Product Description

A collection of terrifying stories that reveal a shudderingly detailed map of the dark places that lie behind our waking, rational world. This is the horror of ordinary people and everyday objects that become strangely altered, a world where nothing is ever quite what it seems.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36112 in Books
• Published on: 1979-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Guardian
‘An incredibly gifted writer, whose writing, like Truman Capote's, is so fluid that you often forget that you're reading'

Review
‘An incredibly gifted writer, whose writing, like Truman Capote’s, is so fluid that you often forget that you’re reading’ (Guardian )

‘A writer of excellence...King is one of the most fertile storytellers of the modern novel...brilliantly done’ (The Sunday Times )

‘Splendid entertainment...Stephen King is one of those natural storytellers...getting hooked is easy’ (Frances Fyfield, Express )

The Sunday Times
‘A writer of excellence...King is one of the most fertile storytellers of the modern novel...brilliantly done'

Customer Reviews

Perhaps some of King's best short stories?
This was the first short story collection of King's I purchased, and it remains to this day my favourite. The stories are all varied in size, genre and strength. Some are scary enough to make that shadow seen on your wall during the night seem just that little bit scarier and threatening. While some of the stories are weaker, they are more than outweighed by the strong. My personal favourites were 'Graveyard Shift' and 'I Am The Doorway'. 'Graveyard Shift' is about the ongoing friction between a man and his boss, resulting in a haunting conclusion involving super-sized rats. 'I Am The Doorway' tells the story of a former astronaut, who has been infected by an alien presence. He is forced to commit terrible murders, until he finally takes matters into his own hands. I would recommend this to any King fans, or those just starting to familiarise themselves with his work.

A strange mix of sheer brilliance and trite immaturity
For fans of short stories, this collection by Stephen King will probably delight. The stories are well written and the ideas ahead of their time in some cases. However, some of these tales are a little lacking in any real inspiration (Graveyard Shift, Grey Matter, The Man Who Loved Flowers) and at times I felt like I was reading stories written by a teenager rather than the brilliant mind that produced works such as The Stand, The Shining and The Tommyknockers, to mention but a few.

Jerusalem's lot, Quitters and Battleground, for me, stand as the best stories in the book showing the style and finesse lovers of Stephen King are familiar with. If you have everything else by Stephen King, go out and buy it. If not, save it for another time and try Cell, Pet Sematary or if you prefer shorter stories, Different Seasons.

Some Chilly; Some Silly...
I was inspired to buy Night Shift (as well as Stephen King's other short story collections) after reading a couple of stories from a copy of Nightmares and Dreamscapes which my girlfriend owns. I enjoyed them so much that I had to sample more of King's short fiction.

There is some very good work here. The out-and-out horror stories are generally excellent. I don't particularly enjoy more literary work (it's genre fiction or nothing for me) so the slower, more "lifelike" ones didn't do a lot for me, but without doubt when King delves into the world of the macabre, I was hooked.

The biggest complaint is that some of the concepts in this collection are extraordinarily silly. Perhaps the biggest example of this is "Trucks", where lorries take up a mind of their own and besiege a bunch of people in a petrol station until they agree to fill them up. King recurs the theme of everyday objects as a focus of horror in "Battleground", where toy soldiers declare war on an unfortunate man, although I feel that this story was meant to be more humorous. The concept of inanimate objects coming to life does work fairly well, though, in "The Mangler", where a demon-possessed laundry press machine kills people. It sounds just as ridiculous as the others, but with neat execution King actually manages to pull it off.

Another good horror story is "The Boogeyman". This one surprised me because the events recounted in it are not related to us through the usual prosaic narrative. Instead, we follow the story entirely through dialogue, as a man tells his tale to a psychiatrist. One would think that this second-hand manner of storytelling would make for a highly impersonal reading experience, but it is actually probably the most frightening story in the book. It left a lasting impression on me: After reading it I went into a room with the lights off and had a sudden urge to leg it before something grabbed me!

The other highlight is "Children of the Corn", one of King's most famous short stories. A couple drive into a deserted Nebraska town where they come into contact with religiously fanatical children who have a special interest in sacrificing people (including each other) to a creature called He Who Walks Behind The Rows. Chilling stuff.

Overall, a great collection of stories and there were several other good ones that I haven't mentioned in this review. While I was only interested in the pure horror stories, King does show that he can write "proper" literature, too, and so this book should have a little of something for everyone.