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Full Dark, No Stars
“I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger…” writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up “1922,” the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife, Arlette, proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness.
In “Big Driver,” a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book-club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself.
“Fair Extension,” the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Dave Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.
When her husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips, Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It's a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitely ends a good marriage.
Like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight, which generated such enduring films as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me, Full Dark, No Stars proves Stephen King a master of the long story form.
In “Big Driver,” a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book-club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself.
“Fair Extension,” the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Dave Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.
When her husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips, Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It's a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitely ends a good marriage.
Like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight, which generated such enduring films as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me, Full Dark, No Stars proves Stephen King a master of the long story form.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
4,324 people are currently reading
96.9k people want to read
About the author
Stephen King
2,580 books868k followersStephen Edwin King was born the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his father left them when Stephen was two, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of them. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.
Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.
He met Tabitha Spruce in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University, where they both worked as students; they married in January of 1971. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.
Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many were gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.
In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching English at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.
Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.
He met Tabitha Spruce in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University, where they both worked as students; they married in January of 1971. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.
Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many were gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.
In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching English at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.
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January 30, 2023
Originally published in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
Novellas are an odd form of writing, and there is no love for them in publishing. They are the wrong size. You need about four of them to make a standard-sized book.
It has been almost 30 years since Stephen King's first set of four novellas, Different Seasons, four stories written in the golden dawn of his career. They were mostly fantasy-free, and three of them were filmed (as Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption and Apt Pupil). They were sharp, smart, dark stories of a perfect length to film – longer than the short stories King had written for men's magazines early in his career, shorter than the blockbuster novels he had started to carve out, following the success of Carrie (which was itself a novella, padded out to novel-length with commentary on the events of the book).
It has been 20 years since Four Past Midnight, from King's hazy afternoon period. Another four stories, less remarkable (one film, Secret Window, one TV special, The Langoliers).
Now, in the evening of his immense career, we get Full Dark, No Stars, a final set of four novellas. (At least, it is easy to presume that this is the final set. It is also perfectly conceivable that King, 63, who talks about retiring and laying down his pen, but for whom ceasing to write seems unthinkable, will bring out another set 20 years from now.)
King in novella form tends to avoid or to downplay the supernatural. "1922", the opening story, is simply as good as anything he has done. Inspired, King says in his afterword, by Michael Lesy's collection of clippings and photographs Wisconsin Death Trip (1973) (a book that I sometimes imagine must have inspired as many books as it has sold), it is a first-person narrative: Wilfred Leland James, a small farmer in Nebraska, murders his wife, having first talked his 14-year-old son into helping him. "I cozened him into it, playing upon his fears and beating down his quite normal objections over a period of two months," James tells us. "This is a thing I regret even more bitterly than the crime, for reasons this document will show." And show us he does. The murder of his wife and disposal of her body in a well is only the beginning: the consequences, for James, for his son and for their neighbours, are far-reaching, monstrous and inevitable. It's compulsive reading, sometimes scary, revolting, ultimately heartbreaking and King tells it in a precise manner that's far from his usual voice. There is a hint of the supernatural in it, although the borderline between a haunting and madness here is a hairline fracture, and one that King exploits elegantly all the way to the end.
"Big Driver", the second novella, is told in King's usual voice: it's easy, comfortable reading, deceptively so. Like many of his stories, it features a writer, in this case Tess, author of a series of uninspired mysteries, who has just driven to give a talk to a small-town book club. On her way home she's sent on a short cut, and is brutally raped and almost murdered by the eponymous "big driver". An efficient revenge fantasy, this was the only one of the stories in which the beats were predictable, and, for me, it was the least satisfying. I took the most pleasure in the snapshot of contemporary America in the background of the story.
"Fair Extension" begins as pastiche, gentle, amiable and insinuating. It appears to be a John Collier story, a classical "deal with the devil" tale. Dave Streeter is dying of a cancer that is rapid and incurable. A mysterious Mr Elvid offers him a life extension: he'll get at least 15 years of healthy life. But there is a catch (there is always a catch): if good things are happening to Streeter, bad things must happen to someone he hates, in this case his best friend.
While it begins as a pastiche, it does something else as it goes. The story gains its power from its betrayal of deal-with-the-devil tropes: there is no twist ending, no clever way out. It becomes an act of extended sadism in which the reader is initially complicit and then increasingly horrified. The anagrammatic Mr Elvid tells us that he "wouldn't know a soul if it bit me on the buttocks", but we are watching Streeter's soul being taken, a little at a time, until there's nothing left.
The final novella, "A Good Marriage", is a simple idea, perfectly told. Darcy Anderson has been married to her husband Bob, an accountant and coin collector, for almost 30 years. "It was a good marriage, one of the fifty percent or so that kept working over the long haul. She believed that in the same unquestioning way that she believed that gravity would hold her to the earth when she walked down the sidewalk. Until that night in the garage." Bob is off on a business trip. In the garage that night, Darcy finds a box containing evidence that tells her that Bob might be a serial killer. But Bob is coming home.
These are stories of retribution and complicity: of crimes that seem inevitable, of ways that we justify the world to ourselves and ourselves to the world. Powerful, and each in its own way profoundly nasty.
In his afterword, King states that he wanted the stories to linger in the imagination. And they do. They linger, and perhaps sometimes they even fester. But they are never less than satisfying and are fine stories to take with us into the night.
Novellas are an odd form of writing, and there is no love for them in publishing. They are the wrong size. You need about four of them to make a standard-sized book.
It has been almost 30 years since Stephen King's first set of four novellas, Different Seasons, four stories written in the golden dawn of his career. They were mostly fantasy-free, and three of them were filmed (as Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption and Apt Pupil). They were sharp, smart, dark stories of a perfect length to film – longer than the short stories King had written for men's magazines early in his career, shorter than the blockbuster novels he had started to carve out, following the success of Carrie (which was itself a novella, padded out to novel-length with commentary on the events of the book).
It has been 20 years since Four Past Midnight, from King's hazy afternoon period. Another four stories, less remarkable (one film, Secret Window, one TV special, The Langoliers).
Now, in the evening of his immense career, we get Full Dark, No Stars, a final set of four novellas. (At least, it is easy to presume that this is the final set. It is also perfectly conceivable that King, 63, who talks about retiring and laying down his pen, but for whom ceasing to write seems unthinkable, will bring out another set 20 years from now.)
King in novella form tends to avoid or to downplay the supernatural. "1922", the opening story, is simply as good as anything he has done. Inspired, King says in his afterword, by Michael Lesy's collection of clippings and photographs Wisconsin Death Trip (1973) (a book that I sometimes imagine must have inspired as many books as it has sold), it is a first-person narrative: Wilfred Leland James, a small farmer in Nebraska, murders his wife, having first talked his 14-year-old son into helping him. "I cozened him into it, playing upon his fears and beating down his quite normal objections over a period of two months," James tells us. "This is a thing I regret even more bitterly than the crime, for reasons this document will show." And show us he does. The murder of his wife and disposal of her body in a well is only the beginning: the consequences, for James, for his son and for their neighbours, are far-reaching, monstrous and inevitable. It's compulsive reading, sometimes scary, revolting, ultimately heartbreaking and King tells it in a precise manner that's far from his usual voice. There is a hint of the supernatural in it, although the borderline between a haunting and madness here is a hairline fracture, and one that King exploits elegantly all the way to the end.
"Big Driver", the second novella, is told in King's usual voice: it's easy, comfortable reading, deceptively so. Like many of his stories, it features a writer, in this case Tess, author of a series of uninspired mysteries, who has just driven to give a talk to a small-town book club. On her way home she's sent on a short cut, and is brutally raped and almost murdered by the eponymous "big driver". An efficient revenge fantasy, this was the only one of the stories in which the beats were predictable, and, for me, it was the least satisfying. I took the most pleasure in the snapshot of contemporary America in the background of the story.
"Fair Extension" begins as pastiche, gentle, amiable and insinuating. It appears to be a John Collier story, a classical "deal with the devil" tale. Dave Streeter is dying of a cancer that is rapid and incurable. A mysterious Mr Elvid offers him a life extension: he'll get at least 15 years of healthy life. But there is a catch (there is always a catch): if good things are happening to Streeter, bad things must happen to someone he hates, in this case his best friend.
While it begins as a pastiche, it does something else as it goes. The story gains its power from its betrayal of deal-with-the-devil tropes: there is no twist ending, no clever way out. It becomes an act of extended sadism in which the reader is initially complicit and then increasingly horrified. The anagrammatic Mr Elvid tells us that he "wouldn't know a soul if it bit me on the buttocks", but we are watching Streeter's soul being taken, a little at a time, until there's nothing left.
The final novella, "A Good Marriage", is a simple idea, perfectly told. Darcy Anderson has been married to her husband Bob, an accountant and coin collector, for almost 30 years. "It was a good marriage, one of the fifty percent or so that kept working over the long haul. She believed that in the same unquestioning way that she believed that gravity would hold her to the earth when she walked down the sidewalk. Until that night in the garage." Bob is off on a business trip. In the garage that night, Darcy finds a box containing evidence that tells her that Bob might be a serial killer. But Bob is coming home.
These are stories of retribution and complicity: of crimes that seem inevitable, of ways that we justify the world to ourselves and ourselves to the world. Powerful, and each in its own way profoundly nasty.
In his afterword, King states that he wanted the stories to linger in the imagination. And they do. They linger, and perhaps sometimes they even fester. But they are never less than satisfying and are fine stories to take with us into the night.
January 11, 2025
Full Dark, No Stars is a dark, harrowing Horror collection that includes four devastatingly vivid stories.
For many years, King's Different Seasons claimed the title as my #1 favorite, short-story collection. Well, you heard it hear first, folks:
times, they are a changing!
That honor now goes to this delightfully dark collection that tells the tales of ordinary people placed into extraordinary, and gut-churning, circumstances.
The novellas within Full Dark, No Stars each examine the deepest, darkest corners of the human condition.
My ratings for each of the stories are as follows:
1922: 5-stars
Big Driver: 5-stars
Fair Extension: 5-stars
A Good Marriage: 4.5-stars
I was pulled deep into every story, until the entire atmosphere engulfed me.
The characters, as always with King, were so believably written. Their thoughts were relatable and although grim, peppered with classic King humor.
I cannot believe that I waited this long to read this collection. It's certain to be the first reading of many.
I love to reread King books, as I always notice new things with rereads. Overall, I felt this was absolutely superb!
If you can do gruesome and chilling, this is for you. Pick it up and be ready to be petrified by the worst monsters of all: mankind.
For many years, King's Different Seasons claimed the title as my #1 favorite, short-story collection. Well, you heard it hear first, folks:
times, they are a changing!
That honor now goes to this delightfully dark collection that tells the tales of ordinary people placed into extraordinary, and gut-churning, circumstances.
The novellas within Full Dark, No Stars each examine the deepest, darkest corners of the human condition.
My ratings for each of the stories are as follows:
1922: 5-stars
Big Driver: 5-stars
Fair Extension: 5-stars
A Good Marriage: 4.5-stars
I was pulled deep into every story, until the entire atmosphere engulfed me.
The characters, as always with King, were so believably written. Their thoughts were relatable and although grim, peppered with classic King humor.
I cannot believe that I waited this long to read this collection. It's certain to be the first reading of many.
I love to reread King books, as I always notice new things with rereads. Overall, I felt this was absolutely superb!
If you can do gruesome and chilling, this is for you. Pick it up and be ready to be petrified by the worst monsters of all: mankind.
