Author: Stephen King
Year: 1978
One of Stephen King’s best collections of short stories, Night Shift is both a good example of his style and a great mix of different horror tales. King is at his best when he is writing quick, simple, character-driven fiction, setting us down in worlds where we feel like we’ve lived our whole lives. Night Shift‘s twenty stories range all over, but always aim to please, with scares and chills galore for fans and casual readers alike.
King’s twenty tales in Night Shift are short, sweet, and full of frights. ‘Graveyard Shift’ makes one of our biggest fears even bigger. ‘I Am the Doorway’ introduces us to a strange alien species. ‘The Mangler’ gives us gruesome death. ‘Sometimes They Come Back’ shows reliving trauma in a whole new light. ‘Quitters Inc’ makes stopping smoking seem easy. All the tales take us to dark but awesome places.
This is a very cool collection; a lot of these stories came from the world’s of other King books, or would later become fleshed out in other novels. ‘Jerusalem’s Lot’ and ‘One for the Road’ come from ‘Salem’s Lot’. ‘Night Surf’ gives us another glimpse into ‘The Stand’. ‘Trucks’ inspired ‘Maximum Overdrive’. And ‘Children of the Corn’ is self explanatory. All the stories are creepy, weird, and get to the point quickly, which everyone will love, but fans of King will especially appreciate this small looks into some of his larger realms.
My rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