Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales

Most of the stories in Stephen King's first new collection of short fiction in nine years are pretty darn eventual. As the narrator of the title story, "Everything's Eventual," points out, if you want to say something's awesome, but you don't want to sound like every other Joe, you say it's eventual.
Stephen King is a much different writer today than he was when he penned the direct, but effective horror stories in the late sixties and early seventies that comprised his first collection of short fiction, "Night Shift" (1977). In the mid-eighties, he broadened his creative palette considerably with "Skeleton Crew," and then followed it in 1993 with the overflowing grab bag, "Nightmares and Dreamscapes."
"Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales," King's fourth collection, offers a generous sampling of everything he's been up to short-story-wise over the last decade or so. Although it's not all eventual, a reassuring majority of it is.
Fans of King's ongoing horror-fantasy epic "The Dark Tower" will be pleased to find included "The Little Sisters of Eluria" (originally published in Robert Silverberg's "Legends"), a short novel detailing an early episode in Roland the gunslinger's quest for the Dark Tower. "Eluria" is one of the best stories in the new collection, and shows off many of King's natural talents as a storyteller (not the least of which is his ability to make it all seem so effortless).
The title story is so immensely readable it feels like it must have written itself. A dark sci-fi tale about a young man with a disturbing ability and a bourgeoning conscience, "Everything's Eventual" is one of the best short stories Stephen King has ever written.
King gives us a bit of everything in this book. He serves up several helpings of the classic gross-out/ghost story that made him famous. "Autopsy Room Four," "1408," and "Riding the Bullet" (a novella that attracted some attention a few years back for being published exclusively on-line) are some of the better examples.
The best stuff in this new collection, however, the most eventual stuff, is actually the least frightening. The subtlety of character and narrative nuance demonstrated in stories like "The Man in the Black Suit," "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away," and "The Death of Jack Hamilton" (all of which originally appeared in The New Yorker) betray a shrewd understanding of the human condition that finds itself at the heart of any great piece of writing.
Stephen King isn't one of the most-read writers of all time just because he knows how to make you jump. In "Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales," he proves he can still do that with the best of them-and although his name may always be associated with stories that make your skin crawl, it's also obvious from this latest collection that King is anything but a one-trick pony. In addition to dread and terror, he clearly delights in making you feel a whole host of other emotions...pity, sorrow, hope and joy among them.

Lately, Stephen King has been better in short spurts.
With the exception of "Black House," his reunion with "Talisman" co-author Peter Straub, any lengthy writing by King ("The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon," "On Writing," "Dreamcatcher") has been measured and found wanting.
Even King himself appears to recognize this, having made noise of an eventual retirement, after releasing at least five more books.
One of those books is "Everything's Eventual," a collection of short stories. And judging by "Eventual," King might want to abandon his lengthier novels to write short stories full time.
Here is a way for King to do what he does best, tell stories, without having to suffer through all the trappings a novel might be expected to do.
With a short story, King can pop in, set the stage for an event, do the event, and then pop out and on to other things.
This is win-win for the reader, too. If one story looks like it's going the way of "Insomnia" (snore), then you can skip ahead to stuff that's more along the lines of "It."
It's a medium that seems to suit him a hell of a lot better.
The title story itself isn't the greatest, a confusing tale about a young man who finds himself in possession of something like a whiteboard that anything he writes will come true, and under the employ of a mysterious gentleman.
But there are a couple goodies to be discovered.
Introduction: I keep failing to mention just how much I enjoy King when he is just being King, and talking to us, his Constant Readers, about what it is he does. Sometimes, the intros are better than the books.
"1408": The story, one of three from King's audio collection of "Blood and Smoke," of a man who makes a living staying in rooms and houses that are supposedly haunted and then writes about it. But 1408 of the Hotel Dolphin definitely isn't "supposedly" haunted.
"Lunch at the Gotham Café": A maitre' d at the café in question goes postal, right as Steve Davis is meeting with his wife and her lawyer to discuss a divorce. Also from "Blood and Smoke."
"The Little Sisters of Eluria": A small prequel to King's ubernovel, the "The Dark Tower" series Roland the gunslinger finds himself beset by creepy green people, and under the care of witches. Really good overall, but especially for those who can't wait for the next installment of the Dark Tower saga, "The Wolves of Calla."
"Autopsy Room Four": The best in the book hits us right off the gate. A man wakes up paralyzed from a snake bite with doctors prepared to do to him all the things they do to dead people. It's probably my favorite, and will have any reader spell-bound.

I remember the first short story collection I ever read. It was in grade 8 that I decided to pick Stephen King's Skeleton Crew off my dad's bookshelf. I was left with a cold sweat for the rest of elementary school, but I'll never forget the some of the stories, classics like The Mist and The Jaunt (the latter of which still ranks as my favourite short story of all-time). It was first taste of King, the the beginning of a long relationship, as they say.
King's lastest collection, Everything's Eventual, consists of 14 short stories (ranged 15-90 pages) and, like most of King's work, it's an assortment of hits and misses, with some stories bordering on profounding at times while others fizzle in the "who seriously thought this was a good idea?" area. I've found a similar trend with his novels, with some (Carrie, The Shining, The Green Mile, etc.) leaving me hugging the book by the end, and others (Gerald's Game, Rose Madder, Thinner, etc.) leaving me swearing of further Stephen King investments. But, in the end, when King hits, he hits hard and in unforgettable ways, which in a way makes me tolerate his inevitable misses. And as always, King is a very enjoyable to read and always has you grasping for the next page.
Among the most enjoyable stories I found were The Little Sisters of Eluria, a prequel of sorts to the Dark Tower series, which is at times weird, at times sensitive, but always genuinely creepy; Autopsy Room Four, King's stab at the immortal question, "What if everyone thought you were dead but you really weren't?" which has been manifested in countless buried alive stories; The Road Virus Heads North, the chilling story of a haunted painting which stalks a man on his way home (you'll see how); and Riding the Bullet, the popular e-story which is among the strongest character studies I've seen King do.
Among the stories I wasn't so fond of were Everything's Eventual, which for one of the longer piece, seemed to have the least amount of quantity; 1408, which tells the story of a haunted hotel (yep, tredding similar waters there Steve); and I'm with King in his distaste for The Man In The Black Suit (although many people out there I suspect will like it - I assume it didn't win the O'Henry prize for nothing).
All in all, though, I'll bear his misses (and most of his misses aren't that far off, either) for the hits. There's something for every King fan in this collection.
Matthew D. Johnston

King is so amazingly and easily readable, that even some of these not-great stories entertain. They read like casual conversation, and offer up nothing in the form of regret. As a result, the overlong "Riding the Bullet" and "The Death of Jack Hamilton" don't irritate as much as they simply fade. Many of King's themes pop up here, the best and most easily recognized being the title story. "Everything's Eventual" features a young man with special powers that is enlisted by a Shop-type agency to do possibly dirty deeds. But, as the boy is young and not particularly bright, he follows along, feeling important for the first time. The undertone of loneliness and neediness in this story is what really sticks with you. Perhaps King (with his own special powers) is most able to identify with this recurring character trope.

"Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" and "1408" are great shockers. "1408" really does creep, and adds some new scary material to perhaps the oldest horror subgenre: the haunted house. "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" takes a disintigrating marriage, and quite literally puts it to the grindstone. This one stands out as a story not just about what it seems to be about. It is as multilayered as any piece of fine literature.
"The Little Sisters of Elluria" takes place in the Darktower world, and is a fun aside for Darktower fans. Not only that, its an effective story in itself, though one with an episodic feel due to the lack of Roland's character arc. In fact, he is just passing through.
The remaining stories don't stand out for me. "The Road Virus Heads North" was silly, and has been done before, by King and others. "Autopsy Room Four" was well told, but again, its almost cliche now. I believe Poe got the closest to perfecting that one.
A handful of non-horror non-supernatural stories stand out as worthy attempts, but fail to hit the mark. "L.T.'s Theory of Pets" gets very close, but nothing near to some of the remarkable work done in "Hearts in Atlantis".
Despite the three star rating above, King is still one of the best, and his short stories often rank among his finest works. One could do a lot worse than reading this one.

Well, one can say King still has it, but in truth, who knows how old some of these stories may be? I haven't trusted King's "new" material since the safe deposit box trick he "reveals" in "Bag of Bones" ... does King, like "Bag's" main character, just keep stories in a safe deposit box and pull them out when he needs to be published or is everything new and fresh? I am not sure, but whatever the case, "Everything's Eventual" is one of King's best short story collections. King's real strength comes through when he is writing a streamlined short story or novella. His novels are wonderful although the ones with the bigger vision: Needful Things, The Stand The Dark Tower series just don't encapsulate how great and clever a writer this man has truly become.
Some criticize King, now calling him a "New Yorker baby". And what's wrong with that? If "The New Yorker" can recognize that King has just as much talent and flair for telling a story as the best literary writers out there, I would just say, "What took them so darn long?" This new collection is a great mix of King's attention to details and landscape, as well as the stuff that can really scare us. One of the most effective short stories is "The Man in the Black Suit" which literally gave me the willies. (If the willies are indeed a literal thing.) As a young boy terrified of the devil, this story brought back all my childhood fears. "Riding the Bullet" and "The Road Virus Heads North" show that King has not lost any of his talent for the macabre. These two tales in particular would not have been out of place in earlier short story collections such as "Night Shift" or "Skeleton Crew". King does stumble some with a few of his tales: the buildup to "1408" ends up being much scarier than the actual events in the haunted hotel room. This is a case where less would have been more. "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" just seems a bit motiveless and never achieves any sense of denouement, and "L.T.'s Theory of Pets", as others have pointed out in their reviews, just seems to go nowhere and instead of being a "just so" story, is a "so what?" story.
Despite the few drawbacks, King still writes intelligent fiction, he is high and above any of his contemporaries in popular fiction. This is the reason he has lasted so long. His recent musings on retirement have me alarmed, but it's good to know he hasn't stopped yet.

It was a real pleasure to read a book that reinforced all of the things that I like about Stephen King's writing. King's aim is, first and foremost, to entertain his reader, to engage him, to reach out from the page and take hold of him. This seems like something that every writer would want to do, but how true is that really? It seems like most writers want to create something that is either "good" or "successful," those being code words for "literary" and "bestseller," respectively. Which writers, however, tell you again and again that they wish most of all to entertain? Few, if any, besides Stephen King have this aim. Read the introduction to Everything's Eventual or any of On Writing or the various non-fiction pieces he has written over the years and you will see that this is true. King entertains by pulling his reader in, by talking to him from the page. If King is really rolling, as you are reading you will feel as though you are being addressed by him. The short story, with its tight structure and limited length, proves to be especially potent when combined with King's desire to take you in. He leads you one way, then another. He steps over the line and gives you gore, but only because it is absolutely necessary, and when you finish a story you feel like you've been for a ride; it's a giddy feeling. And in this book you get it 14 times. I've also always enjoyed King's rapport with his readers. He is not aloof about his writing, and telling his readers about his writing seems as enjoyable to him as writing the books themselves. In Everything's Eventual each story is either preceded or followed by a page explaining how the story came to be. There is no coyness about such things; just as there is no coyness in King's fiction. These stories speak for themselves, they are about what they are about, so what's wrong with a little background info? In fact, I think King recognizes that it is normal for readers to be curious about such things, and, not caring what a critic might think of such a move, he chooses, as he usually does, to indulge his readers. Why, does he bother doing this... any of this? I think it is because he is a born writer who happens to derive joy from a pastime that most people, including many of the most praised writers who ever walked the earth, find lonely and torturous. I love reading Stephen King because, in his typically insidious way, when I read his books it makes me wish that all of my reading were that fun.

Although Stephen King is best known for his novels, he does master the art of short story writing quite well. Sometimes even these stories become strong competition for his other work. Take Riding the Bullet for example. When King published this short e-book on the internet in 2000 it attracted over half a million readers. This frightening little story is now being released as a major movie. So it is not surprising that every time a short story collection is published, I am eager to dive into it.

Everything's Eventual certainly delivers on expectations and includes everything a good collection needs. It contains fourteen well-written stories of the macabre, with numerous surprising twists and breathtaking conclusions. The strongest stories originate from a simple what-if question and evolve into an estranged situation of mayhem and emotional disturbance. Never will you be disappointed by the compelling imagination of the author.

In Autopsy Room Four, my favorite, a man awakens in a body bag, unable to move. A high school dropout with an unusual talent stumbles onto a dream job in Everything's Eventual, but soon he starts to realize he is part of an evil plot and comes face to face with his conscious. A cleaning lady receives more that a bit of luck when she finds some money in Lucky Quarter. In The Road Virus Heads North a horror writer buys a bizarre painting at a yard sale discovers that looks indeed do deceive. King did not forget to include a Dark Tower tale, in which Roland is attacked by mutants and trapped in a "hospital" run by The Little Sisters of Eluria.

This collection also contains short stories that were previously published in another format. Riding the bullet was published as an e-book. Lunch at the Gotham Café, 1408 and In the Deathroom form together the audiobook collection Blood and Smoke, published in 2000. Finally L.T.'s Theory of Pets was published as an audio recording of a reading King gave at London's Royal Festival Hall.

Included in this CD collection are 5 unabridged tales. The book edition of Everything's Eventual include 14 stories, so if you are a big King fan, you will have to get the book as well.

Stephen King's style is perfect for books-on-tape, and this is a good collection.

Autopsy Room Four...Read by Oliver Platt

You may have seen this story before. I man gets knocked unconcious and is assumed dead. If he doesn't show life soon, he will be witness to his own autopsy. I remember a Tales from the Crypt episode featuring Beau Bridges and Tony Goldwyn. King cites an Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV show as inspiration. The story is enjoyable, if a little predictable. Platt does a good job.

The Little Sisters of Eluria...Boyd Gaines

This story is a prequel-of-sorts to the Dark Tower series. I am not familiar with that series, but I imagine if you are a fan, this story is likely to hold more relevance. The story centers on the Gunslinger being cared for by a few mysterious nurses who might be up to no good. The story is a little long--encompassing 3 of the 8 CDs in this collection. Gaines does an excellent job with the reading--inserting the right amout of creepiness and mischievousness into the voices of the nurses.

Everything's Eventual...Read by Justin Long

An absolute treat. This story is a great one. King unravels the narrative slowly--filling in the reader with a few of the story's mysteries one piece at a time. Justin Long does a great job, excellent in fact--the story is told in 1st person perspective--and he captures the right mix of enthuisiam and impending doom that fills the story. To reveal any of the plot would ruin the story's overall impact. Trust me, it's a good one.

The Road Virus Heads North...Read by Jay O. Sanders

This story features a mysterious painting that may or may not be changing. King must have liked this idea because he penned a future short story with a similar premise called Stationary Bike. Stationary Bike is not half as good as this one, which keeps building to a terrifying end. Jay O. Sanders does a good job in the reading.