October 18, 2022
رجلا كنت ام امراة..كهلا كنت ام صبيا..ظالما كنت ام مظلوما..ثريا كنت ام فقير..شقيا كنت ام سعيد
في لحظة ما..في يوم.ما ستجد نفسك..تخطط..تقرر..وتقتل!نعم تقتل..هكذا و ببساطة
..قد تطول خطتك او تقصر..و لكنك تعلم انك ستفعلها..طالما زارك شيطان القتل و وسوس لك ..مرة
اقنعني كينج بعبقرية لا تصدق..عبر أزمنة متعددة..أماكن متناقضة ..وعبر نماذج بشرية منتقاة ببراعة..ان القتل هو الغريزة المخفية لدينا جميعا..
انت قد لا تجد أسبابا" كافية لقتل أحدهم..*بعد*ا
انا قد يكون لدي عشرات الأسباب..ولكنها تلك اللحظة *الضلمة الكحل*تتملك منك وتغيرك..للأبد..
اربع روايات قصيرة 🕓..
بلغة سهلة واسلوب اسر ..تستحق كل لحظة من وقتك..
عن أشخاص "عاديون" وجدوا أنفسهم في ظروف غير عادية؛ قادتهم :للقتل الواعي مع سبق الاصرار
اقلهم تفضيلا عندي هي: تمديد عادل
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
ثلاثة منهم تم تنفيذهم في افلام حققت نجاحا ..و هي افلام
1922
A good marriage
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
A big driver
و اخيرا تمت ترجمتها
لكنى ممن يفضلون كينج بلغته الانجليزية لان الافلام و الترجمة..تفقده الكثير من روحه
anyone can kill ...the King proved it..and convinced me..not once or twice..but 4 times..he did not loose his edge not by age or illness > he is and still and.. will be the:King
في لحظة ما..في يوم.ما ستجد نفسك..تخطط..تقرر..وتقتل!نعم تقتل..هكذا و ببساطة
..قد تطول خطتك او تقصر..و لكنك تعلم انك ستفعلها..طالما زارك شيطان القتل و وسوس لك ..مرة
اقنعني كينج بعبقرية لا تصدق..عبر أزمنة متعددة..أماكن متناقضة ..وعبر نماذج بشرية منتقاة ببراعة..ان القتل هو الغريزة المخفية لدينا جميعا..
انت قد لا تجد أسبابا" كافية لقتل أحدهم..*بعد*ا
انا قد يكون لدي عشرات الأسباب..ولكنها تلك اللحظة *الضلمة الكحل*تتملك منك وتغيرك..للأبد..
اربع روايات قصيرة 🕓..
بلغة سهلة واسلوب اسر ..تستحق كل لحظة من وقتك..
عن أشخاص "عاديون" وجدوا أنفسهم في ظروف غير عادية؛ قادتهم :للقتل الواعي مع سبق الاصرار
اقلهم تفضيلا عندي هي: تمديد عادل
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
ثلاثة منهم تم تنفيذهم في افلام حققت نجاحا ..و هي افلام
1922
A good marriage
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
A big driver
و اخيرا تمت ترجمتها
لكنى ممن يفضلون كينج بلغته الانجليزية لان الافلام و الترجمة..تفقده الكثير من روحه
anyone can kill ...the King proved it..and convinced me..not once or twice..but 4 times..he did not loose his edge not by age or illness > he is and still and.. will be the:King
September 9, 2019
"Life is fair. We all get the same nine-month shake in the box, and then the dice roll. Some people get a run of sevens. Some people, unfortunately, get snake-eyes. It's just how the world is."
Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of 4 novellas in which King explores the "dark side" to people, and how exactly would you react if placed in certain situations? For example, what would you do if you found out that your husband of over 20 years has been hiding a dark secret? How would you react if a a psychopath raped you and left you for dead? If given the opportunity to pass your hardships onto someone else... would you?
One of my favourite aspects, and one of the most horrifying things, about this collection is that some of these scenarios could actually happen. You could very easily find yourself in a situation where you don't know your spouse as well as you thought you did. And there is definitely the potential to encounter brutal rapists/murderers whilst driving down quiet backroads. Although there is a slight supernatural element to 1922, there is still the very real possibility of making one single bad decision that will continue to impact and haunt you for years. Even the story Fair Extension makes you question how far you are willing to go to save your own ass at the detriment of someone else.
1922 was a great opener for the collection, it was scary, hard-hitting, and sucks you into the story very quickly. One of the best short stories (or novellas, whatever) that I've ever read from King. It was brilliant! Next up was Big Driver, which was hard to read at times; it was brutal, visceral and terrifying, especially reading this as a woman. I can't deny that I have recently felt uneasy driving down the backroads around my house...maybe stick to main busy roads in future! Fair Extension was awesome, I loved how King juxtaposed the fate of the two families. I'd read an entire book based on that story and idea. Lastly, A Good Marriage. This was one I felt slightly less excited about reading about as I had already watched the adaptation last year and just thought it was okay. But I REALLY enjoyed this one - Darcy is a badass. I can't even begin to imagine what I would do in that scenario.
It's very easy to see where the title for this collection comes from - these are dark, heavy stories, with pretty much no light or positive outcomes. I thoroughly enjoyed each story and would probably give each individual novella five stars, which is very rare when it comes to collections of short stories or novellas. I can honestly say I was sad to come to the end of this collection and I think I now have a new book to recommend to people who are looking to venture into the world of King. Highly recommend this one!!
King, I missed you.
Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of 4 novellas in which King explores the "dark side" to people, and how exactly would you react if placed in certain situations? For example, what would you do if you found out that your husband of over 20 years has been hiding a dark secret? How would you react if a a psychopath raped you and left you for dead? If given the opportunity to pass your hardships onto someone else... would you?
One of my favourite aspects, and one of the most horrifying things, about this collection is that some of these scenarios could actually happen. You could very easily find yourself in a situation where you don't know your spouse as well as you thought you did. And there is definitely the potential to encounter brutal rapists/murderers whilst driving down quiet backroads. Although there is a slight supernatural element to 1922, there is still the very real possibility of making one single bad decision that will continue to impact and haunt you for years. Even the story Fair Extension makes you question how far you are willing to go to save your own ass at the detriment of someone else.
1922 was a great opener for the collection, it was scary, hard-hitting, and sucks you into the story very quickly. One of the best short stories (or novellas, whatever) that I've ever read from King. It was brilliant! Next up was Big Driver, which was hard to read at times; it was brutal, visceral and terrifying, especially reading this as a woman. I can't deny that I have recently felt uneasy driving down the backroads around my house...maybe stick to main busy roads in future! Fair Extension was awesome, I loved how King juxtaposed the fate of the two families. I'd read an entire book based on that story and idea. Lastly, A Good Marriage. This was one I felt slightly less excited about reading about as I had already watched the adaptation last year and just thought it was okay. But I REALLY enjoyed this one - Darcy is a badass. I can't even begin to imagine what I would do in that scenario.
It's very easy to see where the title for this collection comes from - these are dark, heavy stories, with pretty much no light or positive outcomes. I thoroughly enjoyed each story and would probably give each individual novella five stars, which is very rare when it comes to collections of short stories or novellas. I can honestly say I was sad to come to the end of this collection and I think I now have a new book to recommend to people who are looking to venture into the world of King. Highly recommend this one!!
King, I missed you.
December 12, 2010
There’s a fair amount of criticism out there about Stephen King. A lot of it is valid, but there are certain times that he’s the perfect author to be reading. Like last night when a winter storm blew through. Freezing temperatures, snow, ice, and high winds made it look like an Artic wasteland outside. As I lay reading under my warm blankets, I paused for a moment and listened to the wind making the house creak and the sleet hitting the windows, and thought, “This is just about the perfect setting to be reading a Stephen King book.” The fact that it was a very damn good Stephen King book was an excellent bonus.
As if to give us a break after recent high page count books like Under the Dome and Duma Key, King delivers four short-n-sweet novellas focusing on the nastier sides of people with just a hint of the supernatural. These are four tales about the lives we build that we tell ourselves our safe, sane and secure, but there’s always darkness lurking at the edges. King points out that sometimes we’re the ones who invite that darkness in.
In 1922, a Depression-era farmer in the Midwest just wants to work with his son and read books in the evening, but his wife wants to sell some land her father left her to a hog factory and use the money to move to the city. When the two can’t reach an agreement, the farmer decides to murder her and hide the body in an old well. Even worse, he manipulates his son into helping. What results is a chilling story of the unintended consequences that one crime and the ensuing guilt can cause.
Big Driver features Tess, an author who writes cozy mysteries about a group of elderly amateur female detectives that are popular with grandma-types. Taking a short cut home from a speaking/signing engagement, a flat tire leads to Tess being raped and left for dead. After escaping, Tess realizes that since she’s a quasi-celebrity going to the police would result in a media firestorm that would taint the rest of her life so she decides to seek her own revenge.
Dave Streeter is a man with terminal cancer who gets a mysterious offer for fifteen more healthy years of life in Fair Extension, but he has to nominate someone to get a heaping dose of bad luck in his place. Since he’s got a lot of resentment and grudges against his best friend Tom and his perfect life, Streeter decides that his old buddy deserves some misfortune.
The question in A Good Marriage is how well do you know your spouse? Darcy and Bob have been together 25 years and if things are a bit dull and ordinary at this point, they’ve built a good life and are generally content. When Bob’s away on business, Darcy goes looking for batteries in the garage and discovers a horrifying secret that her husband has been keeping.
This is some of the best stuff that King has done in years. By focusing on human nature rather than supernatural monsters, he was able to create some very relatable yet scary stories. We know that we won’t really be trapped in old hotels filled with ghosts or live in a town overrun by vampires or chased by demon cars that drive themselves. But getting a flat tire on a lonely road? Finding a dark secret about a spouse? Being jealous of a friend doing better than yourself? Watching your life unravel because of a bad decision you’ve tried to hide? Those are things that we really fear, and King uses them all skillfully to deliver some of his creepiest stories yet.
As if to give us a break after recent high page count books like Under the Dome and Duma Key, King delivers four short-n-sweet novellas focusing on the nastier sides of people with just a hint of the supernatural. These are four tales about the lives we build that we tell ourselves our safe, sane and secure, but there’s always darkness lurking at the edges. King points out that sometimes we’re the ones who invite that darkness in.
In 1922, a Depression-era farmer in the Midwest just wants to work with his son and read books in the evening, but his wife wants to sell some land her father left her to a hog factory and use the money to move to the city. When the two can’t reach an agreement, the farmer decides to murder her and hide the body in an old well. Even worse, he manipulates his son into helping. What results is a chilling story of the unintended consequences that one crime and the ensuing guilt can cause.
Big Driver features Tess, an author who writes cozy mysteries about a group of elderly amateur female detectives that are popular with grandma-types. Taking a short cut home from a speaking/signing engagement, a flat tire leads to Tess being raped and left for dead. After escaping, Tess realizes that since she’s a quasi-celebrity going to the police would result in a media firestorm that would taint the rest of her life so she decides to seek her own revenge.
Dave Streeter is a man with terminal cancer who gets a mysterious offer for fifteen more healthy years of life in Fair Extension, but he has to nominate someone to get a heaping dose of bad luck in his place. Since he’s got a lot of resentment and grudges against his best friend Tom and his perfect life, Streeter decides that his old buddy deserves some misfortune.
The question in A Good Marriage is how well do you know your spouse? Darcy and Bob have been together 25 years and if things are a bit dull and ordinary at this point, they’ve built a good life and are generally content. When Bob’s away on business, Darcy goes looking for batteries in the garage and discovers a horrifying secret that her husband has been keeping.
This is some of the best stuff that King has done in years. By focusing on human nature rather than supernatural monsters, he was able to create some very relatable yet scary stories. We know that we won’t really be trapped in old hotels filled with ghosts or live in a town overrun by vampires or chased by demon cars that drive themselves. But getting a flat tire on a lonely road? Finding a dark secret about a spouse? Being jealous of a friend doing better than yourself? Watching your life unravel because of a bad decision you’ve tried to hide? Those are things that we really fear, and King uses them all skillfully to deliver some of his creepiest stories yet.
