Customer Reviews

Four Past Midnight

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In "The Langoliers," a handful of people fall alseep on an airplane...they then wake up in a world without life, still in the plane. It is full of great characterization and suspense, along with a few twists! A personal favorite.

In "Secret Window, Secret Garden," a writer, Mort, is accused of plagerism...this story turns into much more than that, however. It's really shocking, and hard to call if you haven't see the movie (Secret Window).

In "The Library Policeman," the main character (can't recall the man) is haunted by his childhood fear of "the library policeman". However, that fear is rational...for the Library Policeman...is real!

In "The Sun Dog," Keven gets a camera with a haunting effect..it has the picture of a a dog slowly moving. Very haunting and creeping, with a masterful ending!!!!

"Four Past Midnight" is a collection of novellas that are all amazing. HOWEVER, please note that the reader must be able to stretch his mind in all cases, as many of the stories are unrealistic.

However, all of them are really horror and truly amazing. GO STEPHEN KING!

i recently saw the movie secret window, and loved it. then i saw the book in borders and decided to read it. i have to say i like the story almost more than the movie! ive read all the stories except the sun dog, which i am almost done with. this is definitely a book worth reading.

Another Stephen King masterpiece. All 4 stories were very well written. King gives you all the details you need to imagine these characters as if they are real and to see everything happening. Even if you've seen the movie "Secret Window" staring Johnny Depp I strongly urge you to read this. His books are 100% better than any of the movies of his work (even though Johnny Depp did an outstanding job in his role of Mort Rainey).

I was impressed with Secret Window. I have seen the movie so was expecting it to follow it exactly which it did for the most part. There are things missing from the book and I like that. But I think I enjoy the book better.

This is a good read. No doubt about it that King is one of the greatest writers of his genre.

The first two stories "THE LANGOLIERS" and "SECRET WINDOW, SECRET GARDEN" are great stories. However, "The Sun Dog" seems a bit sloppy in the story plot. King didn't even bother to craft it more delicately. He seemed just tried to make it to the print.

Four more tales of terror from the undisputed master, Stephen King. As always, nobody does it better--though newcomer John Robert Marlow's NANO is (in a different way) equally terrifying. Can't wait to see the movies!

I saw this movie a few weeks ago, and I thought it was good enough that I decided to buy this book. So far, I've read "The Langoliers" and I'm almost finished with "Secret Window, Secret Garden." So far, I'm loving this book.

In "The Langoliers," Captain Brian Engle awakes on an passenger airliner to discover that only a handful of the passengers are still onboard. They made no stops, there was no hijacking...and they are being pursued by something nameless, something evil...

In "Secret Window, Secret Garden," author Mort Rainey is having a crisis. You see, a man has showed up at Mort's doorstep, saying Mort stole his story. But Mort didn't. Or did he? And just how far is this man willing to go to get what he wants?

In "The Library Policeman," Sam Peebles goes to his local library to collect some books on delivery a good speech. Only he finds something straight out of hell: an evil librarian who's name is never spoken in the town, and who died years ago...and a mysterious man who calls himself the Library Policeman, and shame on you if you don't return your books on time...and Sam's due-date has just passed...

In "The Sun Dog," 15-year-old Keven Delevan receives a camera for his birthday. But the camera takes pictures of only one thing: a black dog, a horrible beast, who grows ever closer, and is only getting more hungry...

"Four Past Midnight." Each novella comes complete with a brief introduction. Stephen King. The master of the horror genre. Stephen King's "Four Past Midnight"--a stellar read, captivating and unforgettably chilling...

Stephen King packages four novellas into a gynormous horror anthology and dabbles in various genres, and it's another worth-it get. King also provides a foreword for each novella, unveiling insights and inspirations for his stories here. For my money, THE LANGOLIERS and THE LIBRARY POLICEMAN are the two standouts. They really profit from King's knack for writing fully-realized characters and articulating our fear of the dark. The other two entries are SECRET WINDOW, SECRET GARDEN and THE SUN DOG, and they're decent reads. I didn't like them as much as the first two mentioned.