Luckey Quarter...Read by Judith Ivey

This story veers out of fantasy-horror territory into the more the mundane focusing on a Nevada Casino maid who is left a ridiculously small tip. King has always been good at writing about the working class and infusing the right regional dialect in his characters. This story is a good example, and Ivey does a near perfect job. The story is simple and small, but Ivey draws you in from the first line.

Steven Kings "Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales" was overall a spectacular book. If you don't like reading books that take forever to get into the good stuff this is it. Since it is broken into 14 short stories you're easily brought to suspense within a few sentences. You begin your journey in the first story Autopsy Room 4. Which immediately your given the image of a man laying on an autopsy bed being ready to get cut up but here's the kicker he's still alive. How did the man end up there and will he survive? Well I guess you'll just have to read the book. The characters in most all of his story reflect Steven king a great deal they are often writers and come from Maine, like Steven King himself. As you continue reading this book it is one gripping short story after another and you never know if the next one will be more or less enthusiastic than the last one. One of my favorite stories had to have been the man in the black suit. This is for several reasons, one it was based on a true even that happened to his friends' grandfather and two the description in this story was amazing, "his eyes were the orangey-red of flames in a wood stove." This book will have you clawing for the next story as you travel through out the book, they are in no specific order the order was decided when the author labeled cards 1-14 and drew them so you'll never know what's coming next. I highly recommend this book especially if your one who likes to be on the edge of there seat.

Everything's Eventual by Stephen King, Scribner, ISBN 0-7432-3515-0. Hardback. 459 pages.
This is King's first collection of short stories since Nightmares and Dreamscapes. While several of the tales included in this volume have been previously published in either print or e-book, enough new material is here to make the book well worth the price.
King's introduction to the fourteen story collection discusses short story writing and publishing as well as the art of poetry, the changing marketplace and the stories in this volume and how he came to write them. Each story is also prefaced or followed by the author's notes, which are illuminating as well as entertaining.
Of the stories themselves, King is still in top form. Falling under his spell is easy; dip into any of the selections here and he sweeps you away. King writes with the same simplicity and appeal that our ancient storytellers must have had when they entertained the clan around the campfire at night. He has an uncanny way of finding just the right voice for a story, which goes far beyond point of view, and in his unpretentious way, you can almost hear echoes of that long ago storyteller saying, "This is what happened...."
"The Man in the Black Suit," originally published in The New Yorker, won first prize in the O. Henry Best Short Story competition, 1996. Written as a homage to Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," and told by an elderly narrator, it is the story of a strange man a nine-year-old boy met while fishing one day, a meeting that haunted him all his life.
"Autopsy Room Four" is the story of a man who regains consciousness, but finds himself paralyzed and unable to speak as his autopsy is about to begin.
"The Death of Jack Hamilton" is a look back at the gangster days of the early '30's when the Dillinger gang ruled.
"In the Deathroom" is the story of a man's interrogation by a group of South American thugs, who use deceit, torture and murder to get the information they want.
"The Little Sisters of Eluria" is a story of Roland Deschain of Gilead's younger years. Fans of The Dark Tower series will enjoy this one.
"Everything's Eventual," the title story in the collection, is about a young man with a special gift, and how a certain group of unscrupulous people use him and his talent to do their dark deeds.
"L.T.'s Theory of Pets," a story that begins in a somewhat lighthearted vein but turns quickly ominous, was originally recorded as an audio story. And "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" and "1408," the story of a haunted hotel room, were previously recorded on the CD Blood and Smoke. "The Road Virus Heads North," the story of a yard sale purchase that turned out to be more sinister than the buyer expected, previously appeared in the anthology 999.
My favorite in this collection is King's "Riding the Bullet," his immensely successful electronically marketed story of 2002. It's the deceptively simple story of a hitchhiker being picked up by a ghost, but on a psychological level, like many of the best of King's stories, the implications are much deeper.
Everything's Eventual is a fabulous excursion into terror.
Highly recommended.

I know I need to be honest up front: I didn't really enjoy this book like I thought I would. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have plenty of merits. I just have reasons for seeing certain downsides that perhaps other people have noticed, too.

I had never read any Steven King until my friend gave me "Night Shift," and it was then that I knew what all the fuss was about. I love to be scared, so this seemed like a natural place to continue getting the chills. However, "Night Shift" and "Everything's Eventual" are story collections that must be at least twenty years apart, and we've all grown since then, and I understand SK's desire to continually improve on himself. The end result, though, left me wanting more.

Take the story "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" as an example. The ridiculously insane waiter is the type of character that I admire SK for creating, and the story itself is both funny and unsettling (he can't quite shy away from the explicit imagery, can he?). But he seemed so much more focused on creating these intricate character studies, giving the soon-to-be ex-spouses so much to grouse about that the result is they barely seem to care what just happened to them. Don't get me wrong--as readers we definitely want fleshed-out stories and a deeper insight into characters. But it just feels like as a result, he left all the spookiness behind.

Same goes for "In the Deathroom"--superb writing and spot-on stereotypes (if such a thing can be good), but not at all scary. And the title story had such a great set-up, but the payoff was weirdly political and an incredible letdown for me. At this point, I must sound like the biggest inept, non-fan, simply wanting him to scare me and then move on. Maybe I am.

But then, there are stories that just knocked me out. I read "1408" while visiting some relatives in Chicago, and at night--even with my mom sleeping in the same room--I was completely spooked out and could not sleep. In this story, SK gets everything right. Ghosts have been done so many times; what would it be like to be haunted by things that are so against our nature that even considering them is to feel as though you're slipping into some awful hallucination? It's hard to describe how it felt to read the story without giving anything away. Let's just say that he put into words what I had been contemplating for years. There are definitely things beyond us, wrong things, and they're not your typical spirit in unrest.

"The Road Virus Heads North" gives you that giddy feeling of impending doom and being immensely glad you're not the protagonist, and SK once again brings to life the little thoughts that I'm sure we all have but never voice. (What if that guy in the painting just...turned and stared at me?) "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" has this great sense of emotional isolation and longing that works perfectly with the quirky plot subject, and "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What it is in French" is like literally falling into a dream within many dreams, and proves that SK can weave complex, or at least impactful, characterization while scaring the crap out of the reader.

So, there are many things I love about this book. Sorry for the long-winded review. I guess what I was trying to say all along is that SK doesn't have to prove to anyone that he is a master writer, master story-teller. But he does have to keep the scares coming.

Maybe the most prolific, influential writer of our times, his name synonymous with the "horror" genre, Stephen King gives us here his sixth (depending how you count a couple of his books) collection of short stories, a medium for which he makes an impassioned plea in an introductory essay. Of the 14 tales, half are under 30 pages, which will please the folks who like "one sitting" opportunities to finish something. The longest one, "The Little Sisters of Eluria", at 66 pages, surprisingly a prequel to the Dark Tower series, featuring Roland the gunslinger, can still be handled comfortably in one session. It's a good thing, because that one especially had such a compelling, unexpected theme (the sisters were "nurses" with an interesting way of handling blood!) that we couldn't get through it fast enough for the sheer enjoyment.
The variety in this collection seemed to us more diverse than usual, from fishing stories with the devil to lunch at the restaurant, to suicide and "death by email". You practically die yourself as the victim squirms in "Autopsy Room Four"; the "happy ending" (a King rarity) made "In the Deathroom" great fun. And King's internet-only-published "Riding the Bullet" makes it into real print herein. Moreover, in a brief set of author's words before or after each story, King gives us some clue how he came up with his idea or some other gem of information about the piece -- of course very interesting and entertaining nuggets in themselves, although a couple that prefaced the story gave a little away we thought.
No doubt each reader will have their favorites and think one or two were duds, but here's the master at close to his best, in an enjoyable format -- what more do we want?

What a fun book. Every tale is different. Some horror, some imagined history, some down right disturbing, and 2 tales related to the dark tower--all with a little bit of the Kingian humour. About halfof the shorts were okay, not brilliant, but fun; but the other half were very moving:
The Man in the Black Suit
This could be an ancient fable about innocents and evil colliding. It won the O. Henry award for best short. Great read.
Everything's Eventual
My favorite of the bunch. A look at what happenes when we let others look after us and assume that they have our best interest at heart. Usually they don't, and the consequences that develop can be just as disturbing as, say a Stephen King story.
The Road Virus Heads North
Is the only written story that I can remember being completely wigged out by. It is inspired by a picture that Stephen King hangs in his office, and the description of this picture alone is creepy. (narrator shutters)
The Little Sisters of Eluria
A good tale from Roland's younger days. Not great, but fun and for you gunslinger fans, any thing about the Tower is a blessing. (By the way,Mr. King has just officially finished writing the last Dark Tower book, #V will be out in Nov, #VI in the following June, and #VII in the next Nov. Yeah!!!)
LT's Theory of Pets
King's favorite of the bunch, goes from being very funny to very disturbing, a story that anyone who has had a dog or a cat will find very amussing.
I love the short story format. It is great that Mr. King has not abandoned it. He calls them one night stands instead of a long love affair, like The Stand or IT. Thanks for the fun.

Everything Eventual is not Stephen King's greatest work. In fact, some of the stories are a bit lame and there are few that are destined for the status of classic. However, at the end of the day, it must be said that I was happy to read all of them and remained interested from cover to cover. That is a rare achievement and it puts this book firmly in five star territory.

Reader be warned, a few of the stories are simply not horror, which belies what is promissed on the back cover. The horror stories that are included are often based on familiar (some might say tired) premises - haunted paintings, ghostly hitch-hiking, rampaging slashers, premature autopsies and the like.

Here is a rough score:

Autopsy Room Four: This tale of autopsy-before-death is well-crafted, but King is showing how well he can relate an old plot, not exploring new territory. We have been here before and its consequently a bit dull.

The Man in the Black Suit: This story of a child's brush with a supernatural old man was the winner of the 1996 O. Henry Best Short Story competition. Again, it is well-crafted but its all rather pedestrian and I defy anyone to get a genuine chill from it. Ironically, this prize winner is one of the weaker efforts in the book.

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away: A cracking good read, this is an insightful character study in which the protagonist ponders whether to be or not to be is one of the best stories in the book. I almost missed how good it was on first reading because I had been promissed "unrelenting horror" on the book's back cover and this isn't a horror story at all.

The Death of Jack Hamilton: Another cracking good character study that isn't a horror story. A tale of gangsters in the 30s, King narrates in the first person with a voice that is astonishingly authentic.

In the Death Room: A lovely, suspensefull little thriller about a man imprisoned in a South American jail. It may rather stretch credability for a realistic peice, but the author forces you to care about the characters.

The Little Sisters of Eluria: A tale of Roland (he of King's Dark Tower epic). King conveys Roland's character beautifully and the initial scenes are very atmospheric, but once other characters are introduced, it all falls apart. The heroine is bland, the monsters aren't scary, and it fails as an action tale because everything gets resolved by luck.

Everything's Eventual: Yet again, we have a lovely sketch of the main character but he fails to do anything very interesting and certainly nothing even vaguely frightening ever happens. King's ability to write in the style of a modern youth is hit and miss. Sometimes it is truly impressive, sometimes it rings false.

L.T.s Theory of Pets: Meh. A man may or may not have murdered his wife and her dog, but the characters never really come to life so it doesn't seem to matter very much.

The Road Virus Heads North: The picture-that-changes is familiar territory, not least to King himself. The author's craftsmanship is as impressive as usual, but frankly, nothing very interesting happens.

Lunch at the Gotham Cafe: Just fantastic. This one builds slowly and I admit, I was a little bored at first. However, the climax is well worth the wait. Once again, there is nothing very original in the premise - someone goes crazy and starts hacking away at everyone in range. However, King makes his characters come to life and makes the scene of carnage real for the reader. It just works.

That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French: A wonderfully surreal story that firmly grounds you in reality only to rip it all away again, and again. Astonishingly, while this is not the first really good story in the book, it is the first really good tale of supernatural horror in the book. Thankfully, it is not the last. Next up we have-

1408: A stone-cold horror classic. This is the tale of a haunted hotel room. Nothing very original in that premise, of course, but how often has the premise been executed so well? If you only read one story from the book, read this one. By the way, the story has very little to do with the movie, though I quite liked the movie in its own right.

Riding the Bullet: Famous for all the wrong reasons, it fails to be a very interesting story. King is too focused on fleshing out the protagonist to give us any real scares and the protagonist just isn't that interesting.

Lucky Quarter: Nah. I can't really say more without spoiling it, but nah.

The review above sounds harsh in places, so let's not lose sight of the fact that I'm rating this book five stars. Any criticisms raised should be understood in the context of comparing this book to the very best. The bottom line is that if you enjoy short horror fiction, Everything's Eventual is a must have. Some of these stories will still be around in a century or so.

I think this short story collection might be King's best (I haven't read them all). Most of the stories are "good" to "excellent". In case you don't know, 1408 (the story that inspired the movie of the same name) is in this collection and it is one of my favorites. I really enjoyed the short presentation of King for each story (either before or after), it is a great add-on to the book content. Here are some of my favorites I would suggest to read if you don't wanna go through all the book.

Autopsy Room 4 : A great humorous short read about a death man who is about to get "autopsied". The thing the guy is not really dead, but partly concious of what happens to him...

The Man in the Black Suit : Basic concept of a little boy who meets a weird and scary man in the woods near his home. King at his best !!

In the Deathroom : Wow ! Great action-packed thriller. A man on a kind of mission gets interrogated in a room in South America by rude people who want some information he may have. I won't say more, read it for sure !

The Road Virus Heads North : A man buys a picture in a yard sale. The picture might be more than just a fixed image... it changes over time.

By the way, if you are a fan of the Dark Tower, you may like The Little Sisters of Eluria starring Roland.

Great King book to read as a variation to 500+ page stories.

To be honest I wasn't really impressed by this collection. There was nothing that I could really get into, and that included the Dark Tower story, which I thought would be really, really good. I think the two best stories in the collection are the one with the crazy maître d' and the road virus heads north. These two stories start off normal enough, and really only road virus has any supernatural element to it. I found the maître d' story horrifyingly simple and straightforward, and at the same time comic. There was just enough mystery to keep you guessing about the motives of the characters that you just want to read it again to be sure you didn't miss anything. Both of these stories have a very unique mystery and suspense about them that makes you want to zoom through to see what's going to happen. Impressive, in a very difficult format like the short story. Other than that, meh. But who am I to criticize? The worst story in here is light years better than the best of mine.

And of course, this doesn't mean I don't like King. I think the worst he can do in my mind is a three...