April 3, 2021
Four dark novellas, with Big Driver probably being the best and the darkest. This collection also contains, Fair Extension, A Good Marriage and 1922, as well as the short Under The Weather. Retribution, revenge, and never really knowing someone are the main themes, tapping into the core fear of most humans in that we don't really get to know anyone - we just get to know and see what people are prepared to share / show? 8 out of 12.
March 23, 2017
4.5 Stars.
Very Dark and "Wonderfully Gruesome" collection.
Was happy to have found this gem when cleaning and reorganizing one of my too-many to-read bookshelves here at home, and even though I find I've already read each and every one...SHEESH...I actually didn't remember the ending on a couple of them so all is well, and having a real KING book is hardly a hardship after all.
1922 - 5 Stars
A marital disagreement to sell or not to sell...the farm, that is...turns deadly, but RATS!...Talk about having a bad year...you'll find one of the worst you can imagine here. Repulsively Good!
BIG DRIVER - 4 Stars
Stranded on a deserted back road with a blown tire in the middle of the night is creepy in itself, but even scarier (for a female) when GIANT size help arrives. In the end, though, he is NOT the only danger.
FAIR EXTENSION - 4 Stars
We're back in Derry (oh no!) to consider a devilish proposition, and enjoy a wickedly horrid story.
A GOOD MARRIAGE - 5 Stars
Shocking, suspenseful and a deadly good short story depicting a BIG marital secret of the deadly kind. (Enjoyed the movie too!)
UNDER THE WEATHER - 4 Stars
Bad dreams and bad smells turn into a heartbreaker of a story as the neighbor smells a rat!
FULL DARK NO STARS is a page-turning anthology with an Afterword filled with interesting personal tidbits about KING and how he came to write each story. Re-enjoyed it!
May 18, 2015
1922: A man coerces his son into helping him murder his wife. Can they keep their sanity in the aftermath?
1922 is a latter day retelling of A Telltale Heart, only with rats and a Bonnie and Clyde side-story. It's also damn good and a prime example of what Stephen King can do when he has a limited number of pages to work with instead of the entire paper output of a redwood forest.
Big Driver: After taking a shortcut down an unfamiliar road, a writer is raped and left in a culvert to die but her attacker made a mistake. He let her live...
Wow, this was a powerful, dark, unsettling tale of rape and revenge. Did I mention it was uncomfortable? A woman getting raped is much more horrifying than a nightmare clown lurking in the sewers. I kept having revenge fantasies of my own on behalf of the women in my life while reading this.
Fair Extension: When a mysterious stranger offers Harry Streeter 15-20 more years of life, he jumps at the chance. But with deals of this kind, there's always a catch...
This one kind of reminds me of The Monkey's Paw. For all the good luck the Streeter family has, shit rains down upon the man Streeter hates the most.
A Good Marriage: Darcy Anderson thought she had a good marriage until she found something her husband hid in their garage...
The point this story drives home is how little anyone really knows anyone else. Chilling and very effective.
Full Dark, No Stars isn't my favorite King book but it's chock full of Kingliness and is an excellent example of what sai King can do when he isn't allowed to write phonebook sized tomes. Four out of five stars.
1922 is a latter day retelling of A Telltale Heart, only with rats and a Bonnie and Clyde side-story. It's also damn good and a prime example of what Stephen King can do when he has a limited number of pages to work with instead of the entire paper output of a redwood forest.
Big Driver: After taking a shortcut down an unfamiliar road, a writer is raped and left in a culvert to die but her attacker made a mistake. He let her live...
Wow, this was a powerful, dark, unsettling tale of rape and revenge. Did I mention it was uncomfortable? A woman getting raped is much more horrifying than a nightmare clown lurking in the sewers. I kept having revenge fantasies of my own on behalf of the women in my life while reading this.
Fair Extension: When a mysterious stranger offers Harry Streeter 15-20 more years of life, he jumps at the chance. But with deals of this kind, there's always a catch...
This one kind of reminds me of The Monkey's Paw. For all the good luck the Streeter family has, shit rains down upon the man Streeter hates the most.
A Good Marriage: Darcy Anderson thought she had a good marriage until she found something her husband hid in their garage...
The point this story drives home is how little anyone really knows anyone else. Chilling and very effective.
Full Dark, No Stars isn't my favorite King book but it's chock full of Kingliness and is an excellent example of what sai King can do when he isn't allowed to write phonebook sized tomes. Four out of five stars.
January 26, 2018
Full Dark, Four Stars.
In Full Dark, No Stars, we get four dark tales filled with murder, revenge, terror, and death. That, my friend, is regular Monday morning at Stephen King's head anyway!
Novella #1 1922
To be honest, I picked up Full Dark, No Stars after watching the trailer for 1922 movie adaptation, and I am happy to say that the novella delivers. The story is set in Nebraska and the year is (that's right, you guessed it) 1922. We are introduced to Wilfred James, a farmer who loves his way of living, and his wife, Arlette, who despise their way of living, and their teenage son, Henry. The story takes a dark turn when Arlette decides to sell the land she inherited from her father and move to the city, a decision James can't even consider. You see, he is kind of person who loves the land he lives in, and he wants to start farming in Arlette's land too.
I think you can see where this is going.
What you will not see if you don't read this book is how good the narration is. The story is narrated by James, and King did an excellent job fleshing out the characters and the incidents. I loved the period drama King brought to the story. The locations, the mentality of people, the creeping horror, and bloody good storytelling makes this the best story in this collection for me.
Novella #2 Big Driver
In king's Short story collection book called Everything's Eventual, there was story named In the Deathroom. In author's note, King hinted that In the Deathroom is basically a wish fulfillment where the protagonist pulls through even though the cards were stacked against him.
Big Driver felt like In the Death room, but of course, Big Driver is longer and digs deep into its characters. Yet, I felt like the story was a bit unreal at times. The story is hard to read because it involves , and towards the end, it felt a little bit too neat.
Well, this is not by any means a bad story, nevertheless, Big Driver is my least favorite story in this collection.
Novella #3 Fair Extension
The dude under that yellow umbrella sells extensions. Dave Streeter is dying because of cancer. And I can smell a trade coming up. But What will be the price?
This is a very short novella. Incidentally, it is the most fucked up novella too, especially the second half! All I can say is read and find out!
Novella #4 Good Marriage
You know what? I am not getting married, period. This right here is some scary shit. Once again, we find that true horror comes from humans, and not ghosts.
It all starts when Darcy stumbles upon a box in the garage. Oh, Wait. Darcy is happily married to Bob for 27 years. They really love each other. But do they really know each other?
Ok. back to the box!
I shouldn't tell you, but it's not a head. But it's pretty terrible.
I really enjoyed the story. The characters and the inner monologues of Darcy were really well written. The antagonist of this story is a fine example of King's ability to create screwed up characters!
Parting thoughts:
Full Dark, No Stars is a solid collection of four stories which delves deep into the darkness of human mind and how seamlessly ordinary people will react in extraordinary situations. Take heed, be prepared, and when stars around you go out and darkness engulf the flawless landscape around you, you'll finally understand what sort of person you are.
In Full Dark, No Stars, we get four dark tales filled with murder, revenge, terror, and death. That, my friend, is regular Monday morning at Stephen King's head anyway!
Novella #1 1922
To be honest, I picked up Full Dark, No Stars after watching the trailer for 1922 movie adaptation, and I am happy to say that the novella delivers. The story is set in Nebraska and the year is (that's right, you guessed it) 1922. We are introduced to Wilfred James, a farmer who loves his way of living, and his wife, Arlette, who despise their way of living, and their teenage son, Henry. The story takes a dark turn when Arlette decides to sell the land she inherited from her father and move to the city, a decision James can't even consider. You see, he is kind of person who loves the land he lives in, and he wants to start farming in Arlette's land too.
I think you can see where this is going.
What you will not see if you don't read this book is how good the narration is. The story is narrated by James, and King did an excellent job fleshing out the characters and the incidents. I loved the period drama King brought to the story. The locations, the mentality of people, the creeping horror, and bloody good storytelling makes this the best story in this collection for me.
Novella #2 Big Driver
In king's Short story collection book called Everything's Eventual, there was story named In the Deathroom. In author's note, King hinted that In the Deathroom is basically a wish fulfillment where the protagonist pulls through even though the cards were stacked against him.
Big Driver felt like In the Death room, but of course, Big Driver is longer and digs deep into its characters. Yet, I felt like the story was a bit unreal at times. The story is hard to read because it involves , and towards the end, it felt a little bit too neat.
Well, this is not by any means a bad story, nevertheless, Big Driver is my least favorite story in this collection.
Novella #3 Fair Extension
❝Everyone wants an extension, Mr. Streeter. If you were a young woman with a love of shopping, I’d offer you a credit extension. If you were a man with a small penis—genetics can be so cruel—I’d offer you a dick extension.Short men frequently want a height extension. If you did want more hair, Mr. Streeter, I’d be happy to sell you a hair extension.❞
The dude under that yellow umbrella sells extensions. Dave Streeter is dying because of cancer. And I can smell a trade coming up. But What will be the price?
This is a very short novella. Incidentally, it is the most fucked up novella too, especially the second half! All I can say is read and find out!
Novella #4 Good Marriage
You know what? I am not getting married, period. This right here is some scary shit. Once again, we find that true horror comes from humans, and not ghosts.
It all starts when Darcy stumbles upon a box in the garage. Oh, Wait. Darcy is happily married to Bob for 27 years. They really love each other. But do they really know each other?
Ok. back to the box!
I shouldn't tell you, but it's not a head. But it's pretty terrible.
I really enjoyed the story. The characters and the inner monologues of Darcy were really well written. The antagonist of this story is a fine example of King's ability to create screwed up characters!
Parting thoughts:
Full Dark, No Stars is a solid collection of four stories which delves deep into the darkness of human mind and how seamlessly ordinary people will react in extraordinary situations. Take heed, be prepared, and when stars around you go out and darkness engulf the flawless landscape around you, you'll finally understand what sort of person you are.
May 25, 2023
طالما تساءلت لماذا يلقي ستيفن كينج بالحقيقة في وجوهنا بلا تزيين و لا مونتاج و لا تمهيد؟ لماذا يصر على أن يصدمنا في انسانيتنا فيصور لنا محاسب في وول ستريت قاتلا متسلسلا و قاتلا مأجورا أبا مثاليا؟ هل يصر على قلب الحقائق التي تعودنا أن نراها في الروايات و الأفلام أو أن هذا هو فعلا عالمنا الحقيقي؟ و ها هو يجيب بنفسه:
أربعة قصص تكاد يكون الغرض منها ألا تنام المرأة التي ستقرأها لمدة طويلة قد تدوم عدة أيام أو أسابيع بعد القراءة مصحوبة بالكوابيس حتى في يقظتها. لن يعدم الرجل ��يضا أن ينتابه القلق بعد القراءة و إن بصورة أقل فقد كان دائما هنا هو البادئ بالعداوة و لن يتعاطف أبدا مع نفسه أو يلتمس لها الرحمة
الكتّاب الذين يكذبون عن قصد. الذين يستبدلون طريقة تصرف الناس الفعلية بسلوك بشري لا يصدق. فليس لدي لهم إلا الازدراء. الكتابة السيئة هي ليست أكثر من مجرد تركيب نحوي تافه و مراقبة معيوبة. الكتابة السيئة تنشأ عادة من رفض عنيد لتأليف قصص عما يفعله الأشخاص في الواقع – لمواجهة الحقيقة. دعنا نقول بأن القتلة أحيانا يساعدون السيدات العجائز على عبور الشارع.