THE LANGOLIERS is definitely better experienced as a novella rather than as a telecast. Whereas the movie - featuring a predominantly uninvolving cast - seems to just slog thru in many spots, Stephen King, in his literary purview, gleefully gives you access to the key characters' thought processes. There's nothing like the book format for revealing that kinetic internal conflict. And, plus, King is pretty good at setting up the premise and layering in the horror aspects, only this time he's cavorting in the sci-fi backyard. Like most of his works, this novella induces a creeping sense of unease, and I am amazed, as always, with this writer's creativity and imagination. Asserting that THE LANGOLIERS is something that could've come out from the Twilight Zone is perfectly apt. It's even a sort of distant cousin to that one episode "The Odyssey of Flight 33."

The passenger list includes a detective novelist, a pilot, a mysterious British gent, a blind girl, and a dangerous madman. On a commercial red-eye from Los Angeles to Boston, in mid-flight, ten people wake up and discover that the crew and the rest of the passengers have vanished. And then things get strange. Just in case you're in the dark about this story, I'll only mention that THE LANGOLIERS brings a new twist to the time travel concept and introduces a new kind of post-apocalyptic environment. King's mastery over plot and character development is in full display, as is his ability to merge the mundane with the paranormal, the horror with the science-fiction. My only gripe - and I frankly had the same issue with IT - is that when the story's Big Bad, the Langoliers, do finally appear, they don't quite live up to expectations. Other than that... an absolutely gripping read.

If you've seen Johnny Depp's movie, then you've caught the gist of SECRET WINDOW, SECRET GARDEN (although the film ends very differently from this story). Divorced, depressed, and reclusive author Mort Rainey is visited by a menacing stranger who claims that Mort years ago had stolen his story. This novella holds echoes of THE DARK HALF and as in that book and in THE SHINING and THE LANGOLIERS, we get one of Stephen King's specialties which is depicting a character's slow descent into paranoia and madness and making it seem believable. This story is basically a two-man show, featuring Mort (who knows he hasn't committed plagiarism but can't prove it) and the homicidally distraught John Shooter. This is actually more a psychological thriller than a horror story.

"Everything was the fault of the goddamn acrobat." That's the pretty intriguing opening line to THE LIBRARY POLICEMAN. When the librarian lady at the sleepy public library in Junction City, Iowa encourages Sam Peebles to return his borrowed books on time or else beware the Library Policeman, Sam maybe should've listened. This is a wonderfully creepy story about a terrifying supernatural boogeyman that had long preyed on Junction City. It also demonstrates why licorice is good for the soul. If you've ever harbored childhood fears of the Library Policeman, yeah, by all means, read this story.

THE SUN DOG concerns a haunted camera. On his 15th birthday, Kevin is presented with a Polaroid Sun 660 camera, something he'd wanted for a while now. But to say that the camera isn't working up to specs is understating things, kinda like saying Stephen King doesn't mind making his readers soil their pants. Kevin's camera is most definitely functioning beyond its parameters. Not only is it not working the way it should but no matter where Kevin points the thing, it always takes the same picture: that of a large snarling black dog that seems to be getting closer and closer with each developed image. This is an interesting read, but THE SUN DOG suffers from a weak ending and an overall narrative that never did coalesce for me. I did like the bit with "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy sleeping dog." Note that THE SUN DOG serves as a prologue to NEEDFUL THINGS.

This story collection contains four tales spun from the "colorful" mind of Stephen King:

The Langoliers: Probably the most innovative and mind-boggling of the four, dealing with a plane-load of passengers that starts to experience some strange phenomena. Very unique, exciting, and not unlike an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Secret Window, Secret Garden: Today's generation will know this title from the Johnny Depp film of roughly the same name, about a solitary writer visted by a strange man claiming to have "stole his story". Contains a mind-blowing ending that you won't see coming.

The Library Policeman: Easily the strangest story in the binding, about a library patron who has been around a lot longer than she lets one. One of those stories that really digs deep into the abscesses of King's mind.

The Sun Dog: Perhaps the weakest story of the bunch, yet still engrossing enough to keep you turning pages as a Polaroid photograph shows of glimpse of something far beyond darkroom chemicals.

Overall, this is a top-notch story collection that will compell you to keep reading at every chapter break. What more can one ask for?!