I bought this book expecting to be disappointed, as I have been with much of King's recent work. Well, I had a surprise in store for me, for there is not a clunker in the bunch. Several of the stories had no real supernatural element, but they were all horrific in one way or another. I will now review each story individually.
1. "Autopsy Room Four" A man awakens inside a body bag, unable to move. Could this be what death is like? Mordantly humorous, this tale strongly reminded me of the fiction of the late Robert Bloch.
2. "The Man in the Black Suit" A small boy meets the devil while fishing in the woods one day. Apparently this one won an O. Henry award. While it was quite effective and well-written, it was not one of my favorites.
3. "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" A strange tale of a suicidal traveling salesman and his collection of rest stop bathroom graffiti. I really liked this one, the ending was perfectly ambiguous. Love the title too.
4. "The Death of Jack Hamilton" John Dillinger and his gang are involved in an eventually fatal shootout with the police. Gripping. I read it in one sitting.
5. "In the Deathroom" A slightly Kafka-esque tale (by King's own admission) about a man in a South American interrogation room. I liked the beginning, but the ending was quite unrealistic.
6. "The Little Sisters of Eluria" A Dark Tower tale, in which Roland is attacked by mutants and trapped in a "hospital" run by nurses of death. Creepy and entertaining, Dark Tower fans will love this one. Originally published in the "Legends" anthology.
7. "Everything's Eventual" A high school dropout with an unusual talent stumbles onto a dream job.... or is it? A good one to choose for the title story.
8. "L.T.'s Theory of Pets" A tale of a broken relationship that takes a shocking turn toward blood and tragedy at the end. I liked it a lot. Especially good if you can get the audio version (something I ususally hate) read by King himself.
9. "The Road Virus Heads North" One of my two favorites in this collection. A horror writer purchases a bizarre painting that seems to.... change. Insidiously scary, it stayed in my mind for quite a while.
10. "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" Another story with no overtly supernatural element, and another one about the end of a marriage. Avoid waiters with skewed bowties! Originally published in an anthology entitled "Dark Love"
11. "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French" A woman enters into a very personal hell of deja vu. I liked it, but, in my opinion, it left me strangely unsatisfied.
12. "1408" The best of the collection, and one of my favorite King stories ever. A writer of exploitative "true ghost stories" books stays in a hotel room that is REALLY haunted. I consider myself to be an extremely jaded horror fan, but this one literally gave me full body chills that didn't stop until long after I put the book down.
13. "Riding the Bullet" If you can believe it, people once believed that this was going to start the e-book revolution. Still waiting for that one, eh? A college student meets Death while hitch hiking to visit his sick mother in the hospital. Makes you think about what choice YOU would make, doesn't it?
14. "Luckey Quarter" A very quiet tale about a cleaning lady who finds a "luckey" quarter as a tip. A good end to an altogether good collection.

There is a special gift in writing short stories. A writer must engage you quickly, hold your attention throughout, and wrap it up. 'Short' shouldn't mean 'light'. And in this collection of 14 short stories, King succeeds yet again in writing gripping, interesting and often chilling stories. There is no lack of detail in the interest of saving pages. King laments in the introduction about the "(almost) lost art" and while there might not be many good short story writers out there, he remains the master.
Several of the stories will seem familiar as they've been published elsewhere. Don't skip them! They are each worth reading more than once. Because of the format, there is probably less horror than in his lengthy novels where he is allowed the indulgence of building up the terror. But don't worry, there's still plenty to give you the shivers.
From the quirky 'Autopsy Room Four' which touches on a fear we can all relate to, to the real horror in '1408' there is something in each story to grab and hold you until the end. I particularly enjoyed King's comments on each story, perhaps because I'm always trying to figure out how he thinks. His imagination is endless and the places he finds his inspiration never cease to amaze me.
If you are a horror fan, a King fan, a short story fan, or a reader who likes to try anything new read this book. He truly is the greatest storyteller of our time.

In this collection of 14 short stories by everyone's favorite boogeyman Stephen King, there is a one particular story in here called "1408" that is in my honest opinion, the scariest short story that King has published to date. It deals with a haunted hotel room and I'm not telling you anymore than that. What I will say is that I've read this one story at least ten times and it never fails to make the hairs on my neck stand straight up.

If you, dear the store shopper, like the feeling of being terrified this is what I suggest:

Get your hands on a copy of this book. When you've done that, make sure you save "1408" for a night that you're alone. Try to read this one when you're nice and relaxed and really try to let yourself get immersed in King's masterful storytelling. I guarantee that at least nine out of ten of you that follow my suggestions will get spooked something awful.

As for the rest of the book, it really is a return to form for King as far as his short story collections go ("Nightmares and Dreamscapes", the book and not the TNT series, wasn't all that great save for a couple). Most of the stories here are hits rather than misses and "1408" isn't the only story here that will give you the chills. "The Man in the Black Suit" is pretty intense (not to mention King won an O. Henry Award for that one). "Riding the Bullet", the famed e-book from a few years back is here also, as well as a nice little side tale from the Dark Tower series titled "The Little Sisters of Eleuria".

I recommend this book to the fans and the non-fans alike as this is a great collection. Plus, "1408" is calling.

It's been a while since King has put out a collection of short stories, and usually when he does they are more like short novels than short stories. I've said before that I feel King's strong points aren't in his short stories, that he needs a couple hundred pages, at least, to really get a good story going. But this collection of 14 stories was astonishingly good. Maybe even some of his best work. It starts with a short introduction in which King pretty much just defends his e-publishing and other "gimmicky" ventures. The first story, "Autopsy Room Four" is the standard `I'm not dead, though everyone thinks I am' story, almost straight out of Twilight Zone, with an interesting King twist on the end. Nothing spectacular, but not bad. "The Man in the Black Suit" is his O. Henry award winning story (first place), and yeah, it's a good story (though I think others in this collection are much better) about a child meeting the devil. Very Hawthorne-ish. Next is one of the best stories in this collection, "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away," which I first read in The New Yorker. Not a typical King story, and proof that he can write outside his genre. And do it well. It's a story about a man who is unhappy with the choices he made in life and ready to kill himself. And King keeps the ending very ambiguous (which he does quite often in this collection), and that may be what really tops the story off. "The Death of Jack Hamilton" is another story I first read in The New Yorker. This one reminds me somewhat of "The Body" in that it isn't horror and surprises you that Stephen King wrote it. It's a about John Dillinger. "In the Deathroom" is a story of torture in Central America (very good). "The Little Sisters of Eluria" is the capstone of the collection. It is a story about the Gunslinger that takes place before any of the books and early in his quest for the Dark Tower. It deals with the Little Sisters that appeared in Black House and is a bit of a love story. By far the best in the collection. Next is "Everything's Eventual" that almost takes us back to Firestarter with it's secret government agencies. It's a story about self-esteem and moral choices made in life. "L.T.'s Theory of Pets" is a wonderfully touching story with a horrorfying ending. The reality of this story makes it what might be one of King's most chilling pieces. The humor of the story doesn't prepare you for what comes at the end. Previously, King released this as an audiobook, and I think it might be interesting to hear him read it. "The Road Virus Heads North" is a typical King short story. Nothing great about it, nothing spectacular, very mediocre. "Lunch at the Gotham Café" is about a divorcing couple (that just happens to get put into a bad circumstance). It's entertaining. A little funny. And a good story. "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French" is King's existentialist story about hell. One that you almost wish he hadn't wrote. Could be the worst in the collection. It's too repetitive, which I know was the point, but it doesn't carry well. "1408" is a ghost story of sorts. The haunted hotel story. It started off in a way that made me think I wouldn't like the story too much, and even though it never reached the level of the best stories here, it turned out to be a good read. "Riding the Bullet" is King's e-book. (And shows that a little patience pays off, for those of us who waited and didn't download the story) It's an excellent story about love, guilt, and choices wrapped in King's mean little world. I'm not sure if the point to the story was ever made, at least not the way he intended it, but this story makes you think about the choices you would make if you were in the same situation. At what point does your life become more or less valuable than your mother's? The final story is "Lucky Quarter" which is really a touching little story. No horror, just a lot of feel-good. This collection contains both of King's audiobooks (Blood & Smoke; L.T.'s Theory of Pets) his e-book (not The Plant, but then he never finished that for us), the story from his computer program F-13 and stories he's published elsewhere (everyone here has appeared somewhere else before). It's a solid collection. Every King fan will own it, and even those who aren't fans of King or his genre will find that at least half of the stories will be to their liking. This collection shows King's skill and maturity as a writer and should further add to the literary respect that is finally coming his way.

After reading and being disappointed with King's effort at three short stories in Dark Visions where the stories had no endings I was reluctant to pick up another collection of his short stories. Then I remembered his short story classics like The Mist and Trucks and knew I should give him another chance. I was not disappointed with this collection.
Riding the Bullet would be one of his best ever short stories as would Autopsy Room Four. The first is a young man's tale of hitchhiking to visit his mother in hospital who has suffered a stroke and the as only king can create characters he encounters along the way. Autopsy Room Four is a man who is paralysed but mistaken for dead who is conscious as his autopsy is being performed. Sensational reading.
To be honest I found the stories between Autopsy Room Four and Everything's Eventual pretty average. Everything's Eventual on the other hand is pretty good. The story of a guy who has a dream job and a weird talent. I will not give away any more. The Road Virus Heads North a story about a horror author who buys a unique painting is excellent and Lucky Quarter is also worth a read. 1408 starts of great but the second half does not keep up the brilliance. I did not really like the other stories but that does not mean that you will not. This collection is definitely worth buying.

"All the best stories are but one story in reality--the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape."--Arthur Christopher Benson (1862-1925)
I recommend reading the King of Horror's latest book, Everything's Eventual, with this insight from Benson in mind. You will be surprised how many of these 14 dark tales deal with the theme of escape: those who escaped, those who didn't, and those who thought they escaped without really escaping.
Everything's Eventual is Stephen King's fourth short-story collection. The previous ones were Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, and Nightmares & Dreamscapes. As usual, King excels as a master storyteller, providing tales that entertain, amuse, and frighten.
o The first story, "Autopsy Room Four," is a variation on a theme found in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Premature Burial." A stockbroker has been bitten by a poisonous snake and, although fully conscious, he is completely paralyzed, unable even to blink his eyes. An incompetent physician pronounces him dead, and the coroners prepare their razor-sharp instruments to perform an autopsy. Unfortunately, King spoils the ending of this scariest story of the book by an ill-judged (albeit "arousing") attempt at humor.
o In "The Man in the Black Suit" a nine-year-old "fisher boy" breaks his promise to his parents, ventures beyond the little wooden bridge and the forks of the creek, and has an eerie encounter with the Devil on the banks of Castle Stream. Written in homage to Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," this story won first prize in the O. Henry Best Short Story competition for 1996.
o In "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away," a world-weary salesman ponders his destiny, Hamlet-like, in a Motel 6 on I-80 just west of Lincoln, Nebraska. He puts a Smith & Wesson revolver, .38 caliber, on the pillow at the head of his bed and contemplates suicide.
o In "The Death of Jack Hamilton," a wounded gangster, a henchman of the John Dillinger gang, is shot by pursuing police. He is bleeding to death and is developing gangrene. His end is not a pretty sight.
o "In the Deathroom" is a Kafkaesque story about an interrogation room in the South American version of Hell. An "infernal machine" is set up to torture a Yankee journalist.
o The title characters of "The Little Sisters of Eluria" are nurses of death instead of life. This novella is a prequel to the Dark Tower novels. (Note: SK has now finished DT 5, all nine hundred pages of it: "Wolves of the Calla.")
o "Everything's Eventual" contains some bizarre paranormal stuff (surprise! surprise!). Richard Ellery "Dinky" Earnshaw may be a pizza delivery-boy who has flunked high school geometry (twice), but he has a powerful "gift" that is exploited by sinister forces. This story has echoes of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"
o "L. T.'s Theory of Pets" is King's favorite in this collection. One wonders why, for it is not his best. A marriage is on the rocks because the wife in this story loves a dog (given to her by her husband) and the husband loves a cat (given to him by his wife).
o "The Road Virus Heads North" is a scary tale reminiscent of King's "Rose Madder" and Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray." By purchasing a painting that changes in form and content, the protagonist opens a hole in the basement of the universe, from which supernatural emissaries of evil emerge to perform nefarious deeds. Moral of this story: Resist impulse buying at yard sales!
o "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" is one of the book's best stories. Three people--a couple proceeding with a divorce, and the wife's lawyer--are attacked by a berserk Ichabod Crane-like maitre d', who, wielding a machete-like butcher knife, splatters the restaurant with blood and gore. Moral of this story: Eat at home!
o In "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French," a long-married couple are trapped in a time loop in which the same disaster recurs again and again. The wife's chilling feelings of deja vu, by which she foresees their doom, reminds one of Nietzsche's myth of the eternal return.
o "1408" in a variation of "The-Ghostly-Room-at-the-Inn" tale. Room 1408 is on the 13th floor, and the numerals of 1408 add up to 13. If you are a bit squeamish, this haunting tale will induce the heebie-jeebies. Moral of the story: Never book a room on the 13th floor!
o In "Riding the Bullet" a young man, hitchhiking to the hospital to see his mother, who has had a stroke, is picked up by the Angel of Death. Forced to face the fact of his own approaching death (which is, says King, "probably the single great subject of horror fiction"), the young man must choose whether he will live and his mother will die, or vice versa. Moral of this story: Keep your thumb in your pocket!
o "Luckey (sic) Quarter" is an ironic, but disappointing, story. King should have limited this collection to 13 tales.
If Stephen King were made a camp counselor, he would scare ninety per cent of the kiddies back home after the first round of campfire ghost stories. Do not read these stories right before lights-out. If you dare to do so, first check underneath your bed!
Stephen King is the author of more than forty books. Among his most recent are Dreamcatcher, On Writing, Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Bag of Bones, The Green Mile, and Black House (with Peter Straub). He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Maybe I am being too critical.. Possibly, after the disappointment of "Black House", I entered into "Everything's Eventual with a mind more closed than open. There should be no doubt that Stephen King is the master of the short story. But compared to King's last collections, "Nightmare & Dreamscapes" and "Four Past Midnight", this collection doesn't seem to be up to par.
Granted, there are a few pretty good stories here, such as "The Man in the Black Suit", "The Road Virus Heads North", and, (one of my new favorite King stories) "1408". However, many of the other stories seem too weak to be included in a Stephen King collection. The one story that I was most disappointed in was "LT's Theory of Pets", which, due to bookstore marketing and internet hype, I had high hopes for. The story beings with a fairly entertaining tale of a man, his wife and their experiences with their respective favorite pets. However, for some inexplicable reason, the story ends with a disappearance & (suspected) murder that seemingly has nothing to do with the rest of the story. There are several other pointless, unentertaining stories in this collection, which, in my opinion, was a major disappointmentoverall.
Let's just hope that, if there is another Stephen King short story collection, the stories will be stronger and more interesting than those here.