لقد بذلت قصارى جهدي في (ظلام دامس. لا نجوم) لأدون ما قد يفعله الأشخ��ص. و كيف قد يتصرفون. في بعض الظروف المريعة. الأشخاص في هذه القصص لا يخلون من أمل. لكنهم يدركون أن أعز أمالنا و أعز أمانينا لأخوتنا في الإنسانية و المجتمع الذي نعيش فيه قد تكون عقيمة أحيانا. في أغلب الأحيان. حتى. لكنني أعتقد أنه يقال أيضا. إن النبالة تكمن بالكامل ليس في النجاح بل في محاولة فعل الصواب. و أننا عندما نفشل في فعل ذلك. أو ننصرف بكامل إرادتنا عن مواجهة التحديات. نكون قد ألقينا أنفسنا في الجحيم.
في القصة الأولي 1922 الزوجة التي ورثت مئة فدان و ترغب في الانتقال مع أسرتها إلى حياة المدينة فيتآمر الزوج و الابن على قتلها و الاحتفاظ بحياتهم و فدادينها فتأبي روحها إلا مطاردتهم للنهاية الكئيبة و المتوقعة.
و القصة الثانية السائق الكبير التي تتعرض فيها الكاتبة المشهورة للاغتصاب و محاولة القتل و تجد نفسها مجبرة على الصمت.
و الثالثة تطويل معقول التي لا تبدو أن ضحيتها سيدة و لكن أول الضحايا فعلا كانت الزوجة التي أصيبت بالسرطان بدلا من بطل القصة الذي رمى بلاءه على غيره.
أما الأخيرة زواج جيد فعن الزوجة التي اكتشفت أنها مخيرة بين أن تعيش مع الزوج السفاح و كأنها لا تعلم هويته و جرائمه أو تكون هي الضحية الثانية عشرة له.
لا أظن أن أي امرأة قادرة على قراءة هذه الرواية دون أن تترك في نفسيتها أثرا من رعب أو كآبة و يا حبذا لو شاهدت الأفلام الثلاثة المأخوذة عن هذه القصص. و في النهاية فإن أي شيء قد يحدث لكِ عزيزتي حواء فأنا غير مسئول عنه بعد كل هذه التحذيرات.
February 17, 2023
This collection of dark, short novellas will haunt me in the best way possible. 4.2 ⛧
November 29, 2017
I finished!
Full Dark, No Stars. I always liked that title. It’s a subtle warning for what lies ahead within these four novellas, but I didn’t realize how accurate it was, until I read them all. Let me add a warning you before you decide to read them: Not for the faint of heart.
Big Driver
Tess is a mystery writer, and like writers do, she attends a few speaking engagements throughout the year. Get close to her fans, talk about her latest book, and sign some autographs. She only has a couple of rules, and one is “keep it close to home” - within a day’s driving distance. So when a lady calls about a last minute fill-in, just 60 miles down the road in Chicopee, she says yes. “Easy-as-can-beezy”. (I don’t know about you, but that saying gets stuck on the middle of my tongue).
And everything is easy-as… well you know, until Tess takes a short-cut home, one offered up by that nice librarian in Chicopee, and a nice day turns into the most frightening of days for a woman stranded. Like 1922, this novella gets scary in a hurry, not in the “typical” horror sense, but in an all too real way. The worst part of this story was the ugliness of man. The best part was the misdirection. I thought it would go one way. It went another. And for the most part, I cheered those choices. For added dialogue in a mainly singular character novel, Tess talks to (and hears from) her cat, and also her TomTom - strangely good.
Fair Extension
“Sold his soul to the devil”, or so the old saying goes. Just a fair extension of time for a man dying. Except there is always a price to pay, but the twist is that another will foot this bill. To me, this was the darkest of these four stories. Reads like a parody, which it has to be because – wow - the satire of mean spiritedness is steeped in exaggeration. That was tough for me to overcome.
A Good Marriage
Of course when you see the title, A Good Marriage, you know that it will be anything but. And, you’d be right. I really wish I hadn’t known the synopsis before reading this time around. I read this one upon its initial release, and even though most of that memory has faded with time, I did not forget the biggest piece of the puzzle. I’d like to go back to experience the moment Darcy discovers her husband secret, hidden beneath the garage workbench. It’s a crazy secret. So go into this one blind, if you can. The ending is really good. I guess within these stories there shines a little light after all. Like King says in the afterword, “the people in these stories are not without hope.”
1922 – (review first posted on 11/19/17)
If you happen to come across a well in a Stephen King novel, you can bet dollars to donuts that something’s going in it. Notice I didn’t get specific as to what that thing is, but I am sure there are some immediate and close guesses for those who know King. What’s different about this one? She’s a shocker in the get-go.
Here’s a conversation I had with my mom the other night. She knows how much I like Stephen King:
“Oh gosh, I watched that movie 1922 on Netflix last night!”, she says. (Note: By her tone, I knew a rave review was not forthcoming.)
“Uh-oh”, I said. “Bloody?” (me knowing full well that it probably was that **snicker-snicker**, but at this point I had not read the novella, or watched the movie).
”O-M-G!”, mom said. (you’d really have to see her face for full dramatic effect – much disgust) “I about turned it off a few times! But, I ended up watching all of it.”
What did I hear in all of that? She watched all of it. Hee-hee.
So of course I picked up the novella the next day and began my reading. OMG indeed Ma. She was right. The beginning of this story is one bitter pill to swallow. It is raw, and it is ugly. If the movie is anything like the book, then egad. I’m going to say that it’s not for everyone. That’s too bad too, because if you can get past that beginning, this one settles down (excepting them darned rats) into a surprisingly melancholy story of a man looking back in regret. He may not regret the act, but certainly does regret the aftermath, a whirlwind that will destroy more than one future.
Full Dark, No Stars. I always liked that title. It’s a subtle warning for what lies ahead within these four novellas, but I didn’t realize how accurate it was, until I read them all. Let me add a warning you before you decide to read them: Not for the faint of heart.
Big Driver
Tess is a mystery writer, and like writers do, she attends a few speaking engagements throughout the year. Get close to her fans, talk about her latest book, and sign some autographs. She only has a couple of rules, and one is “keep it close to home” - within a day’s driving distance. So when a lady calls about a last minute fill-in, just 60 miles down the road in Chicopee, she says yes. “Easy-as-can-beezy”. (I don’t know about you, but that saying gets stuck on the middle of my tongue).
And everything is easy-as… well you know, until Tess takes a short-cut home, one offered up by that nice librarian in Chicopee, and a nice day turns into the most frightening of days for a woman stranded. Like 1922, this novella gets scary in a hurry, not in the “typical” horror sense, but in an all too real way. The worst part of this story was the ugliness of man. The best part was the misdirection. I thought it would go one way. It went another. And for the most part, I cheered those choices. For added dialogue in a mainly singular character novel, Tess talks to (and hears from) her cat, and also her TomTom - strangely good.
Fair Extension
“Sold his soul to the devil”, or so the old saying goes. Just a fair extension of time for a man dying. Except there is always a price to pay, but the twist is that another will foot this bill. To me, this was the darkest of these four stories. Reads like a parody, which it has to be because – wow - the satire of mean spiritedness is steeped in exaggeration. That was tough for me to overcome.
A Good Marriage
Of course when you see the title, A Good Marriage, you know that it will be anything but. And, you’d be right. I really wish I hadn’t known the synopsis before reading this time around. I read this one upon its initial release, and even though most of that memory has faded with time, I did not forget the biggest piece of the puzzle. I’d like to go back to experience the moment Darcy discovers her husband secret, hidden beneath the garage workbench. It’s a crazy secret. So go into this one blind, if you can. The ending is really good. I guess within these stories there shines a little light after all. Like King says in the afterword, “the people in these stories are not without hope.”
1922 – (review first posted on 11/19/17)
If you happen to come across a well in a Stephen King novel, you can bet dollars to donuts that something’s going in it. Notice I didn’t get specific as to what that thing is, but I am sure there are some immediate and close guesses for those who know King. What’s different about this one? She’s a shocker in the get-go.
Here’s a conversation I had with my mom the other night. She knows how much I like Stephen King:
“Oh gosh, I watched that movie 1922 on Netflix last night!”, she says. (Note: By her tone, I knew a rave review was not forthcoming.)
“Uh-oh”, I said. “Bloody?” (me knowing full well that it probably was that **snicker-snicker**, but at this point I had not read the novella, or watched the movie).
”O-M-G!”, mom said. (you’d really have to see her face for full dramatic effect – much disgust) “I about turned it off a few times! But, I ended up watching all of it.”
What did I hear in all of that? She watched all of it. Hee-hee.
So of course I picked up the novella the next day and began my reading. OMG indeed Ma. She was right. The beginning of this story is one bitter pill to swallow. It is raw, and it is ugly. If the movie is anything like the book, then egad. I’m going to say that it’s not for everyone. That’s too bad too, because if you can get past that beginning, this one settles down (excepting them darned rats) into a surprisingly melancholy story of a man looking back in regret. He may not regret the act, but certainly does regret the aftermath, a whirlwind that will destroy more than one future.
”Do you like how things turned out, Wilf? Was it worth it?”
July 18, 2018
4.5 Stars
I've somehow stumbled into a Stephen King binge. Its been a long time since I've read Mr. King but I now appear to be back in.
Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of short stories each one in my opinion darker than the last. In my humble opinion no author does the short story collection better than Stephen King and this collection is just further proof of that.
Without spoiling anything I will now give a mini review of each story.
1922 -- 3 Stars
1922 is the first story in this collection and the only one to give me an actual nightmare. I will give you a warning if you like me HATE HATE HATE rats maybe skip 1922 I felt sick after reading it. In 1922 we meet a man who suffers some major consequences after the untimely death of his wife.
Big Driver --3.5 Stars
Big Driver is story #2 all I'll say about this one is a certain evil truck driver fucked with the wrong woman.
Fair Extension--4.5 Stars
Fair Extension is a strange little story that in some ways reminded me of Thinner. In Fair Extension we meet a man battling terminal cancer who gets quite the deal from a roadside businessman.
A Good Marriage--5 Stars
A Good Marriage was my absolute favorite story of the bunch. In A Good Marriage a wife learns that the old adage "If you go looking for trouble, you'll find it" is very true.
Full Dark, No Stars was very dark and at times I felt very unsettled reading it but if you like Stephen King and aren't afraid of letting a little darkness in I suggest you consider picking this one up.
I've somehow stumbled into a Stephen King binge. Its been a long time since I've read Mr. King but I now appear to be back in.
Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of short stories each one in my opinion darker than the last. In my humble opinion no author does the short story collection better than Stephen King and this collection is just further proof of that.
Without spoiling anything I will now give a mini review of each story.
1922 -- 3 Stars
1922 is the first story in this collection and the only one to give me an actual nightmare. I will give you a warning if you like me HATE HATE HATE rats maybe skip 1922 I felt sick after reading it. In 1922 we meet a man who suffers some major consequences after the untimely death of his wife.
Big Driver --3.5 Stars
Big Driver is story #2 all I'll say about this one is a certain evil truck driver fucked with the wrong woman.
Fair Extension--4.5 Stars
Fair Extension is a strange little story that in some ways reminded me of Thinner. In Fair Extension we meet a man battling terminal cancer who gets quite the deal from a roadside businessman.
A Good Marriage--5 Stars
A Good Marriage was my absolute favorite story of the bunch. In A Good Marriage a wife learns that the old adage "If you go looking for trouble, you'll find it" is very true.
Full Dark, No Stars was very dark and at times I felt very unsettled reading it but if you like Stephen King and aren't afraid of letting a little darkness in I suggest you consider picking this one up.
July 19, 2020
I may have stepped too far into the King waters this time, I should probably stick closer to shore. And I really should have taken the title at face value.
