Bev Vincent explores You Like it Darker by Stephen King

Stephen King News From the Dead Zone

“Lack of belief is the curse of intelligence”

It’s a short story collection. No, it’s a novella collection. No, it’s two…two…two things in one! OK, you have to be really old to get that reference to an old Certs commercial. They don’t even make Certs anymore, I’m displeased to discover.

Anyhow, You Like It Darker is a hybrid of two types of books we’ve come to expect from Stephen King. It’s a collection of the seven short stories published since The Bazaar of Bad Dreams but it also contains five brand-new long works ranging from a novelette (“The Dreamers”) to novellas (“The Answer Man,” “Two Talented Bastids” and “Rattlesnakes”) to a story long enough to be considered a novel by the SFWA and other awards criteria (“Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream”).

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Bev Vincent Reviews Elevation by Stephen King

Stephen King News From the Dead Zone

“The Incredible Lightness of Being”

Stephen King’s most recent published work, “The Turbulence Expert” in the anthology Flight or Fright (which he co-edited with yours truly), suggests the existence of people who prevent airplanes from crashing. It’s an uncharacteristically encouraging notion.

Scribner hardcover

His new novella, Elevation, has an even more positive outlook, despite its setting: Castle Rock, a small town in Maine where terrible things have been happening for decades.

That’s not to say bad things aren’t happening to protagonist Scott Carey, forty-two, recently divorced and dealing with the repercussions of that life change. He’s living alone (with a cat) in a too-large house on Castle View, and he’s having problems with his new neighbors.Continue Reading