In many ways, Stephen King is the Billy Joel of the literary world. He may not be very deep, but he's quite, quite broad. Nearly every King book approaches publishing from a different angle, whether that be novel, book of interconnected novellas, two simultaenously-published books with the same plot (one written by pseudonym), or book of short stories. This latest short story collection showcases King's talents at nearly every type of story, and nearly every one is excellent.
The collection opens with a pair of homages. "Autopsy Room Four" is an update of an episode "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", and it's a comic chiller. On the first page of this collection you're already introduced to a living protagonist wrapped in a body bag. A great start! The second homage, "The Man in the Black Suit", is more philosophical, derived from a Nathaniel Hawthorne story. I find this one less successful, if only because King's take on the Devil is his usual foul-mouthed villain, forced to utter lines such as "Biiig Fiiish!". Where's the subtlety?
The next two stories are "mainstream", devoid of the supernatural. "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" marries a collection of men's-room graffiti to the last hours of a traveling salesman. This one tries for pathos, and almost makes it. More affecting, I found, was "The Death of Jack Hamilton", a Depression-era period piece starring John Dillinger and narrated by a dim-witted sidekick.
"In the Deathroom" is the first of three stories previously presented on the "Blood & Smoke" audio release. It's about an American journalist accused of espionage and tortured in South America. Perhaps coming so close after the murder of Daniel Pearl this story strikes a little too close to the wrong nerves, but the writing is first-rate. "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" is another comic nightmare, set in New York City's Upper East Side, pitting an insane maitre'd against the most acrimonious divorce of all time. Who wins? "1408" is the scariest story in the book, perhaps even an improvement on "The Shining". There's a great extended dialogue scene between a horror writer and a stodgy NYC innkeeper, and a horrific "Blair Witch"-style mental breakdown captured on audiotape.
"The Little Sisters of Eluria" introduced me to the world of the Dark Tower, with which I wasn't familiar. I enjoyed the novella and went out and purchased "The Gunslinger" immediately after. I can't judge the story as an effective Dark Tower tale, but I liked the mix of Old West and dark fantasy (blue jeans and vampires), and the stilted dialogue of the hero that almost seems written for Kevin Costner.
"Everything's Eventual" is both the title story and the gem of the collection, a brilliant narrative that takes at least two sharp unexpected turns between comedy and sci-fi horror. Well, well worth a couple of reads. "L.T.'s Theory of Pets" walks the same line, although I'm not sure if those without pets will see it the same way.
"The Road Virus Heads North" is the weakest story in the collection, mainly due to a complete lack of logic as the story races to its conclusion. It's about a haunted painting which stalks a Stephen King-style writer up the Maine coast. Help yourself.
The book ends with the previously-unread-on-e-book "Riding the Bullet", a good effort about a young man's choice between life and death while hitching a ride from a dead man, and then with King's version of a light palette-cleanser, "Luckey Quarter", a short-short that improves on the second and third readings.
There's something for everyone in "Everything's Eventual", from mainstream to horror to slapstick comedy, to Stephen King's patented mix of all three. The stories are best read over a period of time -- I read them all in a row, and my night's sleep got progressively shorter by the end, most notably after "1408". And now, on to "The Gunslinger".

I threw this book in the trash. Not because I was acting the part of a pious little church mouse thinking, "Harry Potter is the Devil", but more because it scared me. Scared the Holy juices right off my protective little cross necklace I keep around my neck at night. Scared me like an old woman gets scared when she realizes her hubby died sometime in the night as she slept beside him. Thanks a freakin lot, King! Thanks a lot, pal!
Throwing his books away because they terrified isn't something of a shocker. I've done it before. I did it with 'It', would have done it with 'Cycle of the Warewolf' if it wasn't owned by the library. This book, Everything's Eventual that is, was thrown away twice, and that's where it sits right now,in the trash, tempting me to pick it up again for another read!
This darn book is creepy. The voices heard in room 1408 will soon seem like they're whispering to you. The "hungry" Devil that chats with a nine-year-old near the woods will soon be looking to see what you've caught out of the stream. I only read nine of these stories, all the screamers I'm sure. I didn't go in order but based my selections on titles, starting with the Man in the Black Suit. Scared the pee out of me too, that one did.
The Road Virus Heads North is the kind of tale that you know you shouldn't read, the kind of story that you'll regret reading at about 2:00AM when it's just you alone with your thoughts. But dang it, it was so tempting and when I finished it, I was scared completely frozen! I couldn't move, expecting that Metallica fan of a kid with the cannibal teeth to be staring back at me, smiling the same twisted smile described from the story.
Maybe I'll give into my impulse and fish that book out of the trash for the second time; maybe not, but that book will make you think that the next time you get up to get a drink at four in the morning and turn on the bedroom light that sits on the nightstand, that demon your mind's created WILL really be staring back at you, smiling an eery grin.
Riding the Bullet was intended to be a heart-warmer of a spook story but it still freaked me out. There is a story about Roland as a younger man for those of you who enjoy reading about his ongoing saga. All That You Love Will Be Carried Away is sad and scary at the same time and 1408 is terrifying. Other notables is the way 'LT's Theory of Pets' will make you laugh silly, then sit still in utter shock at the end.
Maybe, when you've read five or six stories in it, you'll consider trashing this one too, ridding yourself of the opportunity to get anymore scared than you already are. Maybe, though, you'll fish it out of the trash again and again, reading just one more story.....like I'm tempted to do right now.
enjoy

The last couple of Stephen King collections, while still always superior to most of the junk out there, were still not the greatest. NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES for example, had lots of little scraps and stuff that really felt like it had come out of a long-forgotten trunk. Kinda like a collection of B-sides.
In EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL, almost every story is terrific, and some are downright fantastic. The weakest of the lot is LT'S THEORY OF PETS (which you can get an audio CD of, with King reading in front of a live audience...it's fun to hear). It's a pretty funny story, and enjoyable for most of it, but the payoff is NON-EXISTENT. The ending is so [bad] I almost thought that either some pages had been left out, or King accidentally merged the ending from another story onto this one.
Also, the title story is a little bit unsatisfying. The voice of the narrator, who we're to believe is a teen-age loser, varies from nearly retarded to some flourishes of wonderful prose, and as it's written in the first person, the inconsistency jarred me. Again, the ending is perhaps not terribly strong. It's a nice idea for a story, but frankly felt a little lazy for King.
For DARK TOWER fans, which I am one, big time, the novella of an early adventure of Roland's, LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA, is very exciting. The story is well done, if a tiny bit long, and very nicely fills in some shades and gradations to Roland's character. If you haven't read the books, it isn't critical to enjoying the story, but I think it would make the story seem just a little pointless. But if you are a fan, read the book for this alone!!
I won't run down every good story in the book, but there are two that honestly, genuinely give me the creeps reading them. One is ROOM 1408, a "haunted hotel room" story that is unlike any other. There's a long setup, where we get the horrifying history of the room, and then, the instant our protagonist enters the room, all reality is skewed. King just absolutely plunges us into it...no gradual building up of suspense. It's nice, creepy fun.
THAT FEELING, YOU CAN ONLY SAY WHAT IT IS IN FRENCH is also creepy. Although I think everyone will have guessed the "surprise" ending before it's dropped on you, it doesn't lessen the enjoyment of this "trip to hell" for a couple having a few marital problems, and King very neatly takes the story's staightforward narrative, and begins to skew it little by little.
All the other stories are great fun, too, but I won't get into them all. I think everyone will have their own favorites, of course, but the key is that I would say 85% of the book is sensational, and the other 15% only weak in comparison to the rest. GET THIS BOOK!

As I've indicated in other reviews of his work, Stephen King's books can be grouped into three categories - his best novels - "Salem's Lot", "The Shining"; his worst - "Gerald's Game", "Firestarter"; and everything in between - stuff that King wrote on an off day or that is just not as good as it could have been.
"Everything's Eventual" falls into the middle category, but in this case it's because of the nature of the book; it's a compilation of short stories. Some - in fact, most - of these stories are quite good, and several ("The Man in the Black Suit", "The Road Virus Heads North", and "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What it is in French", to name a few) quite literally sent a chill down my spine. Most of the other horror tales aren't quite in the same league as those but are still 100% better than most of what's currently in the horror section of bookstores now.
There's also an introductory essay about these stories, as well as a printed version of the only successful e-novel so far ("Riding the Bullet", which scared me plenty when I first downloaded it) and a printed version of one of the stories in King's audio compilation ("Blood and Smoke"), which as read by the author put me to sleep. I'm glad he put it to paper; it's a much better story this way despite what King says in his introduction to the story. King can write good stories but he certainly can't narrate them. I hope he puts the other stories in that "book" to paper so I can enjoy them.
There is also a prequel of sorts to the "Dark Tower" series. I personally have found the "Dark Tower" books to be totally incomprehensible, and the fact that King made mention of the Tower in "Black House" didn't exactly endear that book to me when I read it. But "The Little Sisters of Eluria" was actually quite a good novella, and I may just go and buy the first few volumes of the series again to see if it's a little more understandable.
There is one clunker in this collection, and it's the last story - "Luckey Quarter". The fact that "Lucky" is spelled incorrectly should have been a dead giveaway (no pun intended).
This collection will have to serve until King's next novel, which I believe will be coming out towards the end of this year. Can't wait!

Stephen King has a very distinctive way of writing. You could read through several anonymous works and pick out which one is his just by the tone and the word usage.

This collection of short stories by Stephen King is no different though each story is a little different from the other one. The horror genre has become so broad and is no longer about monsters and scary places but now includes mundane life. King's mundane life of course includes being interrogated by the secret police of some South American dictatorship and a golfer who is bitten by a poisonous snake which makes him appear dead and is about to be cut open in an autopsy. King is able to take such things and make them more terrifying than they already are.

His one story about a young boy who meets the Devil while out fishing could be mistaken for something done by Hawthorne or Ambrose Bierce if it were not for the lude and vulgar language King is known to use in all his works.

The centerpiece of this collection is now the short story "1408" due to the film of the same name.

All in all, this is a nice collection of various stories, some of which are better than others.

I have always thought that Stephen King's best work was his short stories. Everything's Eventual simply confirms this fact. Writing short stories is very different than writing a novel, or at least that's what I've been told. Story and character development have to occur pretty quickly and any twists in the plot have to happen in a very condensed manner. Stephen King has the ability to quickly involve the reader in a short story. His pacing in shorts is great. Almost never a dull moment.
Then there are the types of stories he writes. In Everything's Eventual the 14 stories he gives us run the range of his talents. Ghost stories, stories filled with irony, ordinary people run amok, and twists of fate are all represented in this volume. Plus in The Little Sisters of Eluria, we see Roland in a continuation of the Gunslinger saga. Several of the stories, Riding the Bullet, 1408, Lunch at Gotham Cafe, LT's Theory of Pets and In the Deathroom have appeared previously in one form or another, but I enjoyed reading them anyway.
If it is true that Stephen King will write only 5 more books and this is one of them, then Everything's Eventual is a fitting beginning to the ending of one of the greatest American authors to come down the pike. If he isn't recognized for that now, it will happen "eventually."

It's been nearly a decade since King offered us a collection of short stories (which was Nightmares & Dreamscapes). His newest collection, Everything's Eventual, might very well be his best and most mature effort in the relm of short fiction. This collection shows perfectly why King is at the top of his game and why he's so beloved by millions of fans around the world.
The 14 stories included in this collections are all worth reading. There are only two which I found disappointing; 1408, a haunted hotel room story that seems kind of cliched for someone of King's talent, and Lunch At Gotham Cafe, a strange horror tale about a crazy maitre d'. Those two stories aside, the collection is quite spectacular.
First off, any fans of the Dark Tower series will want to read The Little Sisters of Eluria, a prequel to King's opus which is masterfully written and quite chilling. Then there's Autopsy Room Four and That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French and Riding The Bullet, three top-of-the-notch horror tales that will chill you to the bone. And his story Lt's Theory Of Pets, a strange blend of comedy and horror, is not to be missed.
Then, there are the non-horror stories, some of King's best works in years, including The Death Of Jack Hamilton, In The Death Room and the truly wonderful, truly amazing The Man In The Black Suit. These stories should once and for all prove that King is a lot more than just a popular genre writer.
But the real reason to read this anthology is for the title story, Everything's Eventual, a great little story that is mysterious, quite original and very satisfying. It's as good, if not better, than anything Kafka has written. That story alone is worth the price of the book.
King has never ceased to amaze me. He has written hundreds of wonderful stories and dozens of truly amazing books. He is very much American's most prolific - and most talented - writer.

"Everything's Eventual" is Stephen King's fourth short story collection, and his first since "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" nearly a decade ago. King is perhaps the best and most consistent short story writer working in genre fiction today (number two would probably be Lawrence Block). The sheer number of first rate ideas he has cranked out over the course of the four volumes is nothing short of incredible.
Having said all that, "Everything's Eventual," while a decent collection, is not quite up to the standards of the previous three (which, for the record are "Night Shift," "Skeleton Crew" and the aforesaid "Nightmares..."). The first thing I noticed was that it is a bit short on actual horror stories, though "The Road Virus Heads North," "The Man in the Black Suit," and "1408" are among his best pure horror stories.
Of the rest, "The Death of Jack Hamilton," "All that You Love Will be Carried Away," and "In the Deathroom" are first rate stories (like "Dolan's Cadilac" from "Nightmares...") that belong in the mystery/crime category. "Autopsy Room Four" and "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" are creepy suspense stories that feature no supernatural elements. The rest, including one "Dark Tower" piece, read more like filler material. Eash story gets a short blurb of either introduction or post script, and there's the usual King introduction addressed to "you, Constant Reader."
Overall, King deserves credit for continuing to write short stories at a time when the style has continued to decline. As King points out in the introduction, while this collection is sure to be a bestseller like everything else he writes, it is also likely to be the only short story collection to make the list this year. If he gets even a few people ineterested in short fictiona again, it will have been worthwhile.

