Night Shift (Paperback)

While no date is given, collection opener 'Jerusalem's Lot' certainly reads as though it is the earliest of King's stories presented here, as the authors' voice is all but buried beneath those of his influences. Readers of 'Salem's Lot may be expecting a vampire-filled sequel to that novel, but this is in fact an unrelated Lovecraftian tale of a mans disturbing family inheritance. There are some nicely macabre moments, but the elements of the story are so familiar - presenting the tale as diary extracts; an inherited spooky old home; mysterious sounds in the walls and basement; superstitious locals; Cthulhu Mythos references - that they are virtually horror fiction clichés, making this a very average start to the collection.

'Graveyard Shift' is better, and though a story about clearing rats out of a basement doesn't sound particularly enthralling, the power play between drifter Hall and his obnoxious boss Warwick pushes the stakes to a higher, if rather unbelievable, level.

Next up is 'Night Surf', a powerful vignette detailing a handful of amoral survivors of an apocalyptic disease. Short but full of startling imagery.

Another science fiction style horror story comes with 'I Am The Doorway', where an astronaut is taken over by an alien infection picked up while orbiting Venus. Very melodramatic, and with a Cronenberg body horror feel, King's way of making everyday object appear strange by looking at them through alien eyes is suitably disorientating.

Stephen King has tackled many cornball subject in his time - and amazingly has made them work more often than not - but the idea of a possessed laundry press roaming the streets in 'The Mangler' may very well be the most ridiculous concept he's ever touched, and despite a few nice macabre moments, the overriding silliness of this story proves impossible to escape.

By contrast 'The Boogeyman' is one of King's most effective shorts, drawing on the common childhood fear of 'something' hiding in the bedroom closet to produce a very chilling tale.

Another strong tale is 'Grey Matter', when a batch of bad beer has dire consequences for a boy's father.

In 'Battleground' a professional hitman finds himself under attack by toy soldiers after killing a toy manufacturer. A great OTT idea, with an amusing punchline.

There's more inanimate objects coming to life in 'Trucks', when vehicles start driving themselves and trap a group of drivers at a truck stop. It's a great concept, though this is more of a situation than a story with a beginning, middle and end.

In 'Sometimes They Come Back' a schoolteacher is haunted by the killers of his long-dead brother. A more traditional ghost story after the last few bizarre tales, but no less effective for all that.

'Strawberry Spring' deals with a serial killer on a college campus. Despite the lack of any supernatural content there is a distinctly otherworldly feel to this evocative fog-bound piece, and n terms of prose this is the most accomplished story in the collection thus far.

King enters straight thriller territory with 'The Ledge', where a man who's crossed a gangster takes up a life or death bet that he can walk round the outside of a high-rise apartment on a 5-inch wide ledge. A simple but brilliant idea, with a nice twist in the tail.

A man gets more than he bargained for when he hires someone to cut his lawn in 'The Lawnmower Man'. Bearing no relation to the film of the same name, this is a short and bizarre piece, filled with some fantastically insane imagery.

'Quitters, Inc' features another great concept, with a company offering a unique method of curing cigarette addiction. The concept and punishments for breaking the treatment are so rich in potential drama that it's almost a shame this story isn't twice as long, but this is still a fantastic punchy read with a nice twist ending.

'I Know What You Need' tells the story of a nerd with the magical power to give people whatever they need, and his attempts to win over a girl. A decent enough story, but rather overshadowed by the more outlandish concepts elsewhere in the book: this is well done but forgettable in comparison.

Perhaps the most famous of all the stories in the collection, 'Children Of The Corn' finds two travellers stranded in a town where homicidal children intend to sacrifice them to He Who Walks Behind The Rows. A fantastically dark tale of religious mania, this plays on the urbanites fear of isolated rural communities, and does for small-town America what The Wicker Man did to the Scottish Islands.

'The Last Rung on the Ladder' is the first tale that doesn't fit into the horror / weird fiction genre, being a melancholy and quite beautiful tale of a girl's brush with death as a child and her relationship with her older brother. A nice change of pace.

