Skeleton Crew - Stephen King

SKELETON CREW by STEPHEN KING - MY REVIEW


I want to start this review by letting my readers know that I'm not a huge Stephen King fan but I quite like to read his stories here and there.
I believe it's quite a relevant thing to say considering the amount of die-hard fans who love him to death and would say that anything he writes is a masterpiece and worth high praises. I usually take "best sellers" very cautiously.
...as other two "good collections". Skeleton Crew I believe falls into the category of "classic", since the fame it usually has within the die-hard fans of King.

At this point I can tell you that I hardly enjoyed this book at all. Perhaps it's because I read it in a very bad period when I was a little depressed but it is definitely poorer than the other two short story collections that I have read of the same author.
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SKELETON CREW by STEPHEN KING - MY REVIEW

I want to start this review by letting my readers know that I'm not a huge Stephen King fan but I quite like to read his stories here and there.
I believe it's quite a relevant thing to say considering the amount of die-hard fans who love him to death and would say that anything he writes is a masterpiece and worth high praises. I usually take "best sellers" very cautiously.

I admit he's one of the few writers which I seek when going through the shelves of a charity shop. As a matter of fact I wouldn't pay more than £1-2 for his paperbacks.

I could say I'm a very moderate fan of King but for several reasons: first of all and main reason I love collection of short stories (a lot more than novels) and Mr. King has some good collections of short stories, some VERY good ones!
Also I'm a huge fan of Richard Matheson, "father" of Stephen King (I previously reviewed Matheson if you're interested), and I can often see in King's style some "borrowings" from Matheson, not as much in the style as in the kind of stories (and I mean short stories here). But concerning the similarities with his master, I kindly suggest to read the review I previously quoted.

Let's get down to this book. I first read Night Shift and I understand why it was one of the most successiful collections he has ever done. It was brilliant, almost every story was great and entertaining... often also rather frightening (which is not common for me when reading books). Then I read Nightmares and Dreamscapes which was another good one, some bad stories in there but the rest were memorable and again very entertaining. Those where my first two books of King that I have ever read.
Having enjoyed my first approaches to this author I jumped on other two (Skeleton Crew, in review, and Everything's Eventual) since they were continuously quoted as other two "good collections". Skeleton Crew I believe falls into the category of "classic", since the fame it usually has within the die-hard fans of King.

At this point I can tell you that I hardly enjoyed this book at all. Perhaps it's because I read it in a very bad period when I was a little depressed but it is definitely poorer than the other two short story collections that I have read of the same author.

The book starts quoting KC and The Sunshine Band:

I'm your boogeyman
that's what I am
and I'm here to do
whatever I can

- if you don't know the song, shame on you -

So he's the boogeyman and he's here to frighten us... let's see what he can do.

After this (humoristic) quotation, before the actual stories, there is the usual introduction written by King in which he explains how poor he was when he first wrote these stories and how he took a well-deserved revenge on the perfidious critics by earning millions no matter what they thought of his books, but always pointing out that it's not a matter of money (still he's always talking about them).
I'm used to this, he does it in every book I have read till now. Ok, enough of this, let's see the stories!

THE SHORT STORIES IN THIS BOOK:
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There are about 20 of them, some very short (1 or 2 pages), some others long enough to be a short novel. I will try to describe all of them but some will be in details while some others "en passant", I don't want to spoil the plots too much.

1) The Mist
This is the first story in the collection and I think it should have gave the title to the whole book. It's by far one of King's best stories. It's the longest of the book and it was recently adapted in a blockbuster film with the same title. I don't like to say too much about the plot because lots of people might have never read it so I'll just give you a brief description:
A storm hits a small community and after the storm a strange mist creeps up and coats the whole town. The main character, David Drayton and his son, found themselves trapped with other people in the local supermarket. Anyone who walks out in the mist never comes back and shadows can be seen moving outside the supermarket in the thick fog.
While terror awaits outside, fears also grow inside the supermarket when the local "witch" starts talking about blood sacrifices and eventually gains more and more followers.

I really don't want to say anything else but this story (and perhaps only this) makes the book worth buying.
It's incredibly well written and even gives some deeper meaning of human behaviours which was honestly unexpected.