I've always felt Stephen King was a much better short story writer than he was a novelist. He's never come close to being nominated for The National Book Award, but he has won the O'Henry Award for his short story "The Man in the Black Suit," which is included in this anthology. Obviously the judges who distribute that award have never read any of King's longer works; he's only done the devil thing a couple of hundred times. But there's a far better story in this collection, "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away." It's about a traveling salesman who decides to end it all in a seedy motel with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson, but before he pulls the trigger he sifts through his most prized possession, a notebook full of graffito he has collected during his travels. Some of them are on the offensive side and he doesn't want them found with his body. He has a family after all. He decides to bury the notebook in a farmer's field outside the motel. Alfie Zimmer clings to one small thread of a lifeline, however. Could he edit the notebook and perhaps interest a publisher? Before entering the motel, he had noticed lights glowing from a nearby farmhouse. Now the house is dark. He decides to count to sixty; if the lights come back on he will try to publish his book of graffito; if they don't he will go back inside and blow his brains out.
Another good one is "Riding the Bullet," a rather famous story in that it was published on the Internet. In his prefatory remarks King talks about how the story was inspired by the death of his mother. In it a college student is called home because his mother has had a stroke. I think you need to know a little about King's background in order to appreciate this story. His father left early on and his mother raised him. Although she made barely enough money to support herself, she sent him a small allowance every week for spending money while he was attending college at the University of Maine. "The Bullet" in the title is an amusement park ride. King can't help himself; he practically ruins the story by including one of his devil characters.
In another one of his prefatory notes, King says he writes two short stories or so a year. I think he should do it full time and ditch the tedious devils.

This short-story collection sat on my bookshelf for a long time. Collecting `book dust' before I tempted to crack into it. Partly due to my then hectic college schedule and partly out of fear; fear that perhaps my favorite author had finally lost his `knack'. A fear I tend to gravitate towards with any new piece of work from any of the half-dozen or so favorite authors in my Constant Reader circle.

It's not entirely clear to me why I felt why I did, but I am happy to say that I am glad that I waited a few years to read it. Not because it is awful, but because I think I needed a few more years of living under the ol' belt to truly appreciate the stories in this somewhat hodgepodge of a collection.

Like many of you, I am a habitual digester of Stephen King. Also, I consider myself a fan as well-- although just shy of the Annie Wilkes sort. However, these traits do little to affect my review writing, that I can promise you. In an ironic way, it actually helps me to remain honest; to keep me grounded, critical and appraising, all when they are deserved; and some would say even when not-so-deserved.

My first attempt at beginning this book proved futile. So, I `shelved' it and went onto something else. Just wasn't the right time for it and for me to collide. So, about a month or so later, I decided to try again, this time with greater success.

This collection is specifically interesting because it seems so random.

Unlike many of King's other short stories, where they often appear to be connected by some invisible umbilical chord or bound together by some ghastly theme, Everything's Eventual is connected only in it's randomness. Initially disjointed and uncomfortable to settle into, you will most likely find yourself going from zero to a hundred in the span of just a few stories; eventually finding it all but impossible to put down until you've finished the book in its entirety! For me, the "spiraling" began when I hit the marvelous tale (and my personal favorite of the whole lot) "The Little Sisters of Eleuria" which stars our favorite Dark Tower anti-hero Roland the Gunslinger. As a `newbie' to the world of Roland and his quest for the Dark Tower (as of this writing, I have yet to complete my reading of the seven novel epic tale) I was eager to read this pre-Gunslinger tale. For those of you who are Dark Tower fans, this story is an absolute must read! You are sure to recognize a few yet-to-be introduced characters and it creates a feeling of longing and nostalgia.

As many of you will come to know, there are stories here within that could easily slide into the long-ago defunct `Tales from the Darkside' series or Showtime's current successful series "Masters of Horror". Such tales that would perfectly fit the bill are the terrifying "Autopsy Room Four" (dealing with premature burial), "1408" (vaguely reminiscent of The Shining), "Lunch At the Gotham Café" (King's most wicked tale in this collection and one that might have you thinking twice about that strange look the maitre d' shoots towards you at your favorite restaurant), "The Death of Jack Hamilton" (an Al Capone-era tale that is more heart-touching than machine gun totting-although there are still plenty of bullets flying and dicing), "The Road Virus Heads North" (stalker via moving painting) and "In the Deathroom" (a story filled with a wit of tortures humor with a cool `smoking' ending).

Other tales that stand out like mountains from the rest of the valley of stories are the 1996 O' Henry award winning "The Man in the Black Suit" (I recall my palms and heart racing throughout this nasty tale), "Riding the Bullet" (a sad tale told from the perspective of a regretful son about his dying mother and an unexpected ride from a dead man; also a story that has all ready been made into a movie), and "L.T.'s Theory of Pets". This later tale (available as a stand alone audio book read by the author himself) is classic King. A local meat-packer comes home one evening to find that his wife of 3 years has left him. Even more shocking than her sudden dismissal from his life is when she turns up missing; a possible victim of the `Axe Man'. Pets is a roller-coaster ride filled with emotional ups-and-downs. Apart from this collection, I strongly encourage anyone who enjoys books-on-tape to be sure to purchase it.

Most of the stories spun here are enjoyable and fulfilling. Some not fitting that bill quite as much would be "The Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French" (a confusing tale of déjà vu'), "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" (a lonely traveling salesman contemplates suicide-not an awful story by any means, but it just never seems to land anywhere. Though, that could be fault of the reader (and probably is) rather than the fault of the writer).

Book-ending our 14 tales of woe, is the unfortunate "Luckey Quarter." I can't say that we ended with a bang with this one. Perhaps the shortest of the bunch, Lucky starts out promising but quickly fizzles out. The ending rather anti-climatic and we are left wondering `what was the point?'

My quarrels with some of the stories that are least appealing to me are minimal. Once again, regardless of the tale, King tells it stylishly and with maximum effort. Never is there a sense of his just going-through-the-motions; the author giving the reader the sign that this is his story and he's sticking to it! Something of an admirable trait.

Sometimes King seems more the King of Modern Fiction than others. And, for fans who have yet to purchase this fine collection, well, it's probably just a matter of it being Eventual.

I was excited to see some of Stephen King's unpublished or obscure works in one book.
What I liked
Autopsy Room 4: Purgatory or paralysis what do you do?
In the Deathroom: It is not so fun being in a 3rd world prison awaiting a torture and if you are lucky death.
The Little Sisters of Eluria: Part of the Dark Tower. Would you rather be with Zombies or evil Nuns?
Everything's Eventual: If you are a underachiever like Dinky, it is not necessarily the pay, but the fringe benefits when you have special talents.
L.T' Theory of Pets: She gets the dog, he gets the cat... poor dog.
The Road Virus Heads North: Some artwork is not worth the price, no matter how little it cost.
Lunch at the Gotham Cafe: Divorce can be a real pain, but a bad waiter can be worse.
Luckey Quarter: A quarter tip can definitely better than nothing.
The other stories were OK but seemed like filler instead of content.

It is a bit sad reviewing a book that is probably the last collection of short fiction that Stephen King will produce in his lifetime. In these tales, King is mellowing a bit with age. For instance, in the title story, the teenage protagonist is conveniently devoid of a sex-drive. Are we really to believe that this is possible? Yet, it helps to further the plot. Many of the characters written about here are closer to King's current age.

However, there is a lot of classic King here to keep his fans happy. "The Road Virus Heads North" is a chilling tale (if a bit too reminiscent of "The Monkey") about a creepy painting. "1408" is a pure, hard-core ghost story. "Lunch at the Gotham Bar and Grill" ends up as a Hitchcockian suspense tale.

Some of the more interesting stories have to do with King taking riffs on the horror genre. "L.T.'s Theory of Pets" is a horror story without the actual horror. "Riding the Bullet" and "The Man in the Black Suit" are more about the effects of horror than the actual horror itself.

Very few people will come to this book who are not all ready fans of King. Some of the stories will leave them flat, but the rest will surely make up for it.

This is a tough one for me, as I'm a die-hard fan of Stephen King and his writing. Several of his books and short-stories are included in my all-time favorite tales, periodically pulled off the shelf and read again and again. However, he falters a bit here, at least in my opinion. Several stories are excellent, Road Virus Heads North, The Man in the Black Suit, Everything's Eventual, and L.T.'s Theory of Pets are all fine reads, showing yet again that Mr. King is NOT a hack writer who got lucky but rather a skilled master of the writing craft. In one sentence he can make a character feel real and alive.
Unfortunately, the quality of the stories is variable. Lunch at the Gotham Cafe, Little Sisters, etc. simply aren't up to his usual standards. They're not bad but they simply aren't as fine as what he has shown that he can write. 1408, in particular, is a heart-breaker. It's excellent until our writer enters that room, than it falls apart. It seemed that he was shooting for a Lovecraftian feel at that point and it just didn't work, sadly.
All of that said, there are gems in here. However, you have to dig for them. It's worth picking up but perhaps a wait for the paperback is in order.
Matt

Stephen King is one of America's great authors. The technical side of his writing is nearly perfect, and he can create heartbreaking nostalgia and startling realism with ease. All of King's novels spring from unusually creative and original ideas, but unfortunately they tend to continue on auto pilot for hundreds of pages before finally petering out.

"Everything's Eventual" is a collection of 14 Stephen King short stories. In my opinion, the short story is the ideal medium for King's fiction: it showcases his creative use of situation, voice, language, and description while freeing him from having to continue a story past its natural length.

These 14 stories are all decent enough, some better than others. A few are derivative ("Autopsy Room Four"), a few are overly violent ("In the Deathroom"), a few are fluff ("Luckey Quarter"), and a few are chillingly wonderful ("The Road Virus Heads North," "Riding the Bullet," and the title story).

A fascinating bonus is an introduction in which King discusses the lost art of the short story. He also provides interesting comments about each story.

I give this book 4-1/2 stars. I've always known about Stephen King and his reputation for writing truly scary books that are so good that many are turned into movies. But I really didn't know which book to choose to start actually reading instead of watching Hollywood's turn on his writing, thus I thought fourteen short stories would be a good start. Boy was I a happy camper when I flew through this incredible book.
The book is a very interesting hodgepodge of stories that take you away into different places and scenarios with each story. As one reviewer stated, Stephen has a way of telling stories that make you feel like he is talking to you one-on-one and his personal insights and meanings of each story give you a cool, different perspective on the stories. Oh, did I also mention that this book is quite scary too. Together with the brevity of the stories, (although I really didn't care for "The Little Sisters of Eluria") makes this a "must-have" for an introduction to the creepy world of Mr. King or for that matter any reading fan. I personally liked reading myself a good campfire, ghost story before I went to bed each night.

Sitting down to a compilation of Stephen King short stories is like opening a big box of very expensive chocolates, by the time you get to the end you know you are going to feel sick but boy will you enjoy the journey along the way.
This collection of tales is what no other writer apart from Stephen King seems able to achieve these days. The short story is an artform all of its own and to find an author that tends towards verbal diarrhoea capable of writing some of the best modern stories around is a surprise. Following the wake of Skeleton Crew, Nightmares and Dreamscapes and the inimitable Night Shift.
The stories range from the vaguely sinister, especially the opening story Autopsy Room Four - where every sane persons worst dreams very nearly come true. Through to the down right scary 1408 - where every creepy hotel room you ever stayed in comes to life.
The most outstanding story has to be The Road Virus Heads North. This is a true horror fans nirvana, gore aplenty and enough shivers creeping up your spine you will want to turn all your pictures facing the wall just in case they start to change.
The real beauty in a book of short stories is the way you can treat them like a delicious treat. Make a date with the book every night and savour the taste and texture of the words. Or you can do as I did and get so sucked in that you devour the words in two straight sittings, curled up on the sofa with the lights burning bright and refusing to look in the dark corners.

In the title story of this 2002 short story collection, we meet a young man with the power to channel a fantastic universe and alter our reality just by typing a few words. I have a feeling Stephen King knows just how that feels.

A writer who thinks stories are "found things" and never runs out of imagination, King seems to be something of the Dickens of our day. Yet while he may be rich and famous on account of his novels, short-story collections like this one best showcase his ample, verdant genius. Here you have 14 examples of the richness and diversity of King's craft, each a springboard for examining the human condition.

The common theme for nearly all of them is death. Death comes for a small boy in "The Man In The Black Suit"; for a separated couple in "Lunch At The Gotham Cafe"; for a scoffing travel writer in "1408". We visit an autopsy room, a couple of prisons, a private jet, all with death hovering not too far away. Only one story, "Luckey Quarter", is off subject, and curiously manages to be one of the most depressing items here.

I first came away from this book feeling a little disappointed. "Quarter" is an underbaked story, and so was "In The Deathroom", one of the prison tales. "Eventual" has a disjointed ending, as does "L.T.'s Theory Of Pets". Two of this collection's best-known stories, "Black Suit" and "Riding The Bullet", about an unlucky hitchhiker, don't merit their high reputation. But then I thought about each story, and realized two things. One, I was very into reading them while they were in front of me. Two, I was remembering each vividly, each title alone conjuring an ample store of memories.

Also, King does bounce around like no one's business. If you don't like one story, hold on because the next one will be completely different. When you do like a story, there's a good chance you'll like the next one, too, and in a totally different way.

The best stories in "Everything's Eventual" are up there with the best King has ever written, including the terror classic "1408" and the creepy but hilarious "Autopsy Room Four." Other great stories here aren't particularly in the horror genre; they just deal with the question of death in other ways. "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" is King at his brutal best, detailing life at its lowest ebb with a game, piercing eye. And "The Death Of Jack Hamilton" allows for one of King's most indelible characters in the famous person of John Dillinger, seen here as a noble loser with an inscrutable grin.

King also includes brief explanations for each of his tales, some appearing before, some after. Do yourself a favor and read nothing before you read the tale itself. King's magic is potent anyway, but it's better still when you don't know what's coming. Because, with this guy, anything can.

This is a must-read for all horror buffs. "1408" is the best, I read it at 2 am, and let me just say, IT FREAKED ME OUT. It is about a writer who visits different "haunted places" and spends the night in them, and then writes about it. 1408 (add the digits and you get, 13)refers to the hotel room number of a seriously haunted room. The way he describes...well, just trust me, it is like the Stephen King of old (before he got paid per word). Some other great ones include, "The Road Virus Heads North", "That saying that you can only say in French", "lunch at Gotham cafe", "Autopsy room 4" and "Everythings Eventual."
Also, the introduction he gives is interesting as he goes into the art of writing a short story and his opinion of the current state of short stories in general.
Also it is noteworthy to know that there is a Dark Tower tie-in (the sisters of euluria). There are a couple of duds (Lucky Quarter and Riding The Bullet), but it does not matter, as the ones I mentioned earlier totally make up for the stinkers.

I went though most of high school hooked on Stephen King's stuff. While the novels were usually the best stuff, some of his really horrifying moments were in the short story collections.

But this isn't exactly one of them. Take "Luckey Quarter", for example. It's nothing but a cheat-the-reader dream sequence that holds no suspense.

Don't get me wrong, some of the stories are really stand outs, like "1408" a story about a hotel room that has similarities to "The Shining." There's also a short entitled "The Road Virus Heads North" that has such imagery that it kept me up late.

