the mystery of the library policeman unraveled exceptionally.
It was disturbing, though, particularly ‘the scene’ that makes this story so maligned. Far more-so than Pet Sematary, often regarded as one of King’s scariest and most violent.
The meat of the story follows Sam Peebles, who offers to give a speech to a drunken community gathering at the last minute. Without any experience in public speaking, he visits the local library for the first time to check out some helpful books from an eerie librarian. He loses the books, misses the return deadline, and suddenly finds himself followed the librarian and her policeman. It sounds ridiculous, but: Wow. A disturbing town history of hidden murders and monsters (and a lot of ties to King’s greater mythology around It and the Dark Tower) quickly unravels.
The Sun Dog
The Sun Dog is a wonderful idea that devolves into predictable gore and guts. The story of a cursed Polaroid camera, printing only photos in slow motion of a demonic, mangy dog (a la Cujo, also set in Castle Rock) lunging towards the photographer is deeply unsettling and mysterious — but the end result is disappointing given the setup.
Like the Library Policeman, the narrative feels uncertain of itself, and it switches perspectives and directions halfway through. We stop following the hero, Kevin, who received the camera for his 14th birthday, and instead focus on the camera’s next owner, the anti-hero Pop Merrill — a selfish but quick-witted miser and wannabe mafioso. Like many of King’s more shallow villains, he’s a misogynistic piece of dirt who, when he’s not bullying people into servitude, spends his free time thinking about sexually punishing every woman in sight or watching porn on a dirty couch in a dirty apartment.
Pop Merrill’s interesting when he’s painted as both good and bad, looking out for the people of Castle Rock by getting them to punish themselves for their own vices; but when we start peeling away his layers, when we see he’s as shallow and evil as can be, I didn’t want to read about him or his attempts to unlock the camera’s secrets. He was boring, evil, and his ultimate fate could be seen a mile away: Unlike with the Library Policeman, once the style and tone of the Sun Dog shifts focus to Pop Merrill, the story loses its mystery.
The first half was as wonderful as the prior novellas; the concluding half as disappointing as any stereotypical King ending. The events of the Sun Dog lead into Needful Things, ‘the last Castle Rock story’ published in 1991 — not the camera itself (which is alluded to), but the characters and the disasters of this book are discussed at length by surviving family.
I was sad to see this as the closing novella in an otherwise strong collection. The Sun Dog wasn’t bad, mind you, just a few steps back from the magic of the Library Policeman or the Langoliers.
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LibraryThing member afterthought
Pretty darn good especially the 1st story. Totally changed my perspective on time travelling. Scared me quite a bit too.
Watched the movie before I read the 3rd story though and it was as I remembered from the film so no surprises there..
Watched the movie before I read the 3rd story though and it was as I remembered from the film so no surprises there..
LibraryThing member readingrat
The Langoliers is definitely the strongest story in this collection. Both creative and imaginative - it rides that edge of plausibility that allows it to creep inside your mind and stay with you after you have finished the story. The other 3 short stories are just alright. Some don't quite make the
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mark and all seem to be a bit dated. Show Less
LibraryThing member ktiskewl3
Four Past Midnight by Stephan King is a great book to start off with if you are just beginning to get into King's works. The whole book consists of four short stories and everyone of them caught my attention. The Langoliers was the best by far. The Langoliers starts out following a pilot and he
King has always kept me interested with his ability to portray disaster, horror, and the unreal in his novels. It keeps me interested form the beginning to the end. I definately can't put a novel of his down for the life of me.
I recommend Four Past Midnight by Stephan King to anyone who can handle King's writings. This isn't one ofhis scariest novels by far but it can still disturb you.
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gets on a "red-eye flight" with a plane full of people. Nine or so passengers fall asleep on the plane and wake up to find themselves in another time period. One of the nine passengers, a blind girl, hears something out in the distance. It's the Langoliers that she hears. The Langoliers are creatures that come and eat everything that is left behind by the past. By the end of the story, all but three passengers make it back to present time and they go on with their lives.King has always kept me interested with his ability to portray disaster, horror, and the unreal in his novels. It keeps me interested form the beginning to the end. I definately can't put a novel of his down for the life of me.
I recommend Four Past Midnight by Stephan King to anyone who can handle King's writings. This isn't one ofhis scariest novels by far but it can still disturb you.