* for who has seen the film but not read the story I suggest to read it immediately, the ending is not depressing like the film ending *

2) Here There Be Tygers
A bit of an anticlimax after reading The Mist. As opposite, this story is short (6 pages, 3 counting front and back), quite childish and meaningless. A little child at school is not only terrorised by the stereotypical teacher but also by a tiger which the kid knows hiding into the boy's toilets and with a taste for humans.
The story is so short that saying anything more would just give major spoilers. It's nothing special really.

3) The Monkey
This story is apparently quite famous. I was bored to tears to read it, 40 pages of it!
It's the story of an evil wind-up toy monkey that comes back to terrorise the previous owner who thought to have got ridden of it many years before. (I must tell you that the wind-up monkey can kill people by causing fatal accidents when clashing the cymbals - exciting uh?)

4) Cain Rose Up
Another very short story (7 pages) of which I don't really remember anything at all... and probably for good reason.

5) Mrs Todd's Shortcut
This is one of the good ones. Mrs Todd is a wealthy woman obsessed with shortcuts. She's always looking for new ones for the only purpose of getting from point A to point B in lesser and lesser time, even beyond the limits of physic laws...
A local man, Homer, tells us the story of her mysterious shortcuts and of how she also looked younger and younger everytime!
Enough said, this is a twilight zone style episode with, I would say, an epic ending.

6) The Jaunt
I was telling you of how Matheson inspired King. This story is one of the example, an attempt to write classic sci-fi. Unfortunately not a too successiful one. As a big fan of science fiction short stories I can honestly tell you that this one is worthless, predictable and pointless. It's also quite short so it goes away very soon.

7) The Wedding Gig
A godfather style story set in the "golden era" including mafia guys marrying fat wives and a jazz band involved in a gunfight. Another forgettable story, actually a very bad one.

8) Paranoid: A Chant
A very short poem, I skipped it right away. Sorry.

9) The Raft
I knew this story from the film Creepshow 2, which I quite like, so I knew what to expect. The story is a bit different from the film adaptation in the end but not unpleasant... not at all. I liked it a lot actually.
Four college students find themselves stuck on a raft in the middle of a lake sieged by a mysterious "oil-slick" of unknown origins that can hypnotise you if looked at for long enough, make you jump in the water and MELT YOU!

10) Word Processor of the God's
Another good one and a funny one too which was also adapted for the series Tales From The Darkside. Richard, the main character, was left a "word processor", homemade by his nephew tragically killed in a car accident just weeks before. Richard finds soon enough that this is no ordinary word processor, whatever is typed into it comes true... but Richard has not much time left before it overloads.

11) The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands
What could this story be about? Perhaps about a man who would not shake hands? Exactly. Why? It will be soon revealed that anything the man touches dies shortly after.
Quite a nice little story if you ask me.

12) Beachworld
Back on the 50's style sci-fi short story, this time a bit better than "The Jaunt" but still lacking of style. Only the end was gripping!
The story of a spaceship crashed on an arid planet, the two survivors are stuck on this desert waiting for rescues but while they wait something grips the captain... he would not stop staring at the desert and would not eat or drink, he will not want to leave, he only wants to stay there listening to the dunes.
If you have read a bit of science fiction you could easily guess what's weird with this planet. By the way the ending is very tense... and a bit frightening.

13) The Reaper's Image
This is one of my favourite, half the way in between a Roald Dahl's tale of the unexpected and the classic Poe.
A creepy and very rare antique piece of furniture (a mirror) called DeIver Glass is surrounded by myths and creepy stories. After some uncomfortable "experiences" of some people, it was moved from the ground floor of the museum, where it was exposed, up in the attic, where no one can see it. An antiquities expert has come to verify its integrity for the insurance company and demands to see it. He's not buying any of the story that the director of the musem is telling him... if you look directly into the mirror, you may see the reaper and soon disappear!