This collection was intense and disturbing exploring the darkest underbelly of human behavior. I’d also like to add that they’re not easy to forget, they have inhabited a part of my brain and I’d really like them to leave. Please.
Big Driver - Brutal and unsettling. A violent rape and its aftermath. A cozy writer finds her inner warrior. There were moments when I was reading this novella when I forgot to breathe.
Fair Extension - Deal with the devil story that explores that most dark of emotions, envy. There’s a reason it’s one of the seven deadly sins. Sans violence, gore or things that go bump in the night, this one was the nastiest for me and I wanted to scrub my soul with bleach.
A Good Marriage - Unnerving and the best of the four. I previously read this as a standalone, not knowing that it was part of this collection. Mr. King asks the question, is it possible to really know someone?
1922 - A horror show and too much for this squeamish gal. True King fans (which I’ll never be due to being a wuss) think this is the best of the lot. If I’d finished reading it, I would likely not get any more sleep and I need my beauty rest.
So why am I still rating this with four stars? Horrifying as the stories may be, dang if he didn’t pull me under and make me consider what horrible people might do. Now, anyone know of a good lobotomist?
This collection was intense and disturbing exploring the darkest underbelly of human behavior. I’d also like to add that they’re not easy to forget, they have inhabited a part of my brain and I’d really like them to leave. Please.
Big Driver - Brutal and unsettling. A violent rape and its aftermath. A cozy writer finds her inner warrior. There were moments when I was reading this novella when I forgot to breathe.
Fair Extension - Deal with the devil story that explores that most dark of emotions, envy. There’s a reason it’s one of the seven deadly sins. Sans violence, gore or things that go bump in the night, this one was the nastiest for me and I wanted to scrub my soul with bleach.
A Good Marriage - Unnerving and the best of the four. I previously read this as a standalone, not knowing that it was part of this collection. Mr. King asks the question, is it possible to really know someone?
1922 - A horror show and too much for this squeamish gal. True King fans (which I’ll never be due to being a wuss) think this is the best of the lot. If I’d finished reading it, I would likely not get any more sleep and I need my beauty rest.
So why am I still rating this with four stars? Horrifying as the stories may be, dang if he didn’t pull me under and make me consider what horrible people might do. Now, anyone know of a good lobotomist?
November 4, 2018
Oh man, each story makes you forget about the other, they're all equally fascinating and terrifying ... From the farmer who convinced his son to kill his inconsiderate drunk ass mother, to the lawyer who made a deal with a devil out of spite and jealousy, to the brave author who went through hell and back and avenged herself in a rather bad-ass fashion , and finally to the housewife who made a shocking ,albeit a late discovery about her husband and responded Properly... King never disappoint !
June 16, 2012
Best of 2010
Hold up wait a minute King of fiction releases novellas, stop all reading! Bump up to the front of your to-read list! Essential reading right now! Beauty of Kindle is that i could start reading instantly on release date.
King sums these stories in his afterward he says
1922
King's first novella is a treat of a story, a family who live on a farm with their fates in Kings hand to twist. A story of the darkness of the soul, the evil of what we do and the consequences of our actions. To what extent would you go to preserve the way things exist instead of moving to the big city?
The novella starts with this statment.
Big Driver
This story has themes of redemption and atonement. A mystery writer finds herself caught up in her own real life investigation. This story touches you with warmth and compassion for victims of rape and how hard it is for victim to report the crime, the idea of people finding out you have been raped is frightening as the crime. It makes you think about taking the wrong turn being in wrong place at the wrong time.
Fair Extension
This is the shorter of the four stories its about a twist of fates fortunate become unfortunate and vice versa.
A Good Marriage
This was a gripping story, it made you think, do you really know what your partners up to? If you found out how would you deal with it? The kids, the press, lives could be destroyed.
Stephen King and his British Fantasy Award for Best Collection.
Hey I am over here too!
Hold up wait a minute King of fiction releases novellas, stop all reading! Bump up to the front of your to-read list! Essential reading right now! Beauty of Kindle is that i could start reading instantly on release date.
King sums these stories in his afterward he says
" I have tried my best in Full Dark, No Stars to record what people might do, and how they might behave, under certain dire circumstances. The people in these stories are not without hope, but they acknowledge that even our fondest hopes (and our fondest wishes for our fellowmen and the society in which we live) may sometimes be vain. Often, even. But I think they also say that nobility most fully resides not in success but in trying to do the right thing . . "
1922
King's first novella is a treat of a story, a family who live on a farm with their fates in Kings hand to twist. A story of the darkness of the soul, the evil of what we do and the consequences of our actions. To what extent would you go to preserve the way things exist instead of moving to the big city?
The novella starts with this statment.
"My name is Wilfred Leland James, and this is my confession. In June of 1922 I murdered my wife, Arlette Christina Winters James, and hid her body by tipping it down an old well."also some more good excerpts..
"Here is something I learned in 1922: there are always worse things waiting. You think you have seen the most terrible thing, the one that coalesces all your nightmares into a freakish horror that actually exists, and the only consolation is that there can be nothing worse. Even if there is, your mind will snap at the sight of it, and you will know no more. But there is worse, your mind does not snap, and somehow you carry on. You might understand that all the joy has gone... "
" The Conniving Man out-connived: how do you like that?"
Big Driver
This story has themes of redemption and atonement. A mystery writer finds herself caught up in her own real life investigation. This story touches you with warmth and compassion for victims of rape and how hard it is for victim to report the crime, the idea of people finding out you have been raped is frightening as the crime. It makes you think about taking the wrong turn being in wrong place at the wrong time.
The National Crime Victimization Survey says, because I googled it. Sixty percent of rapes go unreported, according to them. Three in every five. I think that might be low, but who can say for sure?"
" . . . what she says once in every book: murderers always overlook the obvious."
Fair Extension
This is the shorter of the four stories its about a twist of fates fortunate become unfortunate and vice versa.
I was thinking about the Goodhughs. I’ve never known a family to have such a run of bad luck. Bad luck?’ She laughed. ‘Black luck is more like it.’ ”
“ ‘Life is fair. We all get the same nine-month shake in the box, and then the dice roll. Some people get a run of sevens. Some people, unfortunately, get snake-eyes. It’s just how the world is.’
A Good Marriage
This was a gripping story, it made you think, do you really know what your partners up to? If you found out how would you deal with it? The kids, the press, lives could be destroyed.
He loved nothing, least of all her. Every kindness, caress, boyish grin, and thoughtful gesture – all were nothing but camouflage. He was a shell. There was nothing inside but howling emptiness. ”
"She dreamed of going into the dining room and finding a woman bound with chains to the long Ethan Allen table there. The woman was naked except for a black leather hood that covered the top half of her face. I don’t know that woman, that woman is a stranger to me, she thought in her dream, and then from beneath the hood Petra said: ‘Mama, is that you?"
"It’s a mistake, it has to be, we’ve been married over half our lives, I’d know, I would know. Opening the box. Thinking, Does anybody really know ”
"A marriage was like a house under constant construction, each year seeing the completion of new rooms. A first-year marriage was a cottage; one that had gone on for twenty-seven years was a huge and rambling mansion. There were bound to be crannies and storage spaces, most of them dusty and abandoned, some containing a few unpleasant relics you would just as soon you hadn’t found. But that was no biggie. You either threw those relics out or took them to Goodwill. ”
“It’s what drug addicts say. ‘I’ll never take any of that stuff again. I’ve quit before and this time I’ll quit for good. I mean it.’ But they don’t mean it, even when they think they do they don’t, and neither does he. ”
"The refrigerator whirred, the water dripped in the sink, and the raw seconds passed. This was the Darker Life, where every truth was written backward."
Stephen King and his British Fantasy Award for Best Collection.
Hey I am over here too!
January 5, 2020
Loved the first horrible story - "1922" - and the suggestion that greed and cruelty always come back to haunt you. Literally. The rest were just okay, though I did enjoy the overarching theme of exploring the darkness that lurks beneath the surface of everyone.
April 29, 2021
Stephen King is a maestro with stories. These 4 novela's published in 2010, as well as over 200 others testify to that. 8 of 10 stars
April 13, 2023
This was a fantastic collection of short stories by Stephen King!
It’s a dark, twisted and fascinating look into the evil that lurks in humans and the survival instincts that people will do for greed, revenge, bitterness or morality.
1922 - 5 stars
Big Driver - 5 stars
Fair Extension - 4 stars
A Good Marriage - 5 stars
I will remember each short story because they have a lasting effect on the reader. After finishing this, my favorites are A Good Marriage and Big Driver.
This was a bit surprising since the short story I’m the most familiar with is 1922 since it was made into a movie. Stephen King is in his prime with this collection.
Do not go into Full Dark, No Stars without expecting some traumatic content.
When you look at the title of this book, it’s a night sky without an ounce of light and all you’re seeing is a void of darkness.
I’m glad that I did a group read with some friends on this one since it’s been sitting on my bookshelf for far too long!
It’s a dark, twisted and fascinating look into the evil that lurks in humans and the survival instincts that people will do for greed, revenge, bitterness or morality.
1922 - 5 stars
Big Driver - 5 stars
Fair Extension - 4 stars
A Good Marriage - 5 stars
I will remember each short story because they have a lasting effect on the reader. After finishing this, my favorites are A Good Marriage and Big Driver.
This was a bit surprising since the short story I’m the most familiar with is 1922 since it was made into a movie. Stephen King is in his prime with this collection.
Do not go into Full Dark, No Stars without expecting some traumatic content.
When you look at the title of this book, it’s a night sky without an ounce of light and all you’re seeing is a void of darkness.
I’m glad that I did a group read with some friends on this one since it’s been sitting on my bookshelf for far too long!
November 26, 2023
I read this book by listening to the novel on unabridged audio while driving for my job across a lot of full dark highways, no stars. The book was very good I recall, but the STORY that was tattooed on my brain was BIG DRIVER. I am certain we have watched the Lifetime Movie Adaptation at least 4 times. I bought it of course.
April 20, 2023
Full Dark, No Stars is an amazing collection of four deliciously dark and deadly novellas.
"When it came to the dark fuckery of the human heart, there seemed to be no limit."
This collection as a whole seemed much darker and more grounded within our own reality than many of Stephen King's previous story collections, with each focusing on the darker side of the human condition. I guess the title tells you all that you need to know!
'For the next ten minutes we talked theology in the green corn while early summer clouds - the best clouds, the ones that float like schooners - sailed slowly above us, trailing their shadows like wakes.'
Below are short reviews of each of the four stories.
1922 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A deeply harrowing and heavy psychological horror told in the form of a confessional letter.
'I believe that there is another man inside of every man, a stranger a Conniving Man.'
This is Stephen King doing what he does best, delving deep into the human psyche. It is one of those tales that will haunt me for some time. A tale of love, loss, the slow erroding of sanity, murder and most disgustingly for me, lots of rats.
But the dead can call across time; I know that now, and from personal experience'
Classic Stephen King!
Big Driver ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A stone-cold masterpiece of revenge fiction.
'Easy-as-can-beezy'
Initially, this was one of those stories I found hard to stomach due to its content but as things went on I fell in love. As with the first story, this one will stick with me for more time. It is both disgusting and beautiful at the same time and again similar to 1922 in that it delves deep into the inner workings of the human mind in a simply terrifying yet believable situation.
Of all things I loved within this story, it was the pop culture references of 80's horror (Freddie Kruger and Jason Vorhees especially) and also Tessa's 'conversations' with Tom and Fritzy the cat that really stole my heart.
'She wished the wind wasn't blowing so hard, but wish in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up first.'
I'm repeating myself again, an absolute Classic!
Fair Extension ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
An understated slice of dark and disturbed writing. Possibly the most messed up story in this collection.
'Everyone wants an extension Mr Streeter. If you were a young woman with a love of shopping, I'd offer you a credit extension. If you were a man with a small penis - genetics can be so cruel - I'd offer you a dick extension.'
