Reviews

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: Stories by Stephen King

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midnightgremlin's review

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slow-paced

3.0

dj68's review

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3.0

Here is yet another Stephen King short story-collection. Those have been hit or miss for me in the past (as have the novels), with Night Shift and Skeleton Crew as the outstanding works, freakishly scary on a lot of levels. Later, there were Nightmares & Dreamscapes and Everything's Eventual, two collections I couldn't get into – especially EE. Different Seasons, Four Past Midnight and Full Dark, No Stars are overall very good stories, with the novella The Langoliers being one of my absolute favourites. Just After Sunset proved that King could still scare the s**t out of us while tugging at our heart strings. I also loved how he wrote a lot about the problems of getting older.
And now we have The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, which I really looked forward to, so I'm sad to say that it is a mixed bag.

There may be slight spoilers in the following.

Mile 81: A monster car that eats people. Yes, you read that right. It's a very juvenile and silly story, without any scares or reflections on the human condition.

Premium Harmony: A dysfunctional couple going to the supermarket. Of course something happens that changes the husband's life and though the story is somewhat melancholic, it never really hits home.

Batman and Robin Have an Altercation: A man and his Alzheimer-ridden father confronts a road ragey guy. Had some sweet elements but just peters out.

The Dune: An old judge discovers a dune on a remote island where upon names are written, names of people who will die shortly after. I liked the idea a lot, but it couls have been so much more and it was extremely predictable.

Bad Little Kid: This may be my favourite story in this collection. A kid shows up several times during a man's lifetime and everytime, something bad or violent happens. This story really had a surreal and tense feeling.

A Death: A western murder mystery. Rather boring and silly.

The Bone Church: A poem which didn't make a lick of sense to me.

Morality: A couple in financial trouble gets a proposition that can erase all their problems. I liked this story, though the wife's later reaction to it all seemed a little cartoonish.

Afterlife: A man dies and is given the choice to pass on or go back and live his life again in every, little detail. Again, loved the idea but the execution lacked substance.

Ur: Read this one a year or two ago on my Kindle for PC, and didn't really get into it, but this time I really liked it. Ironically, this story is about a Kindle that has access to parallel worlds, and I can't seem to get into a book when using an electronic device for reading it.

Herman Wouk Is Still Alive: Two trailer trash women go on a drunken road trip with their kids in the back seat. I kinda liked this one, it was tense, but it just ends too sudden.

Under the Weather: A ”love story” with a dark twist. Grim and somewhat sad.

Blockade Billy: A baseball story. I gave it a chance, read one third of it and gave up. I have no interest in sports whatsoever.

Mister Yummy: An old man at a retirement home tells his friend that he's seeing some version of the grim reaper, in the shape of a young guy he and his gay friends lusted after when they were young. Again, King writes very well about people at the end of their lives, but this story also lacked bite.

Tommy: Another poem about a friend thinking about one of his dead friends. Better than The Bone Church, but a little meh.

The Little Green God of Agony: A man has been in an accident and can't seem to get well, so he gets a priest to get rid of this ”pain demon” inside him. This is more of a straight-up horror story, just without any scares. And a silly conclusion.

That Bus Is Another World: A man is on his way to New York City for a job interview, when things start to go wrong and he sees something that forced him to make a moral choice. I liked the set-up of this and it would have benefitted from being fleshed out.

Obits: A man discovers that he can kill people by writing fictional orbituaries. I liked this one as well, though it didn't quite go as far as I wanted it to.

Drunken Fireworks: A man and his mother start a fireworks competition every year on July 4th, with the people across the lake from them. This, I guess, was more of a dark comedy that didn't go all out. It has the honour, though, of being the only story in this collection that had a line that made me laugh out loud.

Summer Thunder: The end of the world. This one was one of the best, not scary, but chilling and rather melancholic.

While King is a gifted writer, and I liked the fact that this collection dealt a lot with moral choices and their complications, none of the stories really hit home.
Overall I will give this collection 2½ stars, rounding up to three, because of the cool cover and the endless hours of entertainment King has given me in the past.

angus_mckeogh's review

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4.0

As much as I love his novels and longer works, whenever King publishes shorter works and I finish reading them, I come to the conclusion that King might even be a better short story writer than he is a novelist. My only gripe with this collection is I'd already read about half of these selections when they were originally published in other forms of media. Great stuff.

headinthebooks's review against another edition

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3.0

Overall this was a 3 stars read!

I really liked the stories, ofc there's some I like more than others. But the way the stories was written and the themes, was nice... ig?

Here's a review of some stories(can be have some spoilers?):

Mile 81: 3.75 stars; I didn't know where it was going but then when the story stared to pick up its pace, I really enjoyed it. I also really liked the different prospectives. The only thing is that I don't think that kids thinks or speaks like the main kid does in this story.

Premium Harmony: 3 stars! DOG LOVERS! THERE'S A WARNING HERE! It was pretty normal but I just f.... hate Roy! How? Doesn't he think? I got so sad and mad! Poor Biz! But I can teel the meaning of with this one, and I totally get it! I also hug my sister's dog (Who I was 'Babysitting' while reading this)!

Batman and Robin: 3 stars, it was a pretty normal story about a father and his son! I liked the plot twist at the end! It both made me laugh and mad.. Ig?

Bad little kid; 3.75 stars. I loved the narrating style how we went back and forth from George Halla telling Mr Bradley about the bad little boy(from his childhood to before prison), to the present time (In prison). Loved it!

A death: 3 stars. I liked the whole mystery behind the whole sotry and then the plot twist at the end of the story! Loved that! I also liked how you go from hating the main character to voting for him to hating him again!