The Bazaar of Bad Dreams
Published: 3, November 2015
Author: Stephen King
Genre: American, Anthologies, Fiction, Horror, Literature, Mystery, Psychological, Short Stories, Supernatural, Suspense, Thriller
Check the summary of this book here:
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams Summary
The Review
Stephen King's short story book The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is his sixth collection of short tales and his tenth collection overall. The collection earned the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for best collection, while one of the pieces, "Obits," won the 2016 Edgar Award for the best short story. On October 18, 2016, an extra short story, "Cookie Jar," was published in VQR and included in the paperback edition.
Stephen King finest works have always been his short tales. This new collection demonstrates that King's ability to elicit fear in readers over the course of forty or fifty pages has not waned.
Unlike previous collections, however, these tales frequently focus on the horror that exists within the human spirit rather than any external monster.
Another fantastic Stephen King compilation of short stories and novellas. He's like the Carlos Santana of literature in that nearly no one has written and sung more songs, and while some are more significant than others, many were enormous successes, and you can't point to a terrible one no matter how hard you try.
He and Stephen King, on the other hand, aren't going to give up on you now, or ever. Be aware that these stories are dark and gloomy even by Stephen King's standards, but since you're buying a Stephen King anthology, I'm sure that won't worry you. And, unlike many of his prior works, I found these stories to make me ponder even more. They're going to stick with you.
There are Author's Notes for each tale here, and if you're new to the author, the notes will give you some delightful insight into his creative process, which King's Constant Readers like when he agrees to chat with us for a little bit.
It also debriefs you after he's terrified the living daylights out of you. You recognize that, no matter how insane or terrifying one of his characters or stories may appear to be, the author is not only a mentally healthy, normal person from Maine, but also a really well-adjusted someone whose viewpoints you'll like, or at the very least want to consider.
There are twenty stories in all in this book, with just three or four that I am unfamiliar with from previous publishing in periodicals or on Amazon Kindle. A handful, such as "Blockade Billy," was even published in hardcover.
Despite this, a handful of his recent works such as "Into the Tall Grass" have been regretfully overlooked. This does not distract from the work's overall excellence.
The titles of the short stories in this book, as well as some information about them, are listed below; however, I must warn readers that some of the information on these stories is about the plot of the respective stories, but I am not adding any extra stuff that was not included on the back of the book, so I can still call this spoiler-free info:
01 - Mile 81
King's brief narrative is really intriguing. It is truly the strangest and most fascinating story that many people have never heard about. It takes a certain talent to be able to do what Stephen King does.
02 - Premium Harmony
I'm not sure if I was supposed to feel afraid, appalled, or disgusted by this. I have to admit that I felt more sympathy for the dog than for Mary. Does it make me a horrible person? NO. Because I adore animals.
03 - Batman and Robin Have an Altercation
Although King has previously written Holmesian detective fiction, his novel "Batman and Robin Have an Altercation" does not feature the masked icon.
It does, however, sadly chronicle a middle-aged man's visit to his Alzheimer's-stricken father in a nursing facility and what happens as a result.
04 - The Dune
My particular favorite of these pieces is "The Dune," about a state Supreme Court justice whose counsel finds the mystery of the judge's childhood haunt.
05 - Bad Little Kid
It was also highly enjoyable, and I believed it might have been a full-length novel. It emphasizes the dread of not being believed, of being considered mad by everyone.
Knowing something is genuine but being questioned by everyone to the point of questioning your own mind is a terrifying concept.
The main character is pushed to the breaking point and does an act that portrays him as a monster.
06 - A Death
King claims to have been influenced by Thomas Williams' novel The Hair of Harold Roux (1975), which he considers as "the finest book about writing ever written."
07 - The Bone Church
The poem's tale is delivered in the first-person vernacular of a bar client who demands alcohol from his nameless listener in return for memories.
He recalls a tragic trip into the jungles of an undisclosed continent, with only a few of the once-large crew surviving at the end. A terrible, supernatural adventure awaits the surviving.
08 – Morality
This story is about a married couple in financial trouble and an act that may rescue them monetarily but had a much larger moral cost, was one of my faves.
King did an excellent job of demonstrating not just what these individuals were capable of, but also how committing a single act released terrible and buried urges.
I loved reading this one because of the complexity of the couple's relationship. They were somewhat partners in crime, which caused them to see each other from a new perspective.
What is the line between how far is too far? The wife's acts came to resemble those of an animal, and she looked unable to stop them.
09 – Afterlife
It is a narrative about a guy who dies slowly and painfully from cancer, but finds himself in a cruel ouroboros, repeating the mistakes of the past in slightly different ways, but with the same end result.
