“Some of King’s strongest work in recent years brought together to form an excellent collection .”

 

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

Now, this one; a collection of 21 stories from the Master which covers so many different story areas, each starting with a note from King explain where the idea come from.

We start off with a story about a human eating car that pulls into an abandon service station, to a man who writes off-hand obits of people who are still alive (perhaps the Democrats could use him right now), and ends with an end of the world story, but at a small, local area.

There’s the usual media reviews added in places, one which caught my attention was from the Daily Mail, ‘He seduces you … then proceeds to chill you to the bone.’ Oh really, perhaps I’m getting a tad jaded with King’s work, I don’t know, but I am sure that even though the stories were entertaining, they didn’t actually ‘chill me’ in any way. But there again, pro-reviewers do like to build things up a bit don’t they.

Over the years, I have read so many of King’s books and still have three or four more in my TBR pile. So far I have given up on only one of his works, Under the Dome, which I just couldn’t get on with at all. This current one though, I bought late last year and I’m pleased I did, so It’s worth a go my friends.

 

Reviewed by:

Ron Clark

Added 25th March 2017

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Ron Clark

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

This is another of Stephen King’s short story collections and probably one of his best ones to date; for a man who is renowned for being over verbose King can pack a lot of punch into his shorter tales and novellas.

Bazaar of Bad Dreams is a collection of 20 stories, some of which have been released in other formats previously and a few completely new titles, This may seem a cop out to some but even I a ‘constant reader’ had plenty of new material to read and those tales I’d read before had been so long ago I’d forgotten the subtleties that King is able to insert into every tale.

Mile 81 is a story about a car, a rest stop, a boy and humanity’s desire to be helpful. Sometimes it’s not a good idea to be the Samaritan.
Premium Harmony introduces us to a married couple who are careering towards divorce but for a purple ball.
Batman & Robin Have an Altercation; A father and son, Alzheimers, lunch out and a bit of a bump.
The Dune is one of my favourites, no blood or gore just poo your pants scariness.
Bad Little Kid is about excuses, or maybe truths.

A Death is about that gut feeling you get, the one you just knew you should have listened to.
The Bone Church: Prettily petrifying prose
Morality; what would you do for money?
Afterlife: Which door would you choose? Left… Or right? Backwards or forwards?
Ur; read this one on your Kindle, I dare you!
Herman Wouk is Still Alive: A road trip and some picnickers meet in unpleasant circumstances.
Under the Weather shows that when you love someone it doesn’t matter how ill they are, they’re still lovely to you.
Blockade Billy: Baseball, I know nothing about baseball but I know that Billy had a damned fine mitt.
Mister Yummy: I don’t want to meet Mr Yummy, or Miss Yummy… Ever!
Tommy: Happy Hippy Poetry.
The Little Green God of Agony: Have you ever been in pain, real pain? What would you do to be free of it?
That Bus is Another World: When two buses pass one another a whole other universe is revealed for a fleeting second.

Obits: The modern penchant for badmouthing everyone from the safety of a computer screen takes a sinister twist.
Drunken Fireworks: Some races shouldn’t be won, some shouldn’t even be entered.
Summer Thunder: Why do we put our trust in people who cannot even keep tabs on their own expense accounts when it comes to those radioactive red buttons?

Those are the briefest of brief none spoiling synopses I could muster. Suffice to say I’ve read every single thing Stephen King has ever written and Bazaar of Bad Dreams is right up there with the best of his work.

 

Reviewed by:

Shan Williams

Added 4th February 2016

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Shan Williams