Everything's Eventual - Stephen King

I spotted the news on this on Stephen King’s website quite a while ago. His first collection of short stories in nearly ten years, not that this is an unusual length of time between such collections for him, but there you go. It does, however, keep up his routine of publishing a short story collection every decade since the 1970’s. I was excited, to say the least, as I’ve always enjoyed these collections, largely because they tend to be less long ...
...years.

Take his last collection, for example, “Nightmares and Dreamscapes”. It was written at a time when, to my mind at least, he’d gone through quite a bad patch. Following on from, to my mind, his worst efforts at that point in “Dolores Claiborne” and “Gerald’s Game”, it was a welcome return to form, and the following novel “Insomnia” was one I’d also enjoyed. That collection remained in my mind as a bit of a turning point for ... more

I spotted the news on this on Stephen King’s website quite a while ago. His first collection of short stories in nearly ten years, not that this is an unusual length of time between such collections for him, but there you go. It does, however, keep up his routine of publishing a short story collection every decade since the 1970’s. I was excited, to say the least, as I’ve always enjoyed these collections, largely because they tend to be less long winded and more enjoyable than his novels, especially over recent years.

Take his last collection, for example, “Nightmares and Dreamscapes”. It was written at a time when, to my mind at least, he’d gone through quite a bad patch. Following on from, to my mind, his worst efforts at that point in “Dolores Claiborne” and “Gerald’s Game”, it was a welcome return to form, and the following novel “Insomnia” was one I’d also enjoyed. That collection remained in my mind as a bit of a turning point for me, and maybe enjoys a higher status in my memory than it truly merits, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Our opinions are always clouded by our own judgement.

After the recent disaster that was “Black House”, closely following the relatively substandard “Dreamcatcher” and the non-fiction work that was “On Writing”, which fell nicely between autobiography and lesson, without being either effectively, I had high hopes for this collection. Surely this had to be another “Nightmares and Dreamscapes” and would show me that he wasn’t finished as a writer, despite his recent announcement that he would soon retire. This was meant to show me that his closing years would be worth hanging on for.

The higher you build your hopes up about something, the more it hurts when they all comes crashing down. To all Stephen King fans out there, I apologise. To all of you who disagree with me, I apologise. But, in my opinion, this hurt. A lot.

To start with, it’s very short. I mean, I know all the stories are short, but there’s fewer of them in here. His previous collections had twenty or more stories in them. This has fourteen. “Fourteen? Is that all?” was my thought when I first heard this news, and is still my thought now. It could still be value for money, but they’d have to be pretty darn good.

And there’s another thing. Value for money. If, as is more usual for his collections, these stories were all exclusive, or more exclusive, then maybe it would be. In buying his other collections, there are only two stories, both in “Nightmares and Dreamscapes” that I had seen to buy, although I am aware that many of the short stories in all of his collections have been published in American magazines and some in anthologies that I’ve never seen on the shelves at WHSmith. This is different. Fourteen stories, of which I could quite easily bought six, nearly half of them, elsewhere, and I actually own four of them, one twice, more than a quarter. To be fair, three have only been available in an audio form, but it’s still a repeat. But this is okay, if the stories are good enough.

They’re not, sadly. My expectations in this regard were largely based on his previous short story collections. His first, in the 1970’s “Night Shift” was while he was still a full time horror writer, and the stories therein are of the ilk. Short, scary, and hitting home in a way that makes you wonder if sleep will ever come again. At this stage he wasn’t writing too many huge epics anyway, and this really was his golden age. In the 1980’s, “Skeleton Crew” edged slightly away from pure horror, but with some style. Onto the 1990’s, where “Nightmares and Dreamscapes” provided a welcome return (mostly) to form after a period of mediocrity, and contained his best piece of non-fiction writing in “Head Down”.

But, I’m a fan. I’ve especially been a fan of his short stories, and at nearly £5 off in WHSmith (from £17.99 to £13), I figured I couldn’t go too far wrong. I mean, that’s less than £1 a story, which has to be pretty good value, right? Nope, sorry!

