A collection of stories, “Everything’s Eventual” includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four stories published by “The New Yorker,” and “Riding the Bullet,” King’s original ebook, which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade. “Riding the Bullet,” published here on paper for the first time, is the story of Alan … Parker, who’s hitchhiking to see his dying mother but takes the wrong ride, farther than he ever intended. In “Lunch at the Gotham Cafe,” a sparring couple’s contentious lunch turns very, very bloody when the maitre d’ gets out of sorts. “1408,” the audio story in print for the first time, is about a successful writer whose specialty is “Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards” or “Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses,” and though Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel doesn’t kill him, he won’t be writing about ghosts anymore. And in “That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French,” terror is deja vu at 16,000 feet.
Whether writing about encounters with the dead, the near dead, or about the mundane dreads of life, from quitting smoking to yard sales, Stephen King is at the top of his form in the fourteen dark tales assembled in “Everything’s Eventual.” Intense, eerie, and instantly compelling, they announce the stunningly fertile imagination of perhaps the greatest storyteller of our time.
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Loved it!! Great book of short stories!
This anthology has been one of my favorite for years, I find myself remembering some of the stories years later out of nowhere.
Stephen King is everything you would want in an author and more! the best short story in this book was easily ” the man in the black suit “. This story kept me up for a while that night, and “Autopsy room 4” connected with one of my greatest fears! This book is eventual!
If the book is superb – and it is – the audio version is on another planet. It’s seriously good. I know the material is top notch, which helps, but those voice actors deserve medals. I’ve never heard better, and I get through a lot of these things. A LOT.
It’s one of King’s best anthologies, definitely worth buying, Picking up and reading from cover to cover.
This is a reread for me, I first read this collection sometime back in the mid-2000’s. I just read “Elevation” by SK, and it left me a little unsatisfied and wanting of a little more of King’s magic. I wasn’t ready to take on a full novel, so I grabbed this thinking I would just read a short story or two. Well, the next thing you know, I’ve finished the whole thing. “Everything’s Eventual” is a collection of 14 stories, or as the title states, 14 dark tales that I believe King wrote mostly in the 1990’s. I always enjoy King’s explanatory notes included with his short stories that often reveal his inspiration or parts of his process.
This collection certainly filled the void that reading Elevation left. I think what really struck me about this group of stories is the honesty that King reveals. The stories hit on marriage, mother & son relationships, divorce, and other such relationships that King has clearly torn pieces from his past and laid bare for us to examine. Of course, they are all encapsulated in supernatural or horror stories. In two of the stories, “1408” and “The Road Virus Heads North”, King uses main characters that are writers, which is not unusual for him. But, continuing the theme of honesty, I feel like he opens the kimono here concerning his insecurities as a writer. In both stories the writers are horror authors and King uses phrases like “bottom feeders” or “projectile vomiting” to describe their genre and style. I think King did experience some self-doubt back in the ‘90s and it bleeds through here in his stories.
I really enjoyed the title story, “Everything’s Eventual”. The main character, Dinky, reminds me a bit of Arnie from “Christine”, but the storyline harkens to “Hearts in Atlantis” and the Dark Tower series. I love the way King sets up some very unusual plot points and then slowly reveals the fantastic, weird backstory, like a strip tease.
You also get a Roland of Gilead (Dark Tower) story, that’s not crucial for the Dark Tower storyline, but is essential if you’re a big fan of the series. The winner of the O. Henry short story competition, “The Man in the Black Suit” is included and is an excellent creepy fireside story. And “Riding the Bullet” was an early ebook that sold a half million and helped establish that format.
All-in-all, a very strong assemblage of shadowy tales, some clever, some brilliantly horrific, but all engaging and authentically told.
I loved it, very good reading. Hate to put it down.
I had this book as an audio cd. My family’s favorite was The Road Virus Goes North. Very riveting.
Loved it!! Great book of short stories!
I had this book as an audio cd. My family’s favorite was The Road Virus Goes North. Very riveting.
This anthology has been one of my favorite for years, I find myself remembering some of the stories years later out of nowhere.
Stephen King is everything you would want in an author and more! the best short story in this book was easily ” the man in the black suit “. This story kept me up for a while that night, and “Autopsy room 4” connected with one of my greatest fears! This book is eventual!
If the book is superb – and it is – the audio version is on another planet. It’s seriously good. I know the material is top notch, which helps, but those voice actors deserve medals. I’ve never heard better, and I get through a lot of these things. A LOT.
It’s one of King’s best anthologies, definitely worth buying, Picking up and reading from cover to cover.
This is a reread for me, I first read this collection sometime back in the mid-2000’s. I just read “Elevation” by SK, and it left me a little unsatisfied and wanting of a little more of King’s magic. I wasn’t ready to take on a full novel, so I grabbed this thinking I would just read a short story or two. Well, the next thing you know, I’ve finished the whole thing. “Everything’s Eventual” is a collection of 14 stories, or as the title states, 14 dark tales that I believe King wrote mostly in the 1990’s. I always enjoy King’s explanatory notes included with his short stories that often reveal his inspiration or parts of his process.
This collection certainly filled the void that reading Elevation left. I think what really struck me about this group of stories is the honesty that King reveals. The stories hit on marriage, mother & son relationships, divorce, and other such relationships that King has clearly torn pieces from his past and laid bare for us to examine. Of course, they are all encapsulated in supernatural or horror stories. In two of the stories, “1408” and “The Road Virus Heads North”, King uses main characters that are writers, which is not unusual for him. But, continuing the theme of honesty, I feel like he opens the kimono here concerning his insecurities as a writer. In both stories the writers are horror authors and King uses phrases like “bottom feeders” or “projectile vomiting” to describe their genre and style. I think King did experience some self-doubt back in the ‘90s and it bleeds through here in his stories.
I really enjoyed the title story, “Everything’s Eventual”. The main character, Dinky, reminds me a bit of Arnie from “Christine”, but the storyline harkens to “Hearts in Atlantis” and the Dark Tower series. I love the way King sets up some very unusual plot points and then slowly reveals the fantastic, weird backstory, like a strip tease.
You also get a Roland of Gilead (Dark Tower) story, that’s not crucial for the Dark Tower storyline, but is essential if you’re a big fan of the series. The winner of the O. Henry short story competition, “The Man in the Black Suit” is included and is an excellent creepy fireside story. And “Riding the Bullet” was an early ebook that sold a half million and helped establish that format.
All-in-all, a very strong assemblage of shadowy tales, some clever, some brilliantly horrific, but all engaging and authentically told.
I loved it, very good reading. Hate to put it down.