Night Shift (1978) - Review

There's a reason why Night Shift has led to so many film and television adaptations.  It's good.  Damn good.

I've read that King himself sees a very cocky, self-confident, top of the world writer when he reads The Shining.  And that's definitely true, but it's incredibly evident in some of the short stories presented in Night Shift.

After my bad experience with Rage, which was an early novel that he decided to publish quietly as Richard Bachman, I was afraid that I might have a similar experience with Night shift, knowing that a good deal of these stories had been written in the decade prior to publication in Night Shift.

Boy was I wrong.

King shows off how versatile of a writer he is as well, following an epistolary story in the vein of Lovecraft in Jerusalem's Lot, with Graveyard Shift, which feels like it's yanked out of some 1950's era pre-Comics Code Authority EC comic, The mental image of gigantic mutant rats that had begin to take on some traits of both ant colonies and bats, is an image that I'll carry with me for a while.

Night Surf, the third story in Night Shift, was essentially a companion story to The Stand.  However, since Night Shift was published before The Stand (and Night Surf was originally published all the way back in 1969), readers at the time would have no way of knowing of the cross over.

I'm not sure if Night Surf is considered "canon" now or if it's just supposed to be viewed as a work in progress of the ideas that eventually led to The Stand.  The Captain Trips virus seems to be a little bit different than what was described in The Stand.  But I really appreciated, as the story unfolded, how the main characters attachment to any kind of morality or higher authorities seemed to vanish as societal structure collapsed.

I am the Doorway didn't feel like a Stephen King story at all.  It reminded me most of an episode of the 1950's old radio drama X Minus One or an episode of The Twilight Zone.  It's the first stab at straight up science fiction that I've seen King try and I really liked it, even if the end was a bit predictable.

Another thing I really appreciated in this collection was King's willingness to be flat out silly.  Battleground and Trucks demonstrated this fully.  I already commented on my adoration of Battleground.  While I don't feel as strongly about Trucks, its hard not to admire a serious horror story based on the idea that one day all the trucks in the world became sentient and just decided to enslave and/or kill humanity.

Sometimes They Come Back and The Man Who Loved Flowers both felt like they could have been written by a slightly darker O. Henry.

Quitters, Inc. was a particularly strong as well.  If you've ever seen The Game, you have an idea of the nature of this story.  Very cool idea.  The two concepts are so similar, I wonder if the Game stole some of the ideas from King.

 Children of the Corn was creepy but not really one of my favorites.  It was good, not great.

The only story in Night Shift I actively disliked was The Lawnmower Man, which was just so bizarre that I just rolled my eyes, said "Whatever, dude," and moved on.

I wonder if all of King's short story collections are this good, because he definitely brought his A-game to this one.

Next up: The Stand.

Indian in the Cupboard meets Full Metal Jacket

Making my way through Night shift. I had to stop reading to write this.

  Battleground may just be one of my favorite things I've ever read.  It's so batty, and so insane...and just so much fun that it left me giddy in a way I haven't felt reading a story since I was a kid.

The plot is simple enough.  Renshaw is a world renowned assassin who has just taken out a toy-maker.  Upon returning home, he receives a package containing a GI Joe vietnam footlocker, sent to him by the toy-maker's mother.

The tiny toy figures inside, including all of their weapons and vehicles, come to life and begin a full frontal assault to take Renshaw down.

I couldn't stop reading...and occasionally laughing or smirking...as Renshaw desperately tried to come at the platoon, only to be thwarted at every opportunity.  Their methods were particularly enjoyable.

At one point, they even give him a chance to surrender, to which he responded "NUTS!"

Just as it appeared Renshaw was about to gain the upper hand, with a hastily constructed Molotov cocktail, the entire apartment disintegrates.  It seems our GI Joe dudes brought a thermonuclear bomb with them.

At times, this tale seemed full of wonder, like the Indian in the Cupboard.  At time it was a brutal look at modern warfare, hence the title of this post.

This story is also completely unlike the others in Night Shift, so it was a very unexpected, but awesome shift.

Jerusalem's Lot

The more I think about it, the more my opinion of  'Salem's Lot, Stephen King's second novel, increases.