There’s something missing here. It’s not something you can really define. There is nothing here that really reaches up and grabs you, and makes you want to love this collection. If I’ve paid a fair amount of money for a short story collection, I want to enjoy it. And I did in some ways, but not enough to get my money’s worth.

The Introduction itself should give a clue towards what is to follow. Whereas previous collections have had rather a general introduction, usually with some kind of amusing anecdotes, this talks more about a single story, the infamous “The Plant”, and a little more. There’s information contained therein that you won’t know, but nothing you would have been desperate to know anyway. Of course, this is just the introduction, and it’s the stories that I’d spent my money on, anyway.

The opener “Autopsy Room Four” is a story of a dead man in a live man’s shoes. It has the potential to be rather gruesome, but stops way short of that. When you realise what the story is about, you immediately spot the potential for blood loss but, like much of this collection, the anticipation is better than the event. It reads a bit like the opening of Clive Barker’s story “Confessions of a (Pornographer’s) Shroud”, but that continues where this stops, and is much the better for it.

“The Man in the Black Suit” is another story that walks a well-trodden path. A dying man recounts the time he met death face to face when he was just a small boy. It’s a hommage, he says in the notes, and I hope that the person he was paying it to wasn’t too insulted. He also says that when it won a prize for the Best Short Story of 1996, he thought that a mistake had been made. Well, me too!

“All That You Love Will Be Carried Away” is the first story that you can start to enjoy yourself with. It’s perhaps the first one where you start to believe that King is enjoying himself. It’s about a travelling salesman who has decided to kill himself thinking back over the last few years, and the notebook in which he has collected his favourite bits of graffiti. The problem is that this story doesn’t end. Much like the film “eXistenZ”, it just stops. The film leaves you wondering what might happen next, and the ending being the way it is proves a point. In the story, it just feels unfinished.

“The Death of Jack Hamilton” is quite good fun. It’s a gangster story, based around the legend of Dillinger, a notorious American outlaw, but told from a different point of view, being the recollections of one of his companions. In this regard, at least, it harks back to “The Doctor’s Case” from “Nightmares and Dreamscapes.” This is perhaps one of the more entertaining of the stories contained herein, as it doesn’t waste time, it concentrates on the story, and that’s all. It’s not one to take your breath away, but it’s good entertainment, and there are some fairly gruesome moments, for those people who like that sort of thing. Finally, blood!

This is followed by “In the Deathroom”, one of those which has been previously available as part of an audio collection (see my review on “Blood and Smoke” elsewhere. This reads a lot better than King reads it, and seems to be a better story here than I gave it credit for there, largely due to the lack of quality surrounding it. Here, again, there are some nasty moments, such as you would expect from a so-called horror writer, and this combined with the previous story makes you think that things are picking up.

Of course, then “The Little Sisters of Eluria” brings it all crashing down again. It’s intended as a prelude to “The Dark Tower”, which is great if you actually like “The Dark Tower” series. I don’t. This is the longest story in the collection by some way, and suffers from a similar problem as “Star Wars Episode 1”, in that things have moved on from the story it precedes, and many parts of it just don’t seem to fit, being so much newer. Of course, I’ve just offended “Star Wars” fans as well as “Dark Tower” fans there, but never mind. One of the more interesting things about this story is that the notes he has been using about each story appear here before the story, instead of after, where he usually puts them. That works better here, as his rationale behind the writing explains a lot. It doesn’t excuse anything, however.

This is followed by the title story “Everything’s Eventual.” It’s an interesting idea, seeming to draw somewhat from the thoughts of “Breakers” which decorate much of “Black House” and the story “Low Men in Yellow Coats” from “Hearts in Atlantis” and, supposedly, much of what is to follow in “The Dark Tower” series. The story itself in entertaining enough, if a little predictable and written from a College boy point of view, in the according English. To give this story its’ due, however, it did cause me to laugh out loud. Sadly, this had nothing to do with the story itself. You see, the use of “eventual” is meant to mean “very good”. Even at this point, you know that this collection isn’t that at all, and you wonder if the irony is intentional, whilst suspecting that it probably isn’t.

