Everything's Eventual

I'm a big fan of King's short stories. His novels...ummm...not so much. I always found King's endings never lived up to the book's first 4/5's superbness. On Writing, King's advice book to budding authors, is one of the most entertaining and clever books in the genre. Highly recommended, with some great advice and an absorbing autobiography of the man himself.

Without a doubt though, the Master of Horror's best medium is the short story. There, he can manipulate dark twists and turns to maximum effect. King is best when running with just one idea, using his flare to relax the reader, then hitting them with a dark and evil sledge hammer.

Everything's Eventual is no exception. Here King has collected some masterful short works of fiction, from a shivering fishing trip with the devil, to a hitchhiker's ride with the dead, to an interview in a torture chamber. King's imagination has no boundaries

My favourite tales Are The Man in the Black Suit and the The Road Virus Drives North. The Man in the Black Suit won both the World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction and the O. Henry Award. It's no surprise with it's originality and nightmarish atmosphere. The Road Virus Drives North has a brilliant concept, and is horrifying in it's literary adroitness as King steadily builds electrifying tension. You'll think twice before purchasing any works of art in a yard sale shortly after reading it.

There are also some other ingenious stories that make for late night/early morning reading, such as Autopsy Room Four (about a concious man, paralyzed and about to undergo an autopsy), the aforementioned In the Death Room, and the title story, Everything's Eventual, a brilliant story about an assassin who has a most unusual technique. Included also are King's haunted hotel room tale, 1408, and a chapter from his Dark Tower series called The Little Sisters of Eluria. Add a mix of psychotic murder, a dash of suicidal tendancies, two cups of divorce gone amuk, and a dose of deja vu and you have a recipe for horror greatness.

An absolutly compelling read.