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LibraryThing member skinglist
Langoliers and Secret Window... were my two favourites in this. In true King tradition, the adaptations were mediocre
LibraryThing member KarriesKorner
Four short stories that will keep you turning the pages.
LibraryThing member AJBraithwaite
I didn't think that horror was my thing, but I can now see why everyone raves about Stephen King. He's simply a wonderful writer: you care about the characters he creates, they're so completely believable that the supernatural aspects of his stories become equally so. Each of the four stories in
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this volume are long enough to be books in themselves and I enjoyed all of them very much. I think 'The Langoliers' is the one that will stay with me longest - the idea of waking up to an almost empty aeroplane is so wonderfully chilling. Show Less
LibraryThing member andyray
Three of the four nouvellas herein have been made into movies, and "The Library Policeman" should be, although the script will probably have to include more plot in it.
LibraryThing member Dissidence
I took this with me when I went to Turkey. It was my misfortune that the Langoliers would be about a plane journey! I left it to read the book once I got there. I think the Langoliers would be my favourite story out of them. I did enjoy Secret Window, Secret Garden but I'd seen the film before I
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read it and I think that maybe took the guessing and suspense out of it - but the extra twist was intriguing! I didn't like The Library Policeman. I'm naturally squeamish about such things and to be honest, I just didn't get it. I didn't quite understand the whole point of it, lots of things weren't explained. My not understanding might be a flaw on my part, but I didn't understand what was implied by the "Who is your library policeman?" question nor did I follow the answer. And the tool he planned on using for the defeat of such a monster...was a bit, laughable?I enjoyed The Sun Dog, the suspense was built up quite well. Although, throughout the book there was a little voice saying, "We're supposed to be scared of that?" it wasn't so blatant that it made the rest of the text sound exaggerated. I liked Kevin as a character and the part where Pop is under a sort of spell is a clever idea.I also like the fact that Stephen King writes things the way they are in real life, which is odd as I usually like my books to be glamourised versions of life. I thought it was funny that he'd expressed the thought I'd had a lot - that you never read about people going to the toilet! And he also writes about characters knowing something with certainty, "Kevin knew he wouldn't tell him the answer," and then goes on to contradict that certainty, "But he did tell," which is what happens to us in life. We think we know for definite what's going to happen and then we're contradicted. I also enjoyed the little prefaces to each story. Throughout those I found myself really respecting Stephen King, which I hadn't expected as I always found it difficult to overlook his odd punctuation and grammar. A lot of that was still present, his continual habit of splitting up a sentence just to fit something in brackets on a line of its own, but I found his grammar was a lot better to read than it was in Carrie. or maybe I'm just used to it.I enjoyed this collection. It's just a shame The Library Policeman wasn't my cup of tea at all. Show Less
LibraryThing member jimrob
(Spoiler alert)
Like everything else by King, Four Past Midnight combines chilling tales with an underlying social commentary. My only complaint, if I even dare criticize King, is the extreme level of detail in the encounter with the library "polithman." A simple mention or even brief run-through
Like everything else by King, Four Past Midnight combines chilling tales with an underlying social commentary. My only complaint, if I even dare criticize King, is the extreme level of detail in the encounter with the library "polithman." A simple mention or even brief run-through
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would have sufficed. What was presented was on par with a Penthouse Letter for NAMBLA members. Disgusting. Show Less
LibraryThing member karriethelibrarian
I especially loved the Library Policeman, and listened to this story while I was in library school.
LibraryThing member srboone
Four novellas that scared the crap outta me. I knew the library policeman was real...
LibraryThing member Marlene-NL
I've read this book many many moons ago. Back in the days when I only read Dutch books and the moment King's translated books were available in the shops I would buy them. (So now I have a very nice SK collection but will never re-read them because once you have read his books in English you don't
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want to read them in Dutch anymore) I think I have read most of his books at least 2 to 3 times but I think not this book cause otherwise I would have remembered the 4 stories more clearly. The one I do remember is the first one The Langoliers. So I have decided to re-read this book of his so I can properly review this. Show Less
LibraryThing member bnielsen
Indeholder "Straight Up Midnight: An Introductory Note", "One Past Midnight: The Langoliers", "Two Past Midnight: Secret Window, Secret Garden", "Three Past Midnight: The Library Policeman", "Four Past Midnight: The Sun Dog".