“L.T.’s Theory of Pets” is another that has been made available for sale as an audio book. Jill Murphy and nikkisly have both written excellent reviews of this, so there is little need to say more. King says in his notes that he likes the ending and, for once, I have to agree with him, although to tell you why might spoil things. This story is by no means a classic, but it does entertain, which is largely why he reads it at public engagements. It’s not the best story in this collection, but it is perhaps the most enjoyable, in a no-brainer sort of way. However, now having the story, it doesn’t appeal enough that I want to spend more money on it, especially listening to King read it.

This is closely followed by “The Road Virus Heads North”, which was published in an anthology called “999”, back in 1999. It’s actually a very good idea, and reads better the second time around but, again, I suspect due to the fact that it isn’t surrounded by other stories with the quality to overshadow it. A writer buys a picture at a house clearance sale and watches with increasing horror as the evil looking character in it seems to follow him home. Predictable again, but fun.

“Lunch at the Gotham Café” is next up, the story I have owned in the anthology “Dark Love” since 1996 or so, and also appears on the audio collection “Blood and Smoke”. Whilst there is blood in here, the story centres on the relationship between the two main characters, and some of the story is lost. This is the opposite of something that grows on you, as I always feel that this story seems to appeal a little less every time I read or hear it.

“That Feeling, You Can Only Say What it is in French” has to have the best title I have seen in a long time. It’s a story about déjà vu and, as you would expect, loops around, leaving you with that very same feeling. It’s shorter than most of the stories around it and, whilst you can see what is going to happen, it’s well written enough that you want to go along for the ride. It’s been a long time since I’ve said that about a Stephen King story.

This is followed by “1408”, which is the third and final offering from the “Blood and Smoke” audio collection. This was by far my favourite story on that tape, and I thought that it would improve when I was reading it myself. Somehow though, it doesn’t appear to be as good as I remember. There is a lot of build up before the action starts. With an audio book, you can largely blank this out, and only remember the best parts of the story, which you can’t do with a written version. Again, I suspect that selective editing in my mind has built this up further than it deserved and it lets me down again. If you don’t have the audio collection and are coming across this story for the first time, I do think that you’ll find it a more than acceptable inclusion here, however. A modern day ghost story, with an ending that brings back thoughts of the ending to “Misery” and maybe goes on a little further than it needs, but is a pretty good story nonetheless.

The penultimate story is “Riding the Bullet”, the first story that King has done entirely on the Internet and which has been read by thousands of people in that form. I never did, to be honest, and I think I’m glad I didn’t. It’s also the story that King spends a fair portion of the introduction talking (boasting?) about. It’s nothing special as a story, being a fairly standard idea of a hitchhiker who gets a lift with a dead man. The suspense that it does manage to build up is dispelled with a slow ending, and, although some of the characters are quite amusing, it’s not enough to save it.

The collection closes with “Luckey Quarter”, the shortest story in the collection, which is a story of bad luck turned good, and almost a version of the “Dallas” storyline which all turned out to be a dream. It goes a little further than that, though, and there’s a happy ending, which is a bit of a relief, given the way the collection has gone.

There are some good stories in here, and I may be being a little too harsh on the collection given that it has disappointed me personally, and because I own a few of the stories in another form, or in other collections.

There are some decent stories in here, but what worries me is that the most entertaining parts of the collection are probably largely unintentional. I’m sure that the irony of the title wasn’t planned, and the brief note of how King selected the running order of the stories with a deck of cards is amusing enough, although even that has supposedly been done before, with Less Than Jake selecting the order of the tracks on an album with a Magic 8 Ball.

I bought this book in hardback largely because I am a huge Stephen King fan, and I generally like his short story collections. I paid £13 for this in WHSmith, and I begrudge paying that amount, I really do. It supposedly retails for £17.99, which is WAY too much to be paying for this collection, even for a King devotee. Having paid what I did, I discovered this on Amazon for £8.99, half price, which sounds fair enough to be honest. Personally, unless you are that impatient, I would wait for the paperback version, which will probably retail at slightly less than that, and pick it up from Amazon for in the region of £6. 

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