But the work lacks in suspense and horror like King's other shorts (see Nightmares and Dreamscapes if you haven't already it's much better than this work). King also inserts his little editorial comments before each story, to give budding writers an idea of what he was thinking. Unfortunately, these little nuggets sometimes have spoiler information; and generally he has nothing particularly interesting to say. (e.g. "This is my take on the classic . . ." or "I got the idea for this story...").

This book is really for King fans who've read all of his other works. If you haven't read the classics, read those first, then read this book - otherwise you'll never know how good King really is.

Everything's eventual is an enjoyable piece of work by Stephen King. This collection includes both horror stories and prose. King never fails to set the scene. His detail and descriptions allow me to visualize the setting more fully than if I were watching it on screen. Even in stories that are only a few pages (20-40), he creates personalities for his characters. I have come to enjoy how King creates characters by showing their thoughts and using their speech, rather than relying on simple descriptions.
His imagination is magnificent. The Road Virus Rides North and 1408 were two of my favorites from this collection. These stories spooked me a little, but I couldn't put the book down. I also enjoyed the suspense in, In the Deathroom. One of the most interesting proses was the Death of Jack Hamilton, a cohort of John Dillinger. Not all of the stories are horror, but they are all good. I recommend this collection to anyone who likes King.

First, a note of explanation on the rating. I'm giving "Everything's Eventual" four stars based on content and one extra star for the return of its author. See, for the last few years I really got the feeling King was "losing it". The Green Mile enthralled me but then...nothing. The fourth Dark Tower novel was good, but not as good as the rest. His other novels just did nothing for me. He'd carry the idea so far and then seem to drop it. "Everything's Eventual" shows me that the Stephen King I came to love does still exist and that perhaps the essense of what made him great was distilled into this collection. It's refreshing to find him , after all this time, to still be the modern master of suspense/horror fiction.
The stories themselves cover a broad range of topics each handled in a quintessentially King manner. I'd give a run down of all of them but it seems that many other the store reviewers have done so already. Suffice to say they are top notch. Oh, I will give a particular mention to The Little Sisters of Eluria. All you Dark Tower fans should like this one. I did.

I'm biased when it comes to author Stephen King. It was "The Shining" that made me want to be a writer in the first place, so I credit much of my fortune to his ability to engage me as a reader (and terrify me when I was nine years old). For those who are curious about this book because of "1408," know that just based on the movie's trailers the film is nothing like the short story (which is one of 14 in this book).

"1408" is actually a nod to horror master H.P. Lovecraft, and King almost seems to channel the man through this story. It is creepy and never over the top, and it's not even the best one in this book.

The other 13 stories are decent reads, though some are less scary than others, but I don't think any horror or King fan will be disappointed by this collection. Everything from the devil to undead drivers are covered here, and it is King in best form.

I would give this collection a 4.5 if I could but since there are really no duds in the bunch and I am feeling generous a 5 it is! Whether you love or hate Stephen King there is no denying that the man can write a story. I sometimes feel he is at his best within the short story genre. As much as I have enjoyed many of his novels over the years, I have often felt he is prone to repitition when he gets into the novel. Nonetheless there are some wonderful stories here. While I can't say that any of them scared me silly, I did have some favorites. The best scare was had by "The Road Virus Heads North", the story of a yard sale purchase gone horribly wrong. I liked "The Man in The Black Suit" for the way it preyed on our childhood fears of a "man in the bushes". "Riding the bullet" gives us that classic hitch-hiking tale with a twist, and 1408 made me think of all the hotel rooms I've been in and what may have really occured in them. If you are a fan of King's work, or just looking for some quality short stories on the creepy side this is the ticket.

Stephen King's latest and perhaps final (he has been talking up the retirement a bit more than usual these past few months) anthology is a mixed back of screamers and wannabe literary writing (an arena that just is not his strongest area of expression) and is arguably his weakest. Only two of the tales raise any goosebumps ('The Man in the Black Suit', which deserves every award it has won, and '1408') while several others do capture that elusive blending of literary and pulp that is so distinctly King's style ('Riding the Bullet' and 'Everything's Eventual') many others just fall flat ('Autopsy Room Four' and the utterly useless Dark Tower prequel 'The Little Sisters of Eluria') and the literary stuff ranges from quietly powerful ('Luckey Quarter') to the dead on arrival ('The Death of Jack Hamilton'). There isn't a poorly written tale in the bunch, King's voice is as strong as ever, which only makes the weak stories that much more disappointing. Still, 'The Man in the Black Suit' and '1408' are well worth the coverprice...of a paperback book.

First and foremost, King did not use a deck of cards to select the order of these stories. That is just a gimmick. The arrangement is just too...perfect. The lead-in story, "Autopsy Room Four" is written from the point of view of a living corpse, a man who's alive in every sense of the word, but the doctors don't realize it. In a sense, you are being dragged into this macabre collection of stories like the man on the gurney. You want to scream, you want to pull your fingers away from the pages, dreading the next horror that awaits, but you can't. King has you hook, line and sinker. And he doesn't let go!
I have to admit that I didn't much like "The Man in the Black Suit" and agreed with King's own assessment of the story. It's just an update of the old folk story with a few Kingism's thrown in there. But the pace quickly picks up with the haunting "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" and the last three tales, "1408", "Riding the Bullet" and "Luckey Quarter" will have you sleeping with the lights on.
"Everything's Eventual" is far superior to "Nightmare's and Dreamscapes" and is, as a whole, perhaps one of King's finest works. It's not just a great work of horror fiction but a fine example of the art of short story writing.

There was a time when Stephen King was one of my favorite authors. Then I started hanging out with a better class of authors, hehe. But now, he is once again one of my favorite authors. As I said before, he's raised his game. ON WRITING and everything after. If it's a re-issue of an oldie, well, it has a new introduction by the guy who wrote ON WRITING, and that alone makes it worth buying again. Truly, I love every word he's published for the past five years. The guy was already (perhaps) the best seller of all time, and he wasn't satisfied. How great is that?

What we have here is a collection of 14 short stories, some just creepy/scary and others literary. It's a wonderful mix of what we've always known he excels at and what we may not have realized he excels at. Several months back, I heard some scary rumors to the effect that he might retire. That is not allowed. Stephen, if you retire, I'm gonna round up Annie Wilkes and we're gonna make you shave Picasso's neck. So there!

I am a huge fan of Stephen King, and especially of his short stories. Everything's Eventual lives up to his usual high standards.
One of my favorites in this anthology is The Man In The Black Suit, which raised the hair on my head. It is very reminiscent of Nathaniel Hawthorne in its haunting suggestion of otherness.
The Death of Jack Hamilton has echoes of the love and loyalty found in the Talisman and It. But my favorite was In The Deathroom, about a reporter caught in the throes of South American politics, terror and death squads. This is a rich, multitextural story that has a surprise twist at the end.
Other offerings: The Little Sisters Of Eleuria, All That He Owns, The Autopsy Room and more are well worth the price of this book. Each story offers a different look at life written as only Stephen King can, using the ordinary lives of people, caught up in very painful or strange circumstances.
I highly recommend this book for it's finely crafted characterizations and strong writing.

I don't really like short story collections so bear that in mind when considering my review. I LOVE Stephen King. He is one of the most wonderfull writers of horror, EVER! However, this book falls a little flat. I did like the one about Roland the the Sisters. It was way creepy. A couple of the other stories were pretty good but most of them just seemed to be ones that weren't interesting enough to be a novel anyway so why bother with them. I know some people like short stories but I do not. I like to be drawn slowly into the characters day to day lives and to be able sympathize/emphathize with them. Mr. King is one of my favorite authors because he can take everyday things, like a closet of clothes and make them some of the scariest parts of the story. If you want a deep horror experience don't by this book. Buy Dreamcatcher or even his Roland and the Dark Tower books. Heck even Insomnia beats this. Sorry, Mr. King, don't send that evil clown to my house, please.

Your spine tingles with terror, yet you sense the twinkle in the author's eye. He is enjoying spinning a dark and dangerous tale. Stephen King delivers, again, with "Everything's Eventual."
The 14 short stories represent a variety of King's talent over time. The earlier tales demonstrate his raw creative skills. 5 of the stories are the first hard copy text of his audio-only collection, "Blood & Smoke", and a later audio-only, "LT's
Theory of Pets." Finally, "Ride The Bullet", King's digital-only
chiller makes its pulp debut.
Bookending each tale are notes by the author. For those of us that enjoyed, "On Writing", these comments are the crown of this collection. King shares background about the story, including his perspective, when it was created, and his reflections about it over time.
No doubt, the reader will cringe, gag or wince throught the book. Knowing that the author is close by, grinning as we shake, makes the reading a delightful experience.

Like most everyone it seems, I have read plenty of Stephen King. I usually enjoy his short stories, while I find his novels often spiraling into total weirdness towards the end. Yet in this collection of short stories I found only a couple of gems amongst the ho-hum and the truly awful. What really sticks out is one incomprehensible, lengthy story that is pure fantasy, something Neil Gaiman would produce on a very bad day. It was total mess, definitely weighing down the quality of the other stories. On the other hand, the story '1408', about a haunted hotel room, was actually very good; I just wish it was longer.

Bottom line: more zirconium than diamonds here. Not recommended.

This most recent Stephen King collection is excellent, which puts it ahead of Skeleton Crew and behind Nightmares and Dreamscapes for quality. It it less erratic than the former, and not as eclectic as the latter.

In the intro King states he likes to write short stories to show he isn't a sellout, and to keep his hand in so he remembers how to do it. He worries that they are going away, but thinks poetry is ahead of them, survival-wise? No idea if there are any best selling poetry collections, but I'd be pretty sure there are no poets that have the recognition that King does, at least poets that are alive?

Anyway, all of this is above average except for the final story, which is perhaps where you do not want to put the weakest piece. Apparently he chose the order of these at random but taking a suit plus a joker out of a deck of cards and assigning them by drawing cards. That is kind of a fun way to go, I suppose.

Plenty of good stuff to be found here of the horror variety, with the best story the tale that has the same title as the collection.

Everything's Eventual : Autopsy Room Four - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : The Man in the Black Suit - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : All That You Love Will Be Carried Away - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : The Death of Jack Hamilton - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : In the Deathroom - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : The Little Sisters of Eluria - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : Everything's Eventual - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : L.T.'s Theory of Pets - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : The Road Virus Heads North - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : Lunch at the Gotham Cafe - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : That Feeling You Can Only Say What It Is in French - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : 1408 - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : Riding the Bullet - Stephen King
Everything's Eventual : Luckey Quarter - Stephen King

Snakebit erection shock.

3.5 out of 5

Devil of a fishing trip.

4 out of 5

Graffiti collector russian roulette.

3.5 out of 5

Dillinger hideout luck is out.

3.5 out of 5

Shocking interrogation end.

4 out of 5

Witch bug tastes good to you, Rover?

3.5 out of 5

Trans hired murder discovery Excalibur alternative.

4.5 out of 5

Ratdog and Siamese cat, I wouldn't want to live there either, don't axemurder me.

3.5 out of 5

I can picture being massacred by a cannibal biker.

3.5 out of 5

Smoking withdrawal snack session slasher.

4 out of 5

Second honeymoon flight loop.

3.5 out of 5

13 is a flaming unlucky number, mate.

4 out of 5

Take my mum, ghost boy.

4 out of 5

Cheapskate, no gamble.

3 out of 5

4.5 out of 5

EVERYTHING�S EVENTUAL is a collection of short stories and novellas that were published in other media. These stories have appeared in other forms such as articles in THE NEW YORKER, horror and fantasy anthologies, audio books, CD-ROMs and the Internet.
The stories are scattered in no particular order. One can see the serious side of Mr. King with works like �Luckey Quarter� and the understated �The Man in the Black Suit�, the 1996 O. Henry Award winner for Best Short Story. There is also something for the horror fans like �1408�, a story of a haunted hotel room, and for gruesome humor fans there is �Lunch at the Gotham Café�, a story of a divorcing couple escaping the wrath of a crazed maitre d�.
Fans might appreciate having all of these stories collected in one book; others will feel cheated since there is no new material here before the release of Stephen King�s latest novel FROM A BUICK 8. King knows how to attract readers and this book is no exception.

Mr. King, what happened? Your latest collection of short stories is totally devoid of soul and reads like a collection of assignments for an MFA creative writing class at NYU!
I've been with you from the start, buddy. I cut my teeth on your work and liked you LOOOONG before it was considered to be "cool." I took a lot of flack in college for admiring your work, too. But it looks to me like your writing is now excluding all of your loyal old skool fans and is now embracing people who read the "New Yorker", have track lighting, and drink fine wines.
First of all, I don't know why this book is being billed as a collection of "new" stories. Several of the stories, including "Gotham Cafe" and "The Deathroom" were released in an audiobook form a few years ago called "Blood and Smoke". Frankly, these stories are the only ones that could be called successful in the collection. "The Deathroom" is pretty darn good, and "Gotham Cafe" is a winner. Yet, Mr. King, these stories are years old.
The other tales (the REAL "new" work), including the long-awaited new chapter to the DT series, are just ... well ... just plain BAD.
"Autopsy" is not scary at all, and the last line of the story is completely clumsy and unfunny. The old King would never write such sophomoric drivel.
"The Man in the Black Suit" is like Garrison Keillor on an overdose of Seroquel. The story relies on symbolism so heavy-handed I thought the book was going to slip out of my hands and smash a hole through my floor.
I can't address all the stories here, but I have to talk about how crushed I was by the horrible, horrible DT chapter. Gawd! Green zombies and vampire crone women, plus a hot (and completely one-dimensional) young vampire? Come ON! Maybe Mr. King could have pulled it off twenty years ago, but now ... people, it's a cryin' shame. I didn't even LIKE Roland in this story, and usually I want to marry him at the end of every book.
I saw here on the store that next fall Mr. King is releasing ANOTHER haunted car book. What, did Christine give birth to an SUV? That fact, plus this book, really makes me feel like I am losing a trusted friend. Mr. King ... come back to your old fans. Please?

I am not yet finished with Stephen King's newest novel, I am rationing what is left to make it last until September when "From Buick 88" is released. I am sure I will not be able to hold off much longer without gorging myself on Kings delicious work.
Any fan of SK's has to be absolutely delighted with this newest collection of short stories. I have to mention here that so far, Everything's Eventual is my favorite tale. It is an amazing piece of brain candy to toss around and think about during times that I can't read. Among the jewels in this collection are, "The Deathroom" . which is fast paced and nerve wracking. "The Death of Jack Hamilton", which is a captivating fictional account of the Dillinger Gang and "Autopsy Room Four", which provokes ideas that you just don't weant to think can happen.
As I said, I don't want this book to end. I am ready to make a deal with the "Man in the Black Suit" in order to assure a constant supply of Stephen King.