This is the shortest story in this collection and the hardest-hitting of the bunch. What would you do to extend your life? This is one fucked up, disturbing tale, but one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I don't want to write any more about this, just for you to experience it yourself!
'Elvid's smile widened, and Streeter saw a wonderful, terrible thing; the man's teeth weren't just too big or too many. they were sharp.'
More top-class storytelling.
A Good Marriage ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A great short and original thriller.
'Secret life. What a poisoned bonbon that phrase was.'
Who would have thought that a tale about a couple's marriage could be so captivating?
We never truly know everything about anyone, even ourselves for that matter.
I've seen many a review of this story, stating it's the weakest of the bunch but I'd disagree. In my opinion, this is yet another slice of gloriously dark fiction from the master.
'For the first time in years, Darcy Madsen Anderson slipped from her chair onto her knees and began to pray. It did no good. The house was empty except for her.'
Yet again, first-class writing from Mr King.
This is top-notch horror fiction, which I would recommend without a second thought. This gets all the stars from me!
"When it came to the dark fuckery of the human heart, there seemed to be no limit."
This collection as a whole seemed much darker and more grounded within our own reality than many of Stephen King's previous story collections, with each focusing on the darker side of the human condition. I guess the title tells you all that you need to know!
'For the next ten minutes we talked theology in the green corn while early summer clouds - the best clouds, the ones that float like schooners - sailed slowly above us, trailing their shadows like wakes.'
Below are short reviews of each of the four stories.
1922 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A deeply harrowing and heavy psychological horror told in the form of a confessional letter.
'I believe that there is another man inside of every man, a stranger a Conniving Man.'
This is Stephen King doing what he does best, delving deep into the human psyche. It is one of those tales that will haunt me for some time. A tale of love, loss, the slow erroding of sanity, murder and most disgustingly for me, lots of rats.
But the dead can call across time; I know that now, and from personal experience'
Classic Stephen King!
Big Driver ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A stone-cold masterpiece of revenge fiction.
'Easy-as-can-beezy'
Initially, this was one of those stories I found hard to stomach due to its content but as things went on I fell in love. As with the first story, this one will stick with me for more time. It is both disgusting and beautiful at the same time and again similar to 1922 in that it delves deep into the inner workings of the human mind in a simply terrifying yet believable situation.
Of all things I loved within this story, it was the pop culture references of 80's horror (Freddie Kruger and Jason Vorhees especially) and also Tessa's 'conversations' with Tom and Fritzy the cat that really stole my heart.
'She wished the wind wasn't blowing so hard, but wish in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up first.'
I'm repeating myself again, an absolute Classic!
Fair Extension ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
An understated slice of dark and disturbed writing. Possibly the most messed up story in this collection.
'Everyone wants an extension Mr Streeter. If you were a young woman with a love of shopping, I'd offer you a credit extension. If you were a man with a small penis - genetics can be so cruel - I'd offer you a dick extension.'
This is the shortest story in this collection and the hardest-hitting of the bunch. What would you do to extend your life? This is one fucked up, disturbing tale, but one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I don't want to write any more about this, just for you to experience it yourself!
'Elvid's smile widened, and Streeter saw a wonderful, terrible thing; the man's teeth weren't just too big or too many. they were sharp.'
More top-class storytelling.
A Good Marriage ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A great short and original thriller.
'Secret life. What a poisoned bonbon that phrase was.'
Who would have thought that a tale about a couple's marriage could be so captivating?
We never truly know everything about anyone, even ourselves for that matter.
I've seen many a review of this story, stating it's the weakest of the bunch but I'd disagree. In my opinion, this is yet another slice of gloriously dark fiction from the master.
'For the first time in years, Darcy Madsen Anderson slipped from her chair onto her knees and began to pray. It did no good. The house was empty except for her.'
Yet again, first-class writing from Mr King.
This is top-notch horror fiction, which I would recommend without a second thought. This gets all the stars from me!
June 6, 2011
Ok, I am going to review each story, as well, individually as they deserver.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS
1. 1922 - This story is actually a confession of a man who has just murdered his wife. He has even dragged his innocent 14 year old son into this as well, which is very heartbreaking. I feel this story makes you realize that our actions have consequences that we will somehow at some point feel. Is it karma? What goes around, comes around? Ghosts? Insanity? This man, after committing this heinous crime feels the repercussions in everything breaking down around him. Is he losing his mind? Is he being haunted by his wife? This story in many ways reminds me of King's short story Morality (included w/ Blockade Billy), where one action of a woman completely alter the rest of her life. (5 stars)
2. Big Driver - Now this story was very unlike what I know of Uncle Stevie! That being said, I loved it! This is the story of Tessa, a well-known mystery writer who is on her way from a speaking engagement when she is viciously attacked, raped and left for dead. That's horrible enough, right? But this story follows her in how she handles this life-changing situation. This story is incredibly moving and she is an amazingly strong, resilient woman....much to her own surprise. I could not put this story down at all! (5 stars)
3. Fair Extension - This book left me a bit torn. Dave Streeter is your average family man with a wife and kids. Dave, however, is dying of cancer and is slowly watching his body deteriorate and his life crumble around him. He comes upon an odd, pudgy little man named George Elvid sitting on the side of the road looking like someone peddling his wares.....however there were no wares. He sells extensions......even a hair extension if that's what Dave wants. But what does Dave want? And what is the cost?
This was very well done, who would expect anything less from Uncle Stevie? lol. But I felt left wanting like the story wasn't finished. Or was it? Maybe the rest is for us to think about......was this right or wrong? Maybe too much information wouldn't let us work this one out in our head more. It definitely leaves me w/ alot of questions. (4 stars)
4. A Good Marriage - This story was about a woman named Darcy Anderson, who has a pretty charmed life....the good husband and 2 beautiful children. Her husband by all appearances is a mild-mannered accountant, and even volunteers for the boy scouts. They have been married fo 27 years and she thought she knew him pretty well, until she uncovered a secret hiding place of his in the garage. He has a secret that will change everything!
This story follows Darcy's discovery and how she handles the nightmare that her life becomes. I really liked this story and respected Darcy very much. (5 stars)
**UPDATE**
Ok, now with the release of the paperback book, also came the addition of an previously unpublished short story called Under The Weather. All I can say is OMG! I had no idea where this story was going and then all of a sudden I was like "You're $#!@$#! kidding me!" Yup, it's that kind of punchline! This one is possibly one of the best stories in the book. Now I don't want to say too much about this little treasure, but it's the story of a man, who is under a lot of stress due to work, recurring nightmares that he can't explain and a sick wife. Read this short little gem....you'll be glad you did.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS
1. 1922 - This story is actually a confession of a man who has just murdered his wife. He has even dragged his innocent 14 year old son into this as well, which is very heartbreaking. I feel this story makes you realize that our actions have consequences that we will somehow at some point feel. Is it karma? What goes around, comes around? Ghosts? Insanity? This man, after committing this heinous crime feels the repercussions in everything breaking down around him. Is he losing his mind? Is he being haunted by his wife? This story in many ways reminds me of King's short story Morality (included w/ Blockade Billy), where one action of a woman completely alter the rest of her life. (5 stars)
2. Big Driver - Now this story was very unlike what I know of Uncle Stevie! That being said, I loved it! This is the story of Tessa, a well-known mystery writer who is on her way from a speaking engagement when she is viciously attacked, raped and left for dead. That's horrible enough, right? But this story follows her in how she handles this life-changing situation. This story is incredibly moving and she is an amazingly strong, resilient woman....much to her own surprise. I could not put this story down at all! (5 stars)
3. Fair Extension - This book left me a bit torn. Dave Streeter is your average family man with a wife and kids. Dave, however, is dying of cancer and is slowly watching his body deteriorate and his life crumble around him. He comes upon an odd, pudgy little man named George Elvid sitting on the side of the road looking like someone peddling his wares.....however there were no wares. He sells extensions......even a hair extension if that's what Dave wants. But what does Dave want? And what is the cost?
This was very well done, who would expect anything less from Uncle Stevie? lol. But I felt left wanting like the story wasn't finished. Or was it? Maybe the rest is for us to think about......was this right or wrong? Maybe too much information wouldn't let us work this one out in our head more. It definitely leaves me w/ alot of questions. (4 stars)
4. A Good Marriage - This story was about a woman named Darcy Anderson, who has a pretty charmed life....the good husband and 2 beautiful children. Her husband by all appearances is a mild-mannered accountant, and even volunteers for the boy scouts. They have been married fo 27 years and she thought she knew him pretty well, until she uncovered a secret hiding place of his in the garage. He has a secret that will change everything!
This story follows Darcy's discovery and how she handles the nightmare that her life becomes. I really liked this story and respected Darcy very much. (5 stars)
**UPDATE**
Ok, now with the release of the paperback book, also came the addition of an previously unpublished short story called Under The Weather. All I can say is OMG! I had no idea where this story was going and then all of a sudden I was like "You're $#!@$#! kidding me!" Yup, it's that kind of punchline! This one is possibly one of the best stories in the book. Now I don't want to say too much about this little treasure, but it's the story of a man, who is under a lot of stress due to work, recurring nightmares that he can't explain and a sick wife. Read this short little gem....you'll be glad you did.
April 22, 2020
This is such a brilliant collection of novellas! It’s my second time around reading it and I enjoyed it even more this time around. The stories in this collection are just so dark and gripping, it’s definitely not a lighthearted read. It explores heavy topics and doesn’t hold back and that’s exactly what I love about King, he isn’t afraid to explore difficult topics! My favourite out of the collection is most definitely Big Driver, it just punched me right in the gut and made me feel such a range of emotions. But that isn’t to say I didn’t absolutely love the other stories as well. Each story truly left its mark on me in different ways, this really is a phenomenal collection of novellas!
September 30, 2024
So dark, I liked them but for personal reasons they were very emotional.
November 2, 2021
“Is there hell, or do we make our own on earth?”
“In the end we are all caught in devices of our own making. I believe that. In the end we are all caught.”
“If you’re going into a very dark place, then you should take a bright light, and shine it on everything. If you don’t want to see, why in God’s name would you dare the dark at all?”
What makes you decide to read a horror novel by Stephen King? Maybe you wish to be gripped and entertained? Or you want something easy to read which will be a page-turner; perhaps you want to see just how far he will go to shock and revolt you this time? Or it could be that you’ve never read anything by him before, and you’re curious. Four different stories might a good “taster”, you think.
Any or all of these may be a reason to read this book, as Full Dark No Stars is not a novel, but a set of 4 novellas. Each of them was published for the first time in this 2010 collection. So if you do not enjoy one, there are three more to try. They are:
1922
Big Driver
Fair Extension
A Good Marriage
(Each of these titles links to my review of the novella.)
An “Afterword” completes the book. This is a good idea, and much better than a “Foreword”, which can tend to be full of spoilers. In his afterword, Stephen King gives us some insight into the stories, saying that he wanted the stories to linger in the imagination. He warns that these 4 novellas are some of the nastiest he has ever written:
“The stories in this book are harsh. You may have found them hard to read in places. If so, be assured that I found them equally hard to write in places.”
This, then, is Stephen King examining humanity’s darker side, where he explores the darkest recesses of the human soul. It is indeed “fully dark” inside these stories. There are no glints of stars … though strangely stars are pictured on the cover. It is a pretty scene as small stars are just beginning to emerge through wispy clouds. A low perspective shows a silhouetted field of wheat, against a pale blue sky as dusk falls. It is very much at odds with the stories!