'The Man Who Loved Flowers' is one of the least impressive stories in the collection, being a very short piece dependant solely on it's twist ending for effect. Pleasantly written, but the story lacks any original ideas.

Next up is 'One For The Road', a tale of a mans attempt to save his wife and daughter after they are stranded in a snowstorm. Opening tale Jerusalem's Lot ironically had no connection to King's 'Salem's Lot, but this is a straight sequel set a couple of years down the line.

Finally 'The Woman in the Room' is another non-genre piece, a very bleak tale of a woman suffering from terminal cancer, and her sons doubt over whether or not to administer a mercy killing.

There is a lot of variety to be found in this collection, as King delivers much more than a sequence of horror stories. The horror is there in droves, of course, but so are stories of a general bent that show just how effective a writer King is when he wanders away from the dark forces usually driving his imagination. The Woman in the Room, for example, is a rather tender story of a son struggling with his mother's impending death, while I Know What You Need and The Man Who Loved Flowers display romantic sensibilities of a truly engaging nature.

The book opens with Jerusalem's Lot, a thoroughly Lovecraftian exploration of the early history of this infamous little hamlet; told in the form of letters and steeped in Mythos lore, it is the type of tale that could have been written by a member of the original Lovecraft Circle. One For the Road also centers on Jerusalem's Lot; it's unusual to set a vampire story against the backdrop of a severe New England blizzard, but this proves to be one of the most effective stories in this collection. Rats, traditional horror favorites, play a part in a couple of stories, particularly Graveyard Shift with its rat-infested subterranean levels containing monstrosities that can no longer be considered mere rats.

The Ledge is, to me, the most uncomfortably effective story in the collection, mainly because it ruthlessly exploits my own fear of heights. Quitters, Inc., though, stands head and shoulders above the other nineteen stories; brilliant in its conception and development, it details a brutally surefire way to quit smoking. Children of the Corn is also a masterful tale; the film adaptation elaborately expounds upon the idea, but the core of the story and the mysterious horror of He Who Walks Behind the Rows is given a glorious birth in these pages. Sometimes They Come Back gave birth to two less than exhilarating films, but the original story is vintage Stephen King, with three dead youths returning to high school to finish the deadly job they started years ago. Then there is The Boogeyman which builds upon the palpitating fear that has touched every child scared of the dark; I can picture King grinning wickedly as he was writing the twisted final lines of this tale.

Battleground holds special meaning for me as this was the first Stephen King story I ever read - believe it or not, we actually read this in my advanced English class in seventh grade. Some regard it as a weak contribution to Night Shift, but the story is a lot of fun despite its rather unbelievable nature. The Lawnmower Man is more than weird enough to be memorable. Some people also don't care for The Last Rung on the Ladder, but I think it is a wonderful little story; the human element takes precedence over any overt horror, and some people prefer their monsters to be external to themselves. The Man Who Loved Flowers is masterfully done, an idyllic look at a young man in love that takes a deliciously insidious turn at the end. I Know What You Need is similarly executed; this account of a young lady who finds true love (or so she thinks) in the most unlikely of potential mates calls to mind the psychological mastery of Shirley Jackson.

There are no bad stories in this collection, but a few don't live up to the standards of the rest. Strawberry Spring is a little disappointing, as this story of a serial killer who comes in with the fog of unusual New England weather is quite predictable. I Am the Doorway, with its touch of alien horror, isn't as good as I think it might have been, Gray Matter is the equivalent of Creepshow's The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill, The Mangler offers nothing special, Night Surf is a pale shadow of its cousin The Stand, and Trucks runs out of gas rather quickly.

All in all, Night Shift delivers a shockingly good collection of short stories from the hand of a masterful story teller plumbing the depths of his horror-laden imagination while at the same time tapping into his immense knowledge of human nature and popular culture to produce tales of fiction that will appeal to a wide range of readers.