14) Nona
This was another good one that I have read without stopping.
We're reading what a young man has written from his padded cell, he believes he's not mad like the doctors say and this is his story. He was hitchhiking after being kicked out of college. It wass a cold snowy night and he stopped at a diner along the motorway where he met the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, Nona. Some redneck truck drivers who clearly disliked "hippies" with hairs longer than the ears started teasing him and he got involved in a fight with the toughest of them. He had never beated up anyone before but he found an incredible and innatural strength coming from Nona that turned him berserk and almost killed the truck driver in a particularly vicious way that he had never thought possible from himself. He and Nona fled from the diner before the police arrived and they started their journey to Castle Rock (destination chosen by the girl).
With Nona near him he had been involved in more killing... he killed everyone he met... how could possibly be her the cause of his killing spree?

I think I have said enough about this story. I loved it. It keeps your attention till the end.

15) For Owen
Another poem... argh! (two pages long)

16) Survivor Type:
This one was not bad I guess - After a shipwreck, a man is stuck on a small rock-island with lots of kilograms of cocaine and nothing to eat. He's a former surgeon with a broken leg that he needs to amputate... but he also desperately needs to eat... and he's the survivor type of guy! 1+1... ;-)
It's a good one, in a gruesome way.

17) Uncle Otto's Truck
An old wealthy man now in his latter years believe that the rusty truck parked in his lawn is going to get him for avenging the death of his owner. Everyone think he's crazy but his nephew will soon find out what's behind it.

This story was not bad, I guess King loves the theme of killer machines, cars especially, that also love their owners (see Christine).

18) Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)
followed by...
19) Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman #2)
Two somehow connected stories. So bad that they should have never been published. In the first, a psychotic milkman is leaving to some families poisoned milk or other deadly things with his morning deliveries... for no particular reason.
In the second, two men are looking for a mechanic who will pass their wreck of a car for a mandatory inspection. When they find one it comes out that the guy is an old school-buddy of one of the two. The mechanic seems to be a nice enough guy but behind it there is, again, a dangerous pshychosis (like the milkman of the first story).
The two stories tie up in the end and still you can't figure out what was the point of this story!

These two are not really too well explained, perhaps I missed something but they seem unfinished and unpolished. Probably the most pointless story of all.

20) Gramma
A young boy is left at home alone with his old and dying gramma. Old gramma is not the typical grandmother though. She's a scary old witch, famous in the family for her dangerous curses.
It will be some scary experience for the little boy.

This story wasn't too bad but sometimes it was a bit dragged. It gets a bit scary in the end.

21) The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet
In this story an old editor tells his friends the story of how an obsessed writer passed his madness onto him. The now deceased writer believed that little elves lived in the his typewriter (and that every typewriter had one). The elves were called Fornits and they had magic dust called Fornus which, I think, gave inspirations to the writers. This was only the beginning of a contagious madness...

It's not a great story, I was quite glad when it ended because I had enough of Fornits and Fornus which were repeated (chanted) almost every 2 lines... in the end I was almost as obsessed as the character in the story by the fornits and the fornus.
Be careful with this one, because madness is like a flexible bullet, it could drive you insane too!

22) The Reach
The last and the least... the boring and, again, pointless story of an old woman who has lived on an island all her life and has never been on the mainland until after her death. As boring as it sounds, it has no twists or anything. Quite a weak story to put in the end of a mediocre book.

FINAL NOTES AND CONCLUSION
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As a side note, in most of the stories there was a repetitive and unclear question "do you love?" which kept popping up in the most unlikely moments, obsessing the reader (me). A possible explanation only appears, perhaps, in the last story.

In conclusion, our boogeyman (King) didn't scare at all. It actually bored me like I haven't been bored in a loooong time. A part from a few masterpieces like The Mist and a few others this book is hardly worth its price. It's just a not very good collection, some of the stories should have never seen light in the first place and I put it back on my bookcase, never to be read again.
If you can find it for a good price (less than £2) or borrow it I suggest you to take it because it does have good stories but unfortunately too few of them are good... hardly any if you count them all.
I recommend it only under these circumstances.

AVAILABILITY:
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amazon.co.uk - £5.49 (down from £6.99)
and much cheaper in charity shops which I suggest.
Even better from libraries where you can read it for free. 

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