In each of Stephen King’s novellas here, he shows us someone who is pushed to the limit, and how they then wreak their revenge. Three are narrated by the one who seeks retribution, and each time we have their thoughts. The fourth is a letter by the viewpoint character. Each one is about an ordinary person who has inadvertently become embroiled in a situation they cannot cope with. As we read on, we see just how they deal with the person they feel is responsible for perpetrating their interminable, painful existence. These three stories are rooted in realism, but gruesome or sordid to a degree. A fourth has a supernatural element; the well-wrung trope of selling your soul to the Devil. Nevertheless I enjoyed this story the most.
This is one of my quibbles with Stephen King. Nothing he writes seems original. In fact sometimes he seems to deliberately fall into the most obvious “next step���, or choose a boring stereotype. He says:
“Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do—to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street.”
Clearly then, the author believes he is rooting his stories in the here and now, with ordinary people living ordinary lives. But this is humdrum and familiar ground; we have been here before all too often. The simple language he uses, with a lot of colloquial conversation, does not help relieve our boredom, although it does make us turn the pages quickly. The swearing is tiresome and constant. An example?
“When it came to the dark fuckery of the human heart, there seemed to be no limit.”
The crudeness of his characters feels assumed, as if the author is aiming for a shocked reaction, and wishes to fascinate readers who wonder what he can possibly write next which could be worse. His prurient themes frequently feel voyeuristic, and his coarse descriptions match this. Presumably Stephen King aims to excite his readers, and he once said that if he cannot horrify us, he will settle for revolting us, or “grossing us out”, but he consistently goes for the lowest common denominator.
Here we have four tales of retribution, two carried out by men and two by women. Another gripe I have with this writer nudges me. Why does a male character written by Stephen King always have to be, as they say, a man’s man? Swearing tough guys for the most part, at least inwardly.
When they are female, they are just as one-dimensional. It has been said that “Stephen King understands the female psyche.” What on earth does this mean? Clearly then, I do not “understand the female psyche”—but I can recognise a Stephen King heroine at twenty paces. Feisty, outwardly amenable, but with inner hidden depths. You do not cross her, or you will live (or more probably not live) to regret it.
Stephen King here is attempting to explore the relationships between typical men and women. But his creations are merely types: cardboard cutouts placed so as to service the action, as the author pulls their strings. It is supremely manipulative writing. We have strong macho men, where it’s all really an act, and they might crumble at any time. Or there are those who relentlessly follow their image through, whatever hell they make for themselves by doing so. Poor men; they are victims of their genes. The women however, are deceptively dogged and courageous, and administer justice, (thus making all his female readers happy). Oh and they mostly curse and swear, whatever their gender. I refuse to believe that this is the American “everyman/woman”.
It is all so black and white. Stephen King’s early works were full of these stereotypes. More recently, since his daughter Naomi’s gay marriage around the turn of the century, Stephen King has attempted a little gender diversity, though little ethnic diversity. One example is his “Mr. Mercedes” detective trilogy (2014-2016). Otherwise gay characters are thin on the ground, (and gender-fluid ones seem entirely absent). There is Father Callahan in “Salem’s Lot“, and Danya in “The Stand”, plus a few cringe-inducing cameos. There is rarely much variation in his applied stereotypical gender behaviour, and he easily falls back into his comfort straight “male/female” divide. All these four stories confirm this world view. Take a couple of paragraphs, and it is easy to identify this writing as Stephen King.
This is the third set of 4 novellas Stephen King has written in his career to date. First there was “Different Seasons” back in 1982, when three of the four were subsequently filmed: “Stand By Me”, “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Apt Pupil”. “Four Past Midnight” was his middle collection of four novellas. Only one of these was filmed: “Secret Window”, plus there was one TV special of “The Langoliers”. Of this third set, all four have been dramatised, either as a film or for TV. They seem to be adapted for this medium quite effectively.
Contrary to most of his novels, or short stories, in all these 12 novellas, the supernatural element is either down-played or nonexistent. Only one of this present collection is dark fantasy, although there are hints of insanity—or perhaps an other-worldly element—near the end of the first tale. All four novellas in Full Dark, No Stars have the idea of retribution at their core, as has been mentioned. They also all explore the boundaries which exist between different worlds, (real or imagined), demonstrating how transgressing those boundaries can result in an horrific experience. But this idea only works by cheating.
Stephen King tells us over and over again that he writes about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. People who have got themselves slowly and surely into an horrific mess, and cannot cope with the fallout. This is all very well, but people are different! There are endless variations in individuals’ behaviour; not just one type for each of two distinct genders.
This is partly why his stories are so popular, I believe. They work by following the rules; a sort of painting by numbers. We do not have to think how Joe or Jill will behave in a certain situation. We know, because we know them inside out, from all the other Joes and Jills he has written. This is pulp, but repulsively effective pulp. And it is an easy read, with oversimplified characters for whom the tension slowly builds—which is what people want to read.
“The Guardian” newspaper calls Stephen King “the greatest popular novelist of our day”. So periodically I read another book by this author. But I can’t honestly say I recommend this one. It stays overall at 3 stars, which is my default rating. The first and third are the best stories, in my opinion. “1922”, mostly a letter which the narrator, Wilfred, writes from a hotel room in Omaha in 1930, is the most original. But it is overlong, and self-indulgently gruesome; a tale of murder and possibly madness. “Fair Extension” is insidiously nasty, and also quite funny. This one lifts the collection by its wicked black humour, but only to this middle rating.
So Stephen King leads us back to the cover:
“All right I think we’ve been down here in the dark long enough. There’s a whole other world upstairs. Take my hand, Constant Reader, and I’ll be happy to lead you back into the sunshine. I’m happy to go there because I believe most people are essentially good. I know that I am. It’s you I’m not entirely sure of.”
“In the end we are all caught in devices of our own making. I believe that. In the end we are all caught.”
“If you’re going into a very dark place, then you should take a bright light, and shine it on everything. If you don’t want to see, why in God’s name would you dare the dark at all?”
What makes you decide to read a horror novel by Stephen King? Maybe you wish to be gripped and entertained? Or you want something easy to read which will be a page-turner; perhaps you want to see just how far he will go to shock and revolt you this time? Or it could be that you’ve never read anything by him before, and you’re curious. Four different stories might a good “taster”, you think.
Any or all of these may be a reason to read this book, as Full Dark No Stars is not a novel, but a set of 4 novellas. Each of them was published for the first time in this 2010 collection. So if you do not enjoy one, there are three more to try. They are:
1922
Big Driver
Fair Extension
A Good Marriage
(Each of these titles links to my review of the novella.)
An “Afterword” completes the book. This is a good idea, and much better than a “Foreword”, which can tend to be full of spoilers. In his afterword, Stephen King gives us some insight into the stories, saying that he wanted the stories to linger in the imagination. He warns that these 4 novellas are some of the nastiest he has ever written:
“The stories in this book are harsh. You may have found them hard to read in places. If so, be assured that I found them equally hard to write in places.”
This, then, is Stephen King examining humanity’s darker side, where he explores the darkest recesses of the human soul. It is indeed “fully dark” inside these stories. There are no glints of stars … though strangely stars are pictured on the cover. It is a pretty scene as small stars are just beginning to emerge through wispy clouds. A low perspective shows a silhouetted field of wheat, against a pale blue sky as dusk falls. It is very much at odds with the stories!
In each of Stephen King’s novellas here, he shows us someone who is pushed to the limit, and how they then wreak their revenge. Three are narrated by the one who seeks retribution, and each time we have their thoughts. The fourth is a letter by the viewpoint character. Each one is about an ordinary person who has inadvertently become embroiled in a situation they cannot cope with. As we read on, we see just how they deal with the person they feel is responsible for perpetrating their interminable, painful existence. These three stories are rooted in realism, but gruesome or sordid to a degree. A fourth has a supernatural element; the well-wrung trope of selling your soul to the Devil. Nevertheless I enjoyed this story the most.
This is one of my quibbles with Stephen King. Nothing he writes seems original. In fact sometimes he seems to deliberately fall into the most obvious “next step���, or choose a boring stereotype. He says:
“Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do—to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street.”
Clearly then, the author believes he is rooting his stories in the here and now, with ordinary people living ordinary lives. But this is humdrum and familiar ground; we have been here before all too often. The simple language he uses, with a lot of colloquial conversation, does not help relieve our boredom, although it does make us turn the pages quickly. The swearing is tiresome and constant. An example?
“When it came to the dark fuckery of the human heart, there seemed to be no limit.”
The crudeness of his characters feels assumed, as if the author is aiming for a shocked reaction, and wishes to fascinate readers who wonder what he can possibly write next which could be worse. His prurient themes frequently feel voyeuristic, and his coarse descriptions match this. Presumably Stephen King aims to excite his readers, and he once said that if he cannot horrify us, he will settle for revolting us, or “grossing us out”, but he consistently goes for the lowest common denominator.
Here we have four tales of retribution, two carried out by men and two by women. Another gripe I have with this writer nudges me. Why does a male character written by Stephen King always have to be, as they say, a man’s man? Swearing tough guys for the most part, at least inwardly.
When they are female, they are just as one-dimensional. It has been said that “Stephen King understands the female psyche.” What on earth does this mean? Clearly then, I do not “understand the female psyche”—but I can recognise a Stephen King heroine at twenty paces. Feisty, outwardly amenable, but with inner hidden depths. You do not cross her, or you will live (or more probably not live) to regret it.
Stephen King here is attempting to explore the relationships between typical men and women. But his creations are merely types: cardboard cutouts placed so as to service the action, as the author pulls their strings. It is supremely manipulative writing. We have strong macho men, where it’s all really an act, and they might crumble at any time. Or there are those who relentlessly follow their image through, whatever hell they make for themselves by doing so. Poor men; they are victims of their genes. The women however, are deceptively dogged and courageous, and administer justice, (thus making all his female readers happy). Oh and they mostly curse and swear, whatever their gender. I refuse to believe that this is the American “everyman/woman”.
It is all so black and white. Stephen King’s early works were full of these stereotypes. More recently, since his daughter Naomi’s gay marriage around the turn of the century, Stephen King has attempted a little gender diversity, though little ethnic diversity. One example is his “Mr. Mercedes” detective trilogy (2014-2016). Otherwise gay characters are thin on the ground, (and gender-fluid ones seem entirely absent). There is Father Callahan in “Salem’s Lot“, and Danya in “The Stand”, plus a few cringe-inducing cameos. There is rarely much variation in his applied stereotypical gender behaviour, and he easily falls back into his comfort straight “male/female” divide. All these four stories confirm this world view. Take a couple of paragraphs, and it is easy to identify this writing as Stephen King.
This is the third set of 4 novellas Stephen King has written in his career to date. First there was “Different Seasons” back in 1982, when three of the four were subsequently filmed: “Stand By Me”, “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Apt Pupil”. “Four Past Midnight” was his middle collection of four novellas. Only one of these was filmed: “Secret Window”, plus there was one TV special of “The Langoliers”. Of this third set, all four have been dramatised, either as a film or for TV. They seem to be adapted for this medium quite effectively.
Contrary to most of his novels, or short stories, in all these 12 novellas, the supernatural element is either down-played or nonexistent. Only one of this present collection is dark fantasy, although there are hints of insanity—or perhaps an other-worldly element—near the end of the first tale. All four novellas in Full Dark, No Stars have the idea of retribution at their core, as has been mentioned. They also all explore the boundaries which exist between different worlds, (real or imagined), demonstrating how transgressing those boundaries can result in an horrific experience. But this idea only works by cheating.
Stephen King tells us over and over again that he writes about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. People who have got themselves slowly and surely into an horrific mess, and cannot cope with the fallout. This is all very well, but people are different! There are endless variations in individuals’ behaviour; not just one type for each of two distinct genders.
This is partly why his stories are so popular, I believe. They work by following the rules; a sort of painting by numbers. We do not have to think how Joe or Jill will behave in a certain situation. We know, because we know them inside out, from all the other Joes and Jills he has written. This is pulp, but repulsively effective pulp. And it is an easy read, with oversimplified characters for whom the tension slowly builds—which is what people want to read.