After reading the first several stories, I started having the feeling that I was reading what Stephen King would write in response to assignments in a creative writing class, like "Write a story about a man mistaken for dead in an autopsy room", or "Write a story about a man being interrogated in a Central American country." Then there's the story illustrated on the cover, "Write a Grand Guignol slapstic comedy".
I don't really mean this as a put-down because many of these are worth reading. I especially enjoyed the "Write a story about a tired traveling salesman" one, though I noticed some readers especially disliked that one.
The title story was my favorite. I quite sympathized with the kid who thought he had a dream job until the reality of what he's doing crashes in on him.
All in all, this isn't representative of King's best short story writing, but it's good enough to please his biggest fans.

[close] I read this book when it first came out, long before 1408 was turned into a feature-length film starring (somewhat unpredictably) John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. The story is excellent, creepy in a disorienting fashion. It lacks the preachy overtones added by the film, and the weird subplot about the author's daugther. I have learned to become increasingly concerned when people are allowed to adapt King's short stories, more often than not what they are forced to add to make time just confuses the brilliance of the original work.

The Man in the Black Suit was good in a somewhat anachronistic, vaguely Ambrose Bierce manner.

That Feeling You Can Only Say in French: bored me, all over again.

Riding the Bullet: Good in the way of the old Castle Rock books. The "baddie" in it will bring to mind old Ace Merrill, favourite villan of works including "The Body" (later remade as "Stand By Me" and "Needful Things". Interesting look into how we value our lives and those of the people closest to us.

LT's Theory of Pets: Hated it, tried reading it nine times, gave up.

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away: Interesting meditation in the style of Death of a Salesman, involving (somewhat unpredictably) bathroom wall grafitti. A visual in this work of a sink filled with blood still haunts me when I am on the NJ Turnpike.

Autopsy Room Four: King's stab (pardon the pun) at the "premature burial/trapped in your own skin" genre, courtesy of a Michael Bolton look-alike and a Peruvian Boomslang.

Everything's Eventual reflects on murder, what is right, and the choices we make through modern dissociation, with a creepy, King twist.

The Little Sisters of Eluria: I skipped this one, since I have staunchly hated every installment of the "Gunslinger" series/Dark Tower novels.

There was one other story in the collection, the title of which I have since forgotten, involving the descent into madness of a maitre d' at a post Manhattan restaurant. It rings creepy, if for no other reason than because every one of us find ourselves in similar situations every day, where a twist of fate can bring us into contact with madmen.

This fourteen short stories book of Stephen King's is a definite winner among his fans and anyone who likes good ole' short, scary, dark, and humorous stories.
One of my favorites of the book is "1408," in which a writer, whose specialty is disproving of haunted places, daringly enters a "supposedly" haunted hotel room. The owner urges him not to, and the man stubbornly refuses. When he does enter the room, he finds it more than haunted... he finds more than he ever wanted to.
"Autopsy Room Four" is a darkly humorous tale of... well, autopsy. I won't say much of it, since it'll probably spoil the story, but I'll that is it reminicent to that of Poe's "The Premature Burial."
Like one reviewer said, though, the masterpiece of this collection is "Lunch at the Gotham Café." It's about a maitre d' gone mad, and it's my favorite so far.
EVERTHING'S EVENTUAL is an absolutely excellent collection of King's last fourteen short stories, and says that King should publish short stories more often. It'll hit the bestsellers' list in no time.

I'm not a fan of the horror genre and I've only read 5 or 6 King books. But I've enjoyed them all and think King is a great writer, one of the best I've read.
His short story collection has both pros and cons. If a story doesn't sound interesting, you can skip it. I skipped two in this collection because they just didn't interest me. King proves he has a vivid imagination with this collection yet some stories began to run together when they are all based in Maine.
King isn't a writer who has a big climax at the end of his stories or novels. He excels at giving the reader a great story and characters over several 100 pages. In these short stories, King doesn't have the time to develop plot and characters and this since the climaxes aren't surprises or twists, some of his short stories end with a whimper.
Still, I enjoyed this collection because I was able to finish each story in a short amount of time and move onto the next one.

For the first time since NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES, Stephen King has released a collection of his patented brand of supernatural thrillers. This collection of 14 short stories ranges from King at his most literary, such as the O Henry "The Man in the Black Suit" (an homage to Nathanial Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown"), to King at his most shocking, such as the murderous demon unleashed on an unsuspecting art buyer in "The Road Virus Heads North."
As with most of King's works, his talent lies in creating strong, complex, and identifiable characters, and creating memorable details. For example, in the moving story "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away", King masterfully captures the internal dialog of a long-time travelling salesman contemplating suicide by exposing us to his passion for the grafitti left in roadside rest areas. King displays his talent for detail in "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe." The haunting image of a drop of blood in a upscale restaraunt's water glass trailing down like a tadpole will stay with readers long after they have forgotten the nearly absurd account of a psycopathic maitre'd massacring the lunch crowd at a fancy New York restaurant.
Some of King's stories are shakier. For example, "Autopsy Room Four" starts off as a twist on the old buried alive tales and sinks rapidly to a sophomoric punch line. "Room 1408" begins promisingly as a kind of mini-Shining, but falls off in the second half as a rip off of the Blair Witch Project. And the reader can't shake off the feeling that "Luckey", the story of a maid who finds a 'luckey' quarter, should have been tossed out after it was dashed off in one night on a cross-country book tour.
However, the major detraction from King's collection of stories is the commentary he makes throughout the work. Whether it's his faux modesty on his more high-brow works or his passing off of the trite as wisdom ("Hell is repetition", for example), King's opinions or comments on his writing process add little to his admitably admirable work, and often times induce the reader to cringe more than his spine-tingling prose in the stories themselves.
In summary, if you are a King fan or a short story fan, buy this book. But ignore anything in italics after the end of the story.
Dav's Rating System:
5 stars - Loved it, and kept it on my bookshelf.
4 stars - Liked it, and gave it to a friend.
3 stars - OK, finished it and gave it to the library.
2 stars - Not good, finished it, but felt guilty and/or cheated by it.
1 star - I want my hour back! Didn't finish the book.

In Skeleton Crew, Stephen King remarked that a short story is like "a kiss in the dark from a stranger." He goes on to say that although that is not the same as an affair or a marriage, that kisses can be sweet and "their very brevity forms their own attraction." While some of his novels can strain your lower back when you lift them, and The Stand and the Dark Tower series are phenomenal examples of King's prowess as a storyteller, some of the most engaging and entertaining fiction that Stephen King has ever written has come in short story form. When I was a teenager I plowed through Night Shift (the cool cover with its peering eyes and the disturbing inner cover gave me nightmares) and King's short stories led me to the short fiction of Ray Bradbury and Roald Dahl and many others. In the introduction to Everything's Eventual King bemoans the fate of short stories and pleads with us to keep it alive with our interest and our attention. His best argument for the continued survival of the form is contained in the stories that follow his introduction. I won't tell you anything about them...you need to go get this book and read them yourself. But don't buy it just because it's by Stephen King...buy it because these kisses in the dark are so worthwhile.

Stephen King was endowed by his creator with a prodigious quantity of creative juices. He is especially effective, using the disciplines of the short story form, in capturing the reader's attention and holding it all the way to the end. If you find his novels too long, try this collection. You can finish a story in an evening (but you might find yourself guzzling down two or three a night, as I did! They're addictive.) I'm still thinking about characters and situations I met in these tales days later...they get under your skin. King can summon up emotions with his words: anxiety, wonder, amusement, horror, compassion, and disgust. His metaphors arrest you: "running on the tightrope of intuition" he writes, and you stop, go back, read that one again, and feel something akin to awe. You know you are in the grip of a master craftsman here. My favorites: the title story, "Everything's Eventual" (which left a residual chill that is recalled every time I send an e-mail!) and the funny, poignant "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away" (Zen grafitti? You bet!)

I really wasn't expecting much from this anthology but I was pleasantly surprised. It starts out poorly with a few hit and miss stories but it improves as it goes on and some of the stories are King at his best.

My Synopsis
===============
Autopsy Room 4: No as terrifying as I expected it to be. The humorous tone reassures the reader that everything will come out all right in the end.

All that you love ... It has some atmospheric appeal but it plods on too long and the ending is a damp squib ... also what's with SK's bathroom obsession? Are we seriously supposed to care about the fate of a guy whose hobby is deconstructing bathroom graffiti?

The Man in Black: Has all the faked up 'horror' and irrelevance of 'From a Buick 8'. Yet again SK introduces a piece of cheap bathroom humour which destroys any credibility this piece might have had ...

The Death of Jack Hamilton: Pure and utter filler. It plodded on forever -I nearly gave up at this point.

In the Deathroom: Starts out well, but King never achieves the Kafkaesque mood he aspires to - too many heavy hints that the hero will make a heroic escape destroys the tension for the reader.

Little Sisters of Eluria. Sorry didn't read this one, the words 'gunslinger' were enough, I don't rate King's attempts at fantasy.

Everything's Eventual. This was the first story to show real promise. It goes nowhere in the end but this was the point where I started to hope.

Theory of Pets. This reminded me a lot of vintage King stories such as 'The Body' which, while not particularly frightening, show off his story-telling skills at their best.

The Road Virus Heads North. This frightened the wits out of me - the first time I've been moved to check the doors and windows by a SK story in a LONG time ...

The Gotham Cafe. Doesn't quite work, but nonetheless left a lasting impression on me.

Things you can only say ... The second best story in this collection IMO. I had to keep reading it over again to savour its meaning.

1408. The best story in the collection - in fact one of the best he has ever written. Borrows a lot from 'The Haunting of Hill House' but none the worse for that.

Riding the Bullet. Unlike most other people this was a new one for me - and it worked in a very basic way. Probably by this point I would have been spooked by my own shadow. I had forgotten my old rule - never read SK after darkness falls. Not really necessary with most of his latest stuff which is more likely to prove a cure for insomnia, than induce it!

The Luckey Quarter. Just read this one on my way to work. Not frightening but is a moving depiction of the effect of poverty on a woman's hopes and dreams.

So only seven stories out of 14 I can praise wholeheartedly - but I felt it was worth the 4 star rating for those alone.

If you're a fan of the works of Stephen King, you NEED this book -- badly. It has something for everyone -- straight drama, bone-chilling horror, the Dark Tower -- all told with King's usual skill. It includes the e-book Riding the Bulley and audio books Blood+Smoke and LT's Theory of Pets. They also include a few liner notes from King on each story telling a little bit about where it came from, what he thinks of it, etc.
I've written little mini-reviews below of teach story. I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me on one story or another. But that's the point. You're certain to find something you like.
1) Autopsy Room Four -- a man is brought in for autopsy -- but is he really dead? A nice little horror story.
2) The Man in The Black Suit -- A young boy runs into a terrifying stranger in the woods. Typical King -- reign you in with the characters, then turn on the horror. A pleasure.
3) All That You Love Will be Carried Away -- a strange little drama about a man in a hotel room and his obsession with graffiti. I didn't like this at first but it's grown on me.
4) The Death of Jack Hamilton -- a story of Depression Era gangsters, complete with John Dillinger. Straight drama but a little unsatisfying -- it's not really his forte.
5) In the Deathroom -- from Blood+Smoke. A claustrophic story of a journalist taken prisoner by a 3rd world government. A drama and an unlikely one at that. Just OK.
6) The Little Sister of Eluria -- a tale of Roland the Gunslinger before we met him on his quest for the Dark Tower. If you're a DT fan, this make EE a must-have book. The style and especially the ending are pure Dark Tower. How I've missed it.
7) Everything's Eventual -- good horror story with shades of Lovecraft about a young man with a strange talent and an even stranger job. It's good, but the political shift at the end was a little jarring.
8) LT's Theory of Pets -- Drama with a touch of horror about a man describing the breakup of his marriage. Touching and funny.
9) The Road Virus Heads North -- horror story of a haunted painting. Just OK. He's written this story before -- and much better -- in the Sun Dog and Rose Madder.10) Lunch at the Gotham Cafe -- vicious little story from Blood and Smoke about a crazy Maitre'D who interrupts a divorcing couple at lunch. Good, but not great.
11) Deja Vu -- strange and scary story about a woman going on vacation with her husband. Follows on a theme that first appeared in Storm of the Century
12) 1408 -- My favorite. From Blood and Smoke. A truly frightening tale about a haunted hotel room.
13) Riding the Bullet -- mixture of drama and horror. About a young man hitchhiking home to see his ailing mother. Drama works very well, horror doesn't.
14) Lucky Quarter -- an odd story about a hotel maid who is tipped a whole quarter -- perhaps a lucky quarter? A poor finish to the collection.

This is a solid book of short stories. It may be that King works best these days in briefer, sharp doses rather than in his more recent longer novels. I want to single out what I think is a new American classic, a story that deserves to be famous--"Lunch at the Gotham Cafe." It's both artfully bloody and artfully literary (it's the story that is featured on the illustration for the book jacket.) The sheer mayhem of what happens is staggering, but the deeper, more disturbing and shocking element of the tale is what the man and woman characters do to each other emotionally. It's like the violence in the story is a mirror of the real horror; what supposedly civilized, mature adult couples are capable of. As a portrait of the barbarism that can lurk beneath the "normal", middle-class surface of life it rivals anything written by Shirley Jackson or Paul Bowles. A satisfying collection.

Many people, I among them, have had the feeling that Stephen King has written himself out. He hasn't written a novel that really grabs you since "Needful Things", and his recent short stories for the most part show the same lack of the old spark. I wasn't crazy about "Riding the Bullet" when it came out as an e-book (maybe it was the format that turned me off; how do you curl up with an e-book?), and his serial novel "The Plant" was showing some real promise when he infuriatingly suspended it halfway through, leaving his readers hanging. "Everything Eventual" is pretty much a compilation of so-so short stories that one feels wouldn't have made the cut in "Nightmares and Dreamscapes". But there are a few real gems among all the ho-hums that make me give this book four stars. "Everything's Eventual", the book's title story, is a spooky tale of a dream job that turns into a ghastly nightmare; "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" is a deliciously grisly shocker, and few readers will be albe to resist the screaming horror inside "1408". "The Little Sisters of Eluria", a prequel to Kings 7-volume epic "The Dark Tower", rekindled my interest in the series which stopped at volume 4 a few years back (although King assures it that volume 5, all 900 pages of it, is on the near horizon). I'm hoping that King will tie up his loose ends, namely, finish the "Tower" epic and give us the second half of "The Plant", and then leave us to appreciate him, if not at the top of his game, at least with the memory of how great a writer he can be when he is at his very best.

