Wow, even at 14

Mr. King has been at this a very long time!

Picture courtesy of Lilja's Library

I would love to know what the story was and if they did publish it. It would suck to be the person that passed on SK.

The Stand (Original Version)

It just would not be flu season without reading a novel about a plague!

The abridged version of The Stand. I have never read this version but I have twice read the unabridged, all 1100 pages. I have always wanted to read this version, mostly so I could explore the differences. Hopefully I will be able to do that - although with so many books in between it seems a little unlikely.

I love that he felt this is his fantasy epic, like The Lord of the Rings. I agree, up to a point, because The Dark Tower series is his LOTR epic. I feel qualified to make that statement since I have read his catalog and I have read LOTR ten times. [Why read new books, when there are so many brilliant ones to re-read?]
Stephen King's Inspiration:

For a long time--ten years, at least--I had wanted to write a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting. I just couldn't figure out how to do it. Then, slowly after my wife and kids and I moved to Boulder, Colorado, I saw a 60 Minutes segment on CBW (chemical-biological warfare). I never forgot the gruesome footage of the test mice shuddering, convulsing, and dying, all in twenty seconds or less. That got me remembering a chemical spill in Utah that killed a bunch of sheep (these were canisters on their way to some burial ground; they fell off the truck and ruptured). I remembered a news reporter saying, "If the winds had been blowing the other way, there was Salt Lake City." This incident later served as the basis of a movie called Rage, starring George C. Scott, but before it was released, I was deep into The Stand, finally writing my American fantasy epic, set in a plague-decimated USA. Only instead of a hobbit, my hero was a Texan named Stu Redman, and instead of a Dark Lord, my villain was a ruthless drifter and supernatural madman named Randall Flagg. The land of Mordor ("where the shadows lie, according to Tolkien) was played by Las Vegas.

Night Shift...over

Whew, that was one long read. Funny, because it was a bunch of short stories - not like The Stand at 800 pages (that comes next). Not to mention going on a retreat and not having time to read.

The first time I read this was early on in my exploration of Stephen King. I had read maybe 5 or 6 other books. I did not have an awareness of his catalog. Reading it now, I can see how this collection of short stories is a premonition of the his work - all of these stories were written before 1978, some as early as 1973. It is also an example of King at his best.

King has said that a lot of his ideas come from dreams that he has. He wakes up and writes them down; some become novels. I had always assumed that what he wrote down became a chapter, or was some how edited away. I might wonder if some of the short stories is Night Shift were the ideas that spawned other works. For example:

• Night Surf - a story about kids in an end of the world scenario where a plague has killed many. The Stand is a novel about what happens when 99.9% of the world's population dies from a flu-like virus.
• Trucks - you may know this story as the movie "Maximum Overdrive," motorvehicles come to 'life' and try to do away with all of the humans. This has reflections of Christine. Although, The Mangler (a laundry folding machine gets a taste for human blood) may be a more appropriate forshadowing of Christine.
• I Know What You Need - a story about a young man who somehow knows exactly what the object of his affection needs. One could draw a parallel, a crooked one, to The Dead Zone. Ultimately they are both about being psychic.

The aspect of King's short story work that I love is his exploration of "bad endings." The short story does not always end well. In the case of Night Surf, the kids are on the beach. They have just come from a dastardly deed and they are enjoying the surf. One of the group has come down with A6. The story ends on a sour note because you know that they are all going to catch it.
I have to say, I love a sad/bad ending. I think it suits reality a bit more. It is nice to focus on the hope that a happy ending provides. But I think it is good to know and explore the fact that things do not always end well.

Next up, the abridged version of The Stand