"Straight Up Midnight: An Introductory Note" handler om ???
"One Past
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"Straight Up Midnight: An Introductory Note" handler om ???
"One Past
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Midnight: The Langoliers" handler om ???"Two Past Midnight: Secret Window, Secret Garden" handler om ???
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LibraryThing member seldombites
The Langoliers: This was definitely my favourite story in this collection, and is now one of my three favourite short stories written by Stephen King. Extremely tense, chilling and a little disturbing, this story freaked me out long after I finished reading it.
Secret Window, Secret Garden: I wasn't
The Library Policeman: Parts of this story were predictable but there were some unexpected twists and, while I didn't find it scary, it was enjoyable to read.
The Sun Dog: One of King's 'Castle Rock' stories, this was the second best in this collection. It was really quite freaky, actually, and gave me quite a fright. I love the way it was left open for a sequel. I'm not sure if one was written, but I'll be looking into it.
Overall, Four Past Midnight is a superb collection of horror stories that is sure to give you shivers.
Secret Window, Secret Garden: I wasn't
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very taken with this story. It felt kind of flat and two-dimensional - totally unlike King's usual quality.The Library Policeman: Parts of this story were predictable but there were some unexpected twists and, while I didn't find it scary, it was enjoyable to read.
The Sun Dog: One of King's 'Castle Rock' stories, this was the second best in this collection. It was really quite freaky, actually, and gave me quite a fright. I love the way it was left open for a sequel. I'm not sure if one was written, but I'll be looking into it.
Overall, Four Past Midnight is a superb collection of horror stories that is sure to give you shivers.
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LibraryThing member csweder
This book is really a collection of 4 novellas, each one about 180 pages long--so it's not a typical 'short story collection'. :)
1 of 4 stories (novellas) down: Secret Window. It was good. I saw the movie before I read it, which is not typically the way to do it. However, I feel that having seen
Story #2 (technically #3 in the book...). The Library Policeman. The most interesting thing in it so far is that King mentions (and I've read this somewhere else from King) that children are drawn to scary stories. In this story, one character is shocked by the 'scary' posters in the children's section of the library. But, when you think about it, most of our children's stories are WORSE (Hansel and Gretel=Children being abandoned, almost shoved into an oven). I like this point, it somehow validates for me that by the time I was in 10th grade, I'd read several King books. :) It was difficult getting into the story, but once I was in (might have been halfway through), I was wanting to read, read, read!
The Langoliers
This is the first book in the collection, and I can see why. Unlike the Library Policeman, I was hooked right away, and I wanted to read. (And, probably, if I wasn't in love w/ Johnny Depp, I wouldn't have been AS interested in Secret Window) This story was great...but I'm not sure I like the ending much.
1 of 4 stories (novellas) down: Secret Window. It was good. I saw the movie before I read it, which is not typically the way to do it. However, I feel that having seen
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the movie, I was REALLY interested to see how King developed Mort's character. And, it was a definite plus having Johnny's face in my head while I created the pictures in my mind...Only 600 more pages of the book to go! Story #2 (technically #3 in the book...). The Library Policeman. The most interesting thing in it so far is that King mentions (and I've read this somewhere else from King) that children are drawn to scary stories. In this story, one character is shocked by the 'scary' posters in the children's section of the library. But, when you think about it, most of our children's stories are WORSE (Hansel and Gretel=Children being abandoned, almost shoved into an oven). I like this point, it somehow validates for me that by the time I was in 10th grade, I'd read several King books. :) It was difficult getting into the story, but once I was in (might have been halfway through), I was wanting to read, read, read!
The Langoliers
This is the first book in the collection, and I can see why. Unlike the Library Policeman, I was hooked right away, and I wanted to read. (And, probably, if I wasn't in love w/ Johnny Depp, I wouldn't have been AS interested in Secret Window) This story was great...but I'm not sure I like the ending much.
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LibraryThing member marysneedle
I especially loved the Langoliers story.
LibraryThing member MFRizzi
Four terrific yarns by the master of horror (and other weird stuff!)
LibraryThing member saskreader
I think I like King's short stories/novellas better than his full-length novels (except for The Stand).
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