I had all but completely given up on SK after a long string of dismally unreadable tomes like "Insomnia" and "Dreamcatcher". But the buzz on "Everything's Eventual" grabbed me, and I gave in. Wow! What a treat to have the old King back! Every story is a true original, concisely written, deliciously spooky, and, yes, thought-provoking. I was so sorry to reach the end of tale #14, I had to go back and read it again.
I won't go into another reviewer recap of the plots, but standouts for me are the wonderfully creepy "The Road Virus Heads North" about a painting with an evil history picked up at a garage sale, and the funny-tragic-twisted "LT's Theory of Pets" inspired by, of all people, Dear Abby.
I certainly don't want or expect the author to stick to only the short story format, but if he could imbue future novels with half the ingenuity of this body of work, and cut down on all the extraneous verbage that doesn't lead anywhere, we can joyfully line up for the next book.

I've been a Constant Reader since the age of 13, when my mother finally stopped forbidding me to read King's work; and although I typically love all that he writes (with the notable exceptions of Gerald's Game and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon), I find that his skills in weaving stories and personalizing characters are most evident in his short story compilations.
This is a series of excellent stories; there isn't one I found to be a dud, and quite a few are fantastic ("1408", "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe", and "LT's Theory of Pets").
Most importantly for King fans (if they didn't run out and buy "Legends Vol. II" for this reason), this book contains the 90-odd page story "The Little Sisters of Eluria", a tale of Roland of Gilead, pre- The Gunslinger. It is a DT prequel, if you will, and NOT to be missed. Go get it!

Truthfully, I did not enjoy this bunch of compiled short stories very much. There were a few really good ones in here but for the most part I do not think that they were overly imaginative, well written or exciting. I also found many of the stories quite slow moving and alittle on the boring side, as i found myself doing quite a bit of skipping around. The stories are as follows:

Autopsy Room 4 (3/5): This one was ok. Follows a guy who is seeing his own autopsy.. The ending is an absolute disaster. 90% of the story is great but the end just killed it for me.

The Man in the Black Suit: (5/5) I kid is out in the wilderness, and is saved by a mysterious man.. This story delves into WHO the man really is and what he really wants as well as what he can do.. This is a great story, interesting and pretty fast paced.

All that you love will be carried away (1/5): This story is very slow moving and drag and get old very fast. It is also quite depressing and morbid. I did like the descriptions utilized in the story. A man is remembering his life as he contemplates killing himself.. Some of the graffiti is hilarious

The death of Jack hamilton (1/5): This one is slow and boring, definately not in the Stephen King style. Oddly enough its a gangster story. A stephen King ganster story... huh? Stick to horror buddy!

In the death room (3/5): This story is ok, it drags, is long and switches between dull, exciting and boring. Kafka-esque.. a guy is in a South American prison being interrogated, the ending is quite good.

The Little Sisters of Eluria (5/5): Roland the Gunslinger is back! This is the best story of the lot. Follows Roland as he fights mutants, witches, demons and people. Definately a great read! The ending is great, reminds you of Susan Delgado.

Everything's Eventual (2/5): A guy with the power to manipulate people works for a shady company who uses him to kill people. This one wasnt too good and was quite slow and draggy. However, the concept was cool.

L.T.'s theroy of pets (2/5): Hubby buys a dog, wife buys a cat.. cat hates hubby, dog hates wife. Cat and dog love each other but hubby and wife start to hate each other.. Egh, it was ok, end was pretty good.. At least it has some killing in it

The Road Virus Heads North (5/5): I liked this one, as it reminds me of Rose Madder. Guy buys a haunted painting that depicts the future. Got some good action, suspense and killing in here.

Lunch at the Gotham Cafe (2/5): This story was ok, it had some action, but was overall pretty pointless. Guy is getting divorced, meets his ex wife at a cafe to make up with her and crap goes out of control.

That Feeling, You can only say What it is in French (5/5): This was a great story. Guy and wife are travelling in a plane... guy and wife are travelling on the road.. Guy and wife keep suffering.. great hidden meaning, great story telling..

1408 (5/5): This was a great story! Guy goes to a haunted hotel, stays in an F*ed up room even though he is warned and you can be sure he pays for doing so! Great story, fast, exciting, awesome! The movie is better than the story though.

Riding the Bullet (3/5): This story was ok. A hitch hiker gets stuck in a series of crummy cars and winds up near a grave yard. Finally he is finally picked up by a guy who offers to kill him or his mother.. who does he choose? OK ending, great idea!

Lucky Quarter (4/5): This was a pretty good story. A maid is given a quarter as a "tip", she uses it to make some money, but than winds up back where she started. Reminds me of the dead-zone.

4 Awesome stories out of 14 in my opinion.. not too good. 3 mediocre storier and 10 crummy stories.. egh, I wasnt too pleased with this purchase.

Now this is a book to scare the [...] out of somebody.When I reached halfway through this book I unfortunately needed surgery.But anyway,when I was out two weeks later I was destined to finish what I had started.So I picked up this book once more,but it was a mistake at the time.Because every page was so real to me I felt like my stitches were going to burst.Especially that story with the autopsy.But reading the book made me grateful to be alive to read more of SK great work.This book can be gross at times but it is definitely worth the money and the time.(just dont read it right after having surgery).14 tales in a book is totally a page turner,I mean,just before you know it you will be in the other story.The stories are all well written that it makes you fell like you are reading 14 of SK books not 14 stories...enjoy...Nigel.

Stephen King is a master of the short story, there is no doubt about that (for those that don't know Shawshank Redemption was a King short story) and most of the stories in this collection are on par with some of his best. "LT'S Theory of Pets", is for the most part a pleasent story about pets and their owners until the surprising ending that just sort of creeps up on you. There are also the real chillers as always like "the deathroom" and a story about a picture that keeps changing (that I can't remember the name of at the moment) which is especially creepy.
After what I felt was the disappointment of Black House, this collection is very satisfying. If you are a King fan than you will read this anyway and for the most part love it- we are and always will be the "constant readers" - if you are not, what's wrong with you? become one.

I read this book about a year ago. Overall, I thought it was a solid collection. Out of all of King's books of short stories, I like Night Shift the best, then Skeleton Crew, then this one third and Nightmares and Dreamscapes last. For me, the best story in this book is The Man in the Black Suit, followed closely by The Road Virus Heads North, both of which are very creepy and suspenseful. The title story is also really good, as is Autopsy Room Four, 1408, Lucky Quarter, and In the Deathroom. The only story in the book that I found truly bad was The Death of Jack Hamilton, which in my opinion is King's worst all time story. It was dull, pointless and boring. If you want a good collection of short stories with a mix of horror, suspense, and mystery, you should definately read this book.

I know you can't be everything to everyone all the time. Jesh, you can sure try. Mr. King has more than disappointed me in this outting.
If you buy any of his other mediums, like ebooks or audio books, you will recognize a few of the ones here: Riding the Bullett, 1408, L.T.'s Theory of Pets, Lunch at the Gotham Cafe, and In the Deathroom. So 6 of the 14 stories I have already seen.
1408, I believe, is the scarriest of all of them and is scarriest to me because I have heard Mr. King tell it to me by the miracle of Audio Tape.
Of the remaining titles, the best ones (in my opinion) are The Death of Jack Hamilton and The Man in the Black Suit. These two stories leave you haunted, literally thinking about them a few hours later.
The worst being The Little Sisters of Eluria because of its realm of The Dark Tower. The story seems pulled, like rotten teeth. I think that the dark tower has become a little blown up.
My recommendation to you: buy it because you HAVE to. You have to because it has Stephen King's name on it. Enjoy the ones you have not heard or read before.

What can be said about the "master of horror" that hasn't been said a hundred times before in a hundred different ways? With "Everything's Eventual", Stephen King adds another masterpiece to his considerable repertoire. Like a long sought-after "B-sides" collection of music, these short stories shine with brilliance, each in their own way. While most have been available in other formats, "...Eventual" collects them all together between two covers for your trip down surreality lane.
Since King has announced his imminent retirement in the writing world, "Everything's Eventual" would serve as a fitting epitaph for a fabulous career of scaring the pants off people. Add this one to that shelf you have that holds nothing but King novels...it's well worth it!

As King admits, the art of the short story is dying. It's a real shame, but at least we have someone as talented as Stephen King to keep up the art at this time.
I've always enjoyed King's short stories, more so than his novels, for some reason. 'Night Shift' being my all time fave. 'Nightmares and Dreamscapes' was an magnificient follow up. 'Crouch End' is one of the best things he's ever written.
So when I heard a new book of his short stories was coming out, you could guess my reaction! As I was reading this book I noticed Stephen had lost none of his spark and it lived up to my already lofty expectations of him!
There are some real chillers in here. 'The Man in the Black Suit' is a brilliant story. 'The Death of Jack Hamilton' is not really in the true King style of things but it's excellent nonetheless. That's the great thing about Stephen, whatever style he chooses to write, he does it so well.
A must buy for all you King fans out there, and don't let the short story die out, get this now.

I am a great fan of Mr. King's work and own many a volume of his. For someone who has followed his career closely, this volume is not necessary to ensure you have all of his works. "LT's Theory of Pets" was previously published as an audio only release, "Little Sisters of Eluria" was previously published in a sci-fi/fantasy collection, "1408", "In the Death Room" and "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" were all previously released on "Blood and Smoke", and "Riding the Bullet" has been publishd online. When, off the top of my head, I can recount where I've already read 1/2 the book before picking it up, it doesn't sem a worthwhile purchase in hardback. I did, however read the other seven stories, and although about half of them disappoint (and I still dislike "LT's Theory of Pets" for being jumpy), a "true" King fan should add this book to their collection. After it comes out in paperback, that is.

I've read every Stephen KIng book that has ever come out (I think, I hope I have). The secret about Stephen's writing is not so much the story... maybe it is...
I like the subject of dark thoughts...but anyway.... His secret is how he writes. Especially about childhood and the "boogieman" His writing is universal. He makes us all regress to the six, seven, eight year olds we all were once. With conviction!
Even when we are reading about a fourty year old guy who finds himself in a bind getting ready to eat his foot. These are all a part of our own nightmares and when it comes to the nightmares that we have all forgotten as we have grown older, this guy delivers. No wonder he is what he is. Because even when the stories have grown stale, his writing, his "feeling" for the writing has never left him. He is brillant when he is trying to induce the "mood", no matter what the story. In short, despite what he has said , I hope he never stops writing. Someone with that talent in conveying ideas should never, ever stop.... no matter how silly or tired the story seems to him. YOU GO BOY!
I never tired reading Stephen King. My favourites are: The Stand, The Body, Gerald's Game, The Girl Who loved Tom Gordon, Survivor (from Everything's Eventual), Four Past Midnight and Tommyknokers. Stealing from an episode of Blackadder....Please don't ever ever stop!!!

Horror meister Stephen King is your guide to instant chills in his latest Everything's Eventual, 14 shorts guaranteed to keep you up many late nights. Some are scary in their utter simplicity like "Lt's Theory Of Pets" and "The Man In The Black Suit", but none of these stories fail to leave some lasting effect on the reader. One of the standouts is the title story, which is the best short story I've read in a long time. Couldn't Stephen get his own anthology series? Oh well. For now, eat at a cafe where terror is on the menu, thumb a ride that may be your last, and witness an autopsy that may or may not be necessary. From one of the most original and briliant imaginations of modern literature, comes 14 reasons to stay home-behind safely locked doors with all the lights on.

Some of the stories in this collection are a bit weak, "Autopsy Room Four" and "In the Deathroom" for instance, but King's writing is strong throughout. The title tale features one of King's most original characters, and takes the reader inexorably to its mid-air conclusion. "The Death of Jack Hamilton" concerns John Dillinger and his gang, and is a masterful story devoid of anything supernatural, attesting to the universality of King's talents as a writer. "L.T.'s Theory of Pets" is a story with great dialogue, but the ending fizzles out, just like "Luckey Quarter." "1408," though, is truly disturbing and "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French" is a suffocating Satre-like account of a woman who slowly realizes what kind of fate has befallen her. Worth a read, even the lesser stories are OK.

Of all the narrative theories out there, I'm most taken with the model of fiction as "a vivid and continuous dream in the reader's mind" held by John Gardner. If you spend some time looking into studies of dreaming (or just dip into them casually, as I have) you'll probably come across the idea of "significance," that element of dreaming which shines with poignancy and screams at the dreamer: "This is it! Pay attention. This is the important thing; never forget!" The dreamer may spend an entire dream chasing frisbees with his pet collie or trekking deep into an attic to find that perfect spot beneath the roof of his childhood home where he spends an evening reattaching the limbs of his sister's toy dolls. Somehow the ridiculous and mundane acquire, in dreaming, absolute significance. As I see it, it's much the same in successful fiction.

Stephen King achieves something of this in "The Death of Jack Hamilton," one story in his new collection EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL. The story follows John Dillinger and two of his gang of outlaws, Homer and Jack, as they hide from the law while trying to nurse Jack through a messy bullet wound. In the end Jack's life cannot be saved. Homer performs his famous "fly roping" trick to amuse the dying man, and at the same time we learn just how John Dillinger's luck finally ran out, leaving him vulnerable to "the Feds" the next time they would cross paths.

While pleasantly surprised with "The Death of Jack Hamilton," I was unable to find an encouraging degree of significance in any of the other five stories I read before giving up on EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL.

"Autopsy Room Four" transports the old buried-alive storyline to an autopsy room where a man finds himself conscious but paralyzed by a snake bite as a coroner prepares him for dissection. King seems content here to contrive a simple "will he survive/won't he survive?" scenario, jerking his audience along a jarring and unenjoyable roller coaster ride during which we are expected to bite our nails and quiver in anticipation. Worse, King slaps pop culture references around his narrative shamelessly. The autopsied man looks like Michael Bolton; cue the dull Michael Bolton puns. One of the autopsy room orderlies looks like he belongs on BAYWATCH, another on MELROSE PLACE. We also manage to fit in references to ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, GENERAL HOSPITAL, and JEOPARDY. From all appearances King finds it too much trouble to create a character or a mood from scratch. He'd rather apply prefabricated exteriors--elements easily and cheaply acquired by himself and effortlessly (read: "without exercise of the imagination") accessed by his audience. Pop culture inbreeding, ugh. Is there anything worse?

Sure, someone might argue that these references are actually appropriate, even necessary, for the mode of this story. But does it make for interesting prose? No, it does not. And anyway, why does King do this same thing in so many stories?

"Lucky Quarters" is little more than a sketchy, ambiguous little story garnished with some NATURAL BORN KILLERS references and a bad Tex Avery pun. Oh, also King tries to make us believe that he's a real writer by tackling the melodramatic anguish of a single mom cleaning rooms at a casino hotel. Ho hum.

"In the Death Room" is one of those revenge stories about torture in a third world country. A tortured man turns the torture device on his tormentors. