"N" is the highlight of this collection. It's one of King's best -- eerie, disturbing, and it lingers long after the final page. Loved it.

The other stories range from enjoyable to passable. It makes sense that, as King indicates in the book's opening, many of these stories were written as he was getting back into writing shorts. Some stories, like "Harvey's Dream", feel like idea exercises. But other stories, like "Mute", are chilling in that way only King can evoke. And other stories ("The Cat From Hell" and "A Very Tight Place" feel like old-school King in the best way). ( )

Who but Stephen King would turn a Port-O-San into a slimy birth canal, or a roadside honky-tonk into a place for endless love?
A book salesman with a grievance might pick up a mute hitchhiker, not knowing the silent man in the passenger seat listens altogether too well.
Or an exercise routine on a stationary bicycle, begun to reduce bad cholesterol, might take its rider on a captivating--and then terrifying--journey.
Set on a remote key in Florida, "The Gingerbread Girl" is a riveting tale featuring a young woman as vulnerable--and resourceful--as Audrey Hepburn's character in Wait Until Dark.
In "Ayana," a blind girl works a miracle with a kiss and the touch of her hand.
Just After Sunset--call it dusk, call it twilight, it's a time when human intercourse takes on an unnatural cast, when the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they dissipate to darkness and living daylight can be scared right out of you.

This is a collection of King's short stories, all but one of which have been previously published in various magazines. As usual with any story collection, there is a variation of quality. Or, I guess I should say, a variation in how much I liked them. They are all quality tales. A couple are sort of sweet, even though they deal with death. (I could think of worse afterlives than spending my time dancing, although I'd prefer a different music selection than what they have in "Willa"). Some seemed like they could easily make episodes of Twilight Zone. A couple bored me. I prefer my horror supernatural, and some of these tales are not that. They're scary- "Gingerbread Girl" is a very tense tale of a lone woman being pursued by a serial killer- but not to my taste. Oddly, the one that made my skin crawl with horror wasn't a supernatural tale. The last story in the book, "A Very Tight Place" is a revenge story- one where the main character is trapped inside a Porta-Potty. This just happened to hit on one of my personal phobias. I give the book 3.5 stars. ( )

Book 71 - was enjoyable enough, some of the stories are better than others. I enjoy the short story format that King employs.

Well what to say about this book....sometimes Stephen King is just hit and miss. This was a miss unforuantely as I only liked about three of the stories. I won't be going into detail with the stories, but I will list the ones I liked. I felt like I slogged through over five hundred pages for nothing, but at least I finished the book and it didn't end up on my DNF shelf which normally that is where most of the books end up if I am muddling through them.

The best parts of the book was the Introduction by Stephen King and he ends the book with some notes, other than that this book just dropped off for me. Now that is just me, there are probably other people that will love it and it has received four to five star reviews, but it just didn't make the grade with me. The stories I liked are: The Gingerbread Girl, The Things They Left Behind, and The Cat From Hell. Giving this book two stars. ( )