Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen KingMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Have you ever really been scared by reading a horror book, like the way a movie can make you jump or give you the creeps? I never have and sometimes I wonder if I am "broken" in some way. So, I periodically check by giving something a try like the trusted if formulaic H.P. Lovecraft (King adds to that body of work w/"Crouch End", here) or the commercially validated author here, but I never get the gee willikers off the printed page. Who should I read?
Admittedly, this collection of short stories proved a cornucopia of tales not all horror at all. There is even two baseball pieces (one non-fiction, one a poem)! I do like the King has a notes section on the end commenting on these pieces. Most of these stories strike me like long-walk shaggy dog tales - a trek to get to a groaner... Maybe that is the over-writing he has been accused of and defends in the intro here? The collection leads of with a nice revenant tale in "Dolan's Cadillac" (crime story, not horror) and when I got "Suffer the Little Children" I credit King with daring to take us into the mind of an infanticide (would he have published this post Sandy Hook?). My favorite tail is the vampire civil air pilot in "The Night Flier" which dovetails nicely into "Popsy" where a would-be child abuser agent gets his just desserts. I had to read the Wikipedia article on "Dedication" to make sure I was not misconstruing the MacGuffin here... So, he can do gross-out, too. I like the simple weirdness and mania of "The Moving Finger" but several stories like "You Know they got One Hell of a Band" just left me "meh".
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