“The Guardian” newspaper calls Stephen King “the greatest popular novelist of our day”. So periodically I read another book by this author. But I can’t honestly say I recommend this one. It stays overall at 3 stars, which is my default rating. The first and third are the best stories, in my opinion. “1922”, mostly a letter which the narrator, Wilfred, writes from a hotel room in Omaha in 1930, is the most original. But it is overlong, and self-indulgently gruesome; a tale of murder and possibly madness. “Fair Extension” is insidiously nasty, and also quite funny. This one lifts the collection by its wicked black humour, but only to this middle rating.
So Stephen King leads us back to the cover:
“All right I think we’ve been down here in the dark long enough. There’s a whole other world upstairs. Take my hand, Constant Reader, and I’ll be happy to lead you back into the sunshine. I’m happy to go there because I believe most people are essentially good. I know that I am. It’s you I’m not entirely sure of.”
October 3, 2012
Thanks to Goodreads, I have been introduced to a lot of fine authors I
would not otherwise have heard of. Some have become new favorites.
But no matter how enjoyable these authors' works are, none of them can
compare to the security and enjoyment of going back to Stephen King.
I often complain of being a relatively slow reader. But this is never the case with King. He has the wonderful gift of emotionally involving you into a story, coming to know and understand his characters, and when this happens, the mechanics of reading disappear. It becomes an immersion.
In King's afterword (and I love that he does these), he explains exactly why his storytelling resonates with me perfectly:
"for those who substitute unbelievable behavior for the way people really act, I have nothing but contempt. Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do."
He may sound snarky out of context, but he's right. Personally, there
is no way I can thoroughly enjoy a story if the characters' actions make no sense.
I have tried to explain this in a couple of reviews I have written for two novels by a very popular horror writer here. I'm not going to mention his name, but the reason I don't care for his stories is because I feel that his main characters are idiots. Despite his talent for laying out a story, it was ruined for me because I didn't buy in to what the characters did, or their motivations.
King gets it. (Okay, except for Under the Dome. I couldn't buy into where human nature went in that one, sorry Steve, we're off the common plane there, old friend.)
With this collection, King returns to his excellent novella formula. Full Dark, No Stars is also a return to humankind's darkness, and also in his afterword, he explains that rather than have extraordinary characters in ordinary situations, he chooses to put ordinary people in extraordinary situations and see what happens. This is a recipe that yields stories that share the addictive quality of, "I can't wait to see how this ends!"
So get comfy, sit back and enjoy four tales of harshness...
1922: This was a good story set in 1922, where a farmer comes to a final solution regarding his wife's insistence on selling their land off.
After about 100 pages, I was beginning to feel that there were parts
that dragged a bit, but King wrapped this one up with a high one, left
center field, out of the park, off a windshield and into the river.
I was left thinking about this one for a while.
Big Driver: Oooh, this was a dark one. I think my posture is still suffering from my slack-jawed slouch as King pulled me through the story of a writer of cozy mysteries, and her trip back from a speaking engagement.
After showing us his softer side over the past few years, our Stephen shows he still has dark things in the tank. I had a hard time putting this one down.
Fair Extension: The shortest story in the book. This one reminded me a little of The Monkey's Paw, in that you may get what you desire, but in the grand balance of things, something must be taken to be given. Again, a tough one to put down.
A Good Marriage: After 27 years of marriage, a woman discovers that her
loving husband has a secret hobby. It's not good news. I was again hauled through this story mercilessly.
Afterword: Probably the most terrifying part of this novel for me was learning that King still goes for his 4-5 mile walks along a road (he was hit by a van in 1999, for those of you who don't know), and that his favorite snack is a candybar and a soda.
Firstly, if you ever read this, Steve, please stay off the roads. And knock off the white sugar (aka white death). I want you to stay healthy and keep writing for many more years. Walk in the woods, and eat plenty of Omega-3s, antioxidants and get your fibre. Peace.
would not otherwise have heard of. Some have become new favorites.
But no matter how enjoyable these authors' works are, none of them can
compare to the security and enjoyment of going back to Stephen King.
I often complain of being a relatively slow reader. But this is never the case with King. He has the wonderful gift of emotionally involving you into a story, coming to know and understand his characters, and when this happens, the mechanics of reading disappear. It becomes an immersion.
In King's afterword (and I love that he does these), he explains exactly why his storytelling resonates with me perfectly:
"for those who substitute unbelievable behavior for the way people really act, I have nothing but contempt. Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do."
He may sound snarky out of context, but he's right. Personally, there
is no way I can thoroughly enjoy a story if the characters' actions make no sense.
I have tried to explain this in a couple of reviews I have written for two novels by a very popular horror writer here. I'm not going to mention his name, but the reason I don't care for his stories is because I feel that his main characters are idiots. Despite his talent for laying out a story, it was ruined for me because I didn't buy in to what the characters did, or their motivations.
King gets it. (Okay, except for Under the Dome. I couldn't buy into where human nature went in that one, sorry Steve, we're off the common plane there, old friend.)
With this collection, King returns to his excellent novella formula. Full Dark, No Stars is also a return to humankind's darkness, and also in his afterword, he explains that rather than have extraordinary characters in ordinary situations, he chooses to put ordinary people in extraordinary situations and see what happens. This is a recipe that yields stories that share the addictive quality of, "I can't wait to see how this ends!"
So get comfy, sit back and enjoy four tales of harshness...
1922: This was a good story set in 1922, where a farmer comes to a final solution regarding his wife's insistence on selling their land off.
After about 100 pages, I was beginning to feel that there were parts
that dragged a bit, but King wrapped this one up with a high one, left
center field, out of the park, off a windshield and into the river.
I was left thinking about this one for a while.
Big Driver: Oooh, this was a dark one. I think my posture is still suffering from my slack-jawed slouch as King pulled me through the story of a writer of cozy mysteries, and her trip back from a speaking engagement.
After showing us his softer side over the past few years, our Stephen shows he still has dark things in the tank. I had a hard time putting this one down.
Fair Extension: The shortest story in the book. This one reminded me a little of The Monkey's Paw, in that you may get what you desire, but in the grand balance of things, something must be taken to be given. Again, a tough one to put down.
A Good Marriage: After 27 years of marriage, a woman discovers that her
loving husband has a secret hobby. It's not good news. I was again hauled through this story mercilessly.
Afterword: Probably the most terrifying part of this novel for me was learning that King still goes for his 4-5 mile walks along a road (he was hit by a van in 1999, for those of you who don't know), and that his favorite snack is a candybar and a soda.
Firstly, if you ever read this, Steve, please stay off the roads. And knock off the white sugar (aka white death). I want you to stay healthy and keep writing for many more years. Walk in the woods, and eat plenty of Omega-3s, antioxidants and get your fibre. Peace.
June 10, 2024
1922 - 5 Stars.
A real dark story full of the dangers of human nature – greed, guilt, murder and karma! But ew rats, I didn’t realise I had read this one before until I was quite a few pages in but when I realised I didn’t care. This is such a great short story and for a little read it has a great impact. I absolutely love this just long enough perfection.
Big Driver - 5 Stars
This is why the Full Dark, No Stars is one of the BEST collection of short stories so many of these deserve 5 stars and this is no exception. Revenge is the key in this brilliant little story and I LOVE it is this a horror I don’t know maybe a thriller for me. This story is brutal in parts (but nothing compared to most King books) and that makes the revenge a whole lot sweeter! This book isn’t the most inventive but somehow the way King delivers this makes it a 5 star read and a story you can’t put down.
Fair Extension – 5 Stars!
Wow– I love this story this is how I feel the devil really is I mean perfect! Would you make a deal with the devil? This is a story about the unfairness of life and how the world turns its back on some and sheds light on others. This book was fun short and again perfect – I have decided Kings short stories are just insanely good! DERRY AGAIN! I mean never go to Derry honestly. This one leaves you thinking really thinking would you pass all you ‘bad luck’ to another? Someone you hate?
A Good Marriage - 4 Stars
I think this one wasn’t a 5 star for me because I didn’t relate to the characters as much only being 24 and not married! Plus this was a little all over the place to start with and took a while to narrow into what actually was being said/written. The character development is brilliant in such a short book I must say though! More of a suspenseful, psychological thriller rather than a horror and it was written to really make you understand a killers mind.
Under the Weather – 3 Stars
Full Dark, No Stars would’ve got 5 stars for me if it hadn’t been for this one story. I found this one too predictable and a little flat if I’m honest I mean it was a good story but I expect more from SK. This one was heavy-handed but it was ok however there are so many better short stories by King this one just doesn’t make the cut for me.
A real dark story full of the dangers of human nature – greed, guilt, murder and karma! But ew rats, I didn’t realise I had read this one before until I was quite a few pages in but when I realised I didn’t care. This is such a great short story and for a little read it has a great impact. I absolutely love this just long enough perfection.
Big Driver - 5 Stars
This is why the Full Dark, No Stars is one of the BEST collection of short stories so many of these deserve 5 stars and this is no exception. Revenge is the key in this brilliant little story and I LOVE it is this a horror I don’t know maybe a thriller for me. This story is brutal in parts (but nothing compared to most King books) and that makes the revenge a whole lot sweeter! This book isn’t the most inventive but somehow the way King delivers this makes it a 5 star read and a story you can’t put down.
Fair Extension – 5 Stars!
Wow– I love this story this is how I feel the devil really is I mean perfect! Would you make a deal with the devil? This is a story about the unfairness of life and how the world turns its back on some and sheds light on others. This book was fun short and again perfect – I have decided Kings short stories are just insanely good! DERRY AGAIN! I mean never go to Derry honestly. This one leaves you thinking really thinking would you pass all you ‘bad luck’ to another? Someone you hate?
A Good Marriage - 4 Stars
I think this one wasn’t a 5 star for me because I didn’t relate to the characters as much only being 24 and not married! Plus this was a little all over the place to start with and took a while to narrow into what actually was being said/written. The character development is brilliant in such a short book I must say though! More of a suspenseful, psychological thriller rather than a horror and it was written to really make you understand a killers mind.
Under the Weather – 3 Stars
Full Dark, No Stars would’ve got 5 stars for me if it hadn’t been for this one story. I found this one too predictable and a little flat if I’m honest I mean it was a good story but I expect more from SK. This one was heavy-handed but it was ok however there are so many better short stories by King this one just doesn’t make the cut for me.
October 13, 2020
Me encantó. Si hay que reconocer algo es que a Stephen King le va muy bien con las novelas cortas: justas, precisas y tan ágiles que es casi imposible que en algún momento pierdas el interés, o por el contrario, que no alcances a engancharte a la historia.
La línea argumental de al menos tres de los cuatro relatos, se basa en el “y si no hubiera…” de los personajes principales, dejando plasmado cómo a través de pequeñas decisiones y circunstancias se puede llegar a situaciones y experiencias aterradoras, transformando, a su vez, toda la estructura de valores y convicciones de una persona supuestamente normal. Es en ese momento, al perder ese pilar de creencias e internarse en el lado más sombrío de la personalidad, es que es muy fácil ver todo oscuro, sin estrellas…
La línea argumental de al menos tres de los cuatro relatos, se basa en el “y si no hubiera…” de los personajes principales, dejando plasmado cómo a través de pequeñas decisiones y circunstancias se puede llegar a situaciones y experiencias aterradoras, transformando, a su vez, toda la estructura de valores y convicciones de una persona supuestamente normal. Es en ese momento, al perder ese pilar de creencias e internarse en el lado más sombrío de la personalidad, es que es muy fácil ver todo oscuro, sin estrellas…
April 29, 2023
Excellent King.
1922 was a five star story
1922 was a five star story
Displaying 1 - 30 of 8,064 reviews