“Stephen King at his best” (The Denver Post)—a terrifying, award-winning collection of stories from the outer limits of one of the greatest imaginations of our time. A supermarket becomes the place where humanity makes its last stand against destruction. A trip to the attic becomes a journey to hell. A woman driver finds a scary shortcut to paradise. An idyllic lake harbors a bottomless evil. … bottomless evil. And a desert island is the scene of the most terrifying struggle for survival ever waged. These “wonderfully gruesome” stories (The New York Times Book Review) include: “The Mist”; “Here There Be Tygers”; “The Monkey”; “Cain Rose Up”; “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut”; “The Jaunt”; “The Wedding Gig”; “Paranoid: A Chant”; “The Raft”; “Word Processor of the Gods”; “The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands”; “Beachworld”; “The Reaper’s Image”; “Nona”; “For Owen”; “Survivor Type”; “Uncle Otto’s Truck”; “Morning Deliveries (Milkman No. 1)”; “Big Wheels: a Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman No. 2)”; “Gramma”; “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet”; and “The Reach.”
In this “wildly imaginative, delightfully diabolical collection…King once again proves to be the consummate storyteller” (The Associated Press).
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Great short story.
I’ve always been a fan of short stories–they are my favorite to read and to write. Original and with the character development you expect from King, Skeleton Crew is not to be…MIST. (And if you haven’t read or seen THE MIST, a series based on a story of the same name from this collection, check that out too!)
Vintage King
ballad of the flexible bullet has been one of my favorite short stories bar none! read this book more then 30 years ago and still remember most of the stories as if i read them yesterday. caution! this will keep you up at night, first reading even when you know you should stop, and then because you didn’t stop!
A wonderful collection of Stephen King’s short stories, which I feel are underrated. Of course, he is a great novelist, but his short stories hold a certain charm to them that cannot be beat. Each story is truly strange and unique.
Kong’s books never fail!
This is my favorite of Stephen King’s short story collections. Every few years, I pick it up and reread it– or at least reread my favorite stories– and renew my love of this author’s world-building, terror-sustaining ability. He may be known as a long-winded novelist, but much of King’s best work comes in short form.
Among my favorite stories in Skeleton Crew is the absolutely terrifying tale, “The Myst.” It’s longer than most short stories, closer to a novella, but it is absolutely perfect. (There was a movie several years ago that completely botched the ending– which ruined the entire thing for me. Read the story. Trust me.) Another of my favorites is “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut,” which will appeal to anyone who has ever tried to beat their own best time getting to work. It’s an amusingly grim tale, like so many of King’s imaginative stories in this collection.
Perhaps one of the most gruesome stories I’ve ever read is included in this anthology. “Survivor Type” is a desert island scenario that goes beyond any dinner party game about what you would do if you were stuck alone on an island. The protagonist has to make some truly horrifying choices and the title is apt: being the survivor type means being willing to do unimaginable things to survive. I get chills just thinking about it!
Though this is an older collection, King’s stories in Skeleton Crew are among some of the best he’s ever written in his long career. Bazaar of Bad Dreams gives Skeleton Crew a run for it’s money, I think, but that’s another review entirely!
This collection of short stories is how I first got interested in reading horror. If you’ve never read horror before, this is a GREAT place to start!
Some of my favorite stories are in this collection, Gramma being one of them. All are worth reading multiple times.
Several years after he terrified readers with Night Shift, Stephen King returned with his second collection of nightmares… And nightmares they are! As with any short story collection, Skeleton Crew is not just a collection of horror stories. You can find laughs, science fiction, fantasy, and even crime fiction in this collection. But, if you’re looking for terror, you’ll find chills in every one of these stories. And that’s great news to me! Different Seasons, Hearts in Atlantis, The Green Mile, and the first four volumes of the Dark Tower series… I’ve read books I totally enjoyed by Stephen King that were not horror stories at all, which is exciting! As a storyteller and as a very skilled writer, King has proved how easily he can transcend the horror genre to entertain and enlighten readers in any genre he chooses to explore. But it’s horror I love reading by him the most, which is why I love the horror stories featured in this book the best! For other fright fans who are especially looking for horror when they read this collection, maybe the stories you will find the best and creepiest are the ones that terrified me: The Monkey, Cain Rose Up, Survivor Type, Uncle Otto’s Truck, and The Reach. If you’re looking for horror from this master storyteller, you’ll be happy to open up this book and let the King of Horror’s Skeleton Crew of ghouls work hard to horrify you into having a sleepless night!