10 – Ur
This novella explores the concept of parallel universes in a similar spirit to his work 11/22/63, and it also has a few allusions to his Dark Tower series, which I found fascinating.
An English professor who finally buys a Kindle and discovers previously unpublished works by famous departed authors such as Poe and Shakespeare; I would have looked for Jane Austen myself.
Another story about a character who believes he is going insane and believes no one would believe him. He eventually discovers future news clips on the magical Kindle after reading several unseen books.
He now recognizes he has the power to change the path of events that have yet to occur. This story is about whether you should meddle with the future or not, because certain things are destined to happen, no matter how horrible they may appear.
11 - Herman Wouk Is Still Alive
Some of his other stories reflect King's age. When I saw the headline of his tale, "Hermann Wouk Is Still Alive," I questioned if anyone under the age of forty even knew who he was.
12 - Under the Weather
The creep factor in this one is insanely strong, which is compounded by predicting the outcome. A fantastic and highly recommended tale
13 - Blockade Billy
Stephen King is well-versed in baseball history, as seen in this work. With the brutal content, I found the game's atmosphere to be more engaging. It's not a lengthy narrative, but it's worth a read.
14 - Mister Yummy
It's strange, and it has something to do with homosexual life, as the title indicates, but it's not as straightforward as it seems.
15 - Tommy
It is a literary poem. The poem is written in free verse and is rich with 1960s slang and cultural allusions, which spanned King's whole adolescence.
It tells the story of the titular young man, a hippy who died of leukemia, and the lives of his closest friends after his death.
The poem's themes of the unavoidable ravages of aging and dying make it a memory postmortem.
The notion in the opening that Tommy is based on a real person places it in the confessional genre of poetry.
16 - The Little Green God of Agony
Very spooky and well-developed characters. The "Monster" is a little strange, but I liked the finale. The story has also been described as a "tribute to the classic monster and old dark house stories" by King.
17 - That Bus Is Another World
Oftentimes psychotic MCs thrive, occasionally they don't; I loved it but not as much because of specific events, but it doesn't imply the tale was horrible.
18 - Obits
This one had a delightfully unique idea, and despite the concerns, I thought the finale worked nicely.
19 - Drunken Fireworks
Both the short tale and its audio version had me laugh out loud, which is something I seldom do when reading!
Tim Sample's flawless Maine accent makes this a delightful and brief read. I don't think any other storyteller could have done it as well as he did.
I was skeptical when I first heard his voice, but it only took a minute or two for him to lure me into the "down East" environment. I'm sure I'll listen to it again!
20 - Summer Thunder
This narrative, obviously, cannot rival with The Stand because it is a mammoth tomb that goes on forever and can be roughly 1400 pages long, but Summer Thunder is a frightening mini-apocalypse just the same but with a very fast read.
Overall, Stephen King's compilation is excellent. It features new and recently published stuff that matches his admirers' high expectations. A fantastic way to spend one's evening reading time.
Final Thoughts
Surprisingly, Stephen King included a few poems in this anthology. While he has done so in the past, I must admit that I like his prose.
That is not a terrible thing, and he also pays homage to horror writers like H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen, who died before King began his career.
For fans of the horror genre, these are welcome nods to some of King's most frequent sources of inspiration.
This time, Stephen King mentions his literary inspirations in many of the stories in his author's notes, and I have to confess, there were a lot of writers named that I'd never heard of before.
So, like I'm sure many others, I went down to the library and began looking for some of these people's books, which was far more gratifying than using Google.
And let me tell you, since reading this, I've discovered some hidden jewels within those shelves.
So there's no stopping you now. Purchase the book. Take a look at the stories. And make yourself at home at The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams.
Synopsis
“Includes the story “Premium Harmony”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine
The masterful #1 New York Times bestselling story collection from O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King that includes twenty-one iconic stories with accompanying autobiographical comments on when, why and how he came to write (or rewrite) each one.
For more than thirty-five years, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this new collection he introduces each story with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing it.
As Entertainment Weekly said about this collection: “Bazaar of Bad Dreams is bursting with classic King terror, but what we love most are the thoughtful introductions he gives to each tale that explain what was going on in his life as he wrote it."
There are thrilling connections between stories; themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. In “Afterlife,” a man who died of colon cancer keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again. Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Others address what happens when someone discovers that he has supernatural powers—the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits;” the old judge in “The Dune” who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw names written in the sand, people who then died in freak accidents. In “Morality,” King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win.
“I made these stories especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.””
Useful Search Related Words & Keywords
Bad Dreams, Bazaar Of Bad, Blockade Billy, Drunken Fireworks, God Of Agony, Green God, Herman Wouk, Little Green, Little Kid, Night Shift, Summer Thunder
Rating: 95/100
Recommended: 100/100 Yes.
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