It's not just that it's scary, which it most certainly is.  But it's got this great mesh of old world gothic and modern technology that just grabbed me.

So I was definitely excited to learn that the first short story in Night Shift is a prequel.

It has a different feel to it than most of King's works.  While it's told through letters presented to the reader, written in the 1850's, it feels less intimate and more stoic than King normally feels.  And it works.

The story actually doesn't link much to the story of 'Salem's Lot, as told in that novel, but adds background to the location.

Jerusalem's Lot is cool, in that it takes the location of Salem's Lot, and establishes that it wasn't just a place where evil came to lurk and eventually harbored vampires, but that it was a place that was so evil that it drew other evil things to it.  So it was no mere coincidence that Hubie Marsten and later Barlow were compelled to this sleepy little town.

In that sense, in the Lore of King (as I've come to call it) as I currently understand it (having only read a few novels), Salem's Lot is of a kindred to the Overlook Hotel.  They are both locations that, presumably due to the actions of evil people over the years, turned into great beacons that lured more evil to them.

I really like this concept and hope it is explored further.

Book #5: Night Shift (1978)

So here we are, ready to start book #5.

I've got very high hopes for this one, as it's my first go at one of Stephen King's short story collections.  I've heard that he's often at his best when he writes short stories, and after my distaste with Rage,  I could use a little bit of awesome.

I had thought I wasn't familiar with this book at all, but perusing the story titles and I'm seeing a lot of familiar names.  While I'm pretty sure I've never read any of them, I'm aware of several by reputation.  Quitters, Inc, Children of the Corn, and Sometimes They Come Back, stand out, and Jerusalem's Lot has got to be a sequel/prequel/spinoff of Salem's Lot.  

I'm actually giddy at the prospect of returning to the world of Salem's Lot.

I don't usually do much research about a book before reading it, as I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible.  However, I did peruse wikipedia briefly and saw that stories in this book have been adapted to feature films five times, four television adaptations and well over a dozen "Dollar Baby" student films.  That's quite the legacy.

Most of these short stories were written in the decade or so prior to the publication of this collection, so I'll forgo the usual historical context, as it's probably not as applicable here.

So, lets begin.

Book #5
Night Shift
Publication date: February, 1978

Rage (1977) - Review

Well, as I said in my previous post, it was bound to happen.

I didn't like Rage.  I didn't hate it, ultimately, as there were some interesting ideas, but for the most part, it seems like the work of an angry kid who scrawled his thoughts down on a bloody napkin after getting beat up on the playground...again.

It lacks the purposeful focus and confident voice that I first noticed in 'Salem's Lot and really noticed in The Shining.  A novel written from this angry perspective could have been cool if that anger had been focused, but it isn't.

Then again, maybe that was the point.  Perhaps King was well aware that a novel like this could never be published by Stephen King: best selling novelist, but would fly under the radar if written by an unknown paperback novelist, such as Richard Bachman.  The fatalistic ending also seems to be something that King (at least from the sample size I've seen so far) might not have attempted.  Maybe.

Lending credence to that theory is the fact that, while this novel has been "connected" with various real world school shootings, it should be noted that none of those events happened until 1988.  Stephen King was very publicly revealed to be writing under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1985 and The Bachman Books was published under King's name later that year.

I'm not particularly squeamish, so the idea of a novel centering around the perpetrator of a school shooting that left two teachers dead of gunshot wounds didn't deter me.  I just didn't particularly care for the main character.  And reading page after page about somebody you don't care about can become an exercise in tedium.

I do have a thought however, even if it isn't terribly clever or original.  King was apparently invested in Richard Bachman for the long haul.  He had intended to continue to use the moniker indefinitely, possibly for the rest of his career and was quite upset when he was discovered.  Add that to the fact that he wasn't particularly happy when Thinner, which was out when the King/Bachman connection was made, went from selling 40,000 copies to 400,000.  He took pleasure in his little secret side project.  And it was likely an outlet for him.

So my thought is...is Stephen King still writing under a secret pseudonym?  A new one?  He's publicly stated that he would never do it again.  But you would expect him to say that, after having been recently "outed", especially if he was planning to do it again.  Can't have people looking too closely.

That said, I find it highly unlikely that,  if he were writing under a different, unknown, name, that he wouldn't have been discovered.  He somehow managed to go undetected as Bachman for nearly eight years before being discovered.  Mainly because the writing styles and settings (Maine, Maine and more Maine) were so similar.  I'm actually surprised it took that long.  While, (as I wrote in my previous post) the voice of this book seems different than King's usual, the actual writing style is so similar it almost screams "HEY EVERYBODY!  I'M STEPHEN KING".

Certain phrases and habits I've noticed King uses frequently.  Such as, at least one character peeing themselves.  Maine.  The repetitive habit that becomes almost a mantra such as Jack Torrance's wiping of the lips in The Shining. Weird metaphors and similes that I've only ever seen King use: "jackstraws in the wind", and comparing people's skin color to "milk".

So maybe in this Twitter world, it would be impossible for King to write under a secret identity again and remain secret.

But hey, a fella can dream.

So, not my favorite.  Didn't like it.  But I wouldn't say I hated it either.  But I could definitely use a really good palate cleanser.  Hopefully, Night Shift won't disappoint.

It was bound to happen...

I hate to say it, but it was bound to happen:  it's obvious to me that Rage just isn't for me.

I don't like it.  At all.

This isn't a full review.  I'll post that on Saturday, but I do want to make a few observations/comments.

As I began reading, I thought at first that maybe this book was fine...just not suited for my tastes.  But the more I read, the more I'm convinced that it's just not very good.

I wanted to like it.  I really did.  As I read more about King's reasoning for publishing under Bachman, I really started digging the concept.

As to why I'm not digging it?  I have a few theories, but not sure exactly why.  Maybe it's a combination of some or all of the following:

1. Different voice.  It really feels different.  Angrier.  Moodier.  But without the steady, sure confidence in his other novels.  This is either intentional on the part of the author, or unintentional and merely a byproduct of having been written earlier, before King had fully developed his writer's toolbox.  I had really begun to appreciate King's voice and it seems like it's absence is sorely missed.
2. Lack of a compelling main character.  I say main character, rather than "protagonist" because the central character doesn't need to be a good guy.  He doesn't have to be likeable, necessarily.  I don't even necessarily need to cheer for the main character.  But, if you're going to go the route of an unlikable, unrelatable main character without any discernable goal or quest...then that character has to be incredibly interesting and compelling in some other way.  And I just don't find Charlie particularly interesting.  Just a whining little brat.
3. The entire premise.  A student walks into a classroom, shoots and kills the teacher in front of the class, then shoots and kills another teacher a few minutes later...and the students just kinda shrug, and start playing psychologist with each other?  It's hard to imagine that the students wouldn't have stampeded out of that room, or out the windows or whatever.  Sure, the novel is set in 1976, but I just have a hard time buying the concept that high school students in 1976 would have been so "whatever, dude, lets talk" about the whole thing.
4. Unbelievable coincidences.  A sniper tries to shoot Charlie and succeeds!  But don't worry.  Charlie's just fine.  A padlock in his breast pocket saved him.  Uh huh.
5. It feels raw.  And not raw in a "powerful, visceral" way, or raw in a "raw vegetables wholesomeness" way.  But raw in an "inedible, uncooked meat" kind of way.

I wish I didn't feel this way, but this one just isn't doing it for me.  Maybe it will turn it around in the next few chapters, but I'm not keeping my hopes up.

-B

Settling into a format.

For those interested in such things, I think I've finally ironed out how I will proceed.

I will continue to read as much as time allows (hey, I still gotta earn a living), but I want to go with a bit more structured format for the blog.

Going forward, things will be conducted on a weekly schedule.  I'll post about the new book I'll be reading that week on Sunday with the review about that book on the following Saturday.  As time allows (and as whimsy strikes me), during that week,  I'll have small observations or questions/discussions about the book I'm reading.

I believe I'll be able to get through quite a few books using the single week time frame.

However, for the larger books (I'm looking at you, The Stand, It, Under the Dome, Desperation, to name a few), then the time frame will be lengthened to two (or more...) weeks, with the review appearing on a Saturday.

For those longer books, I'll suspect the mid week posts might be a little longer or meatier, as I'll have a lot more material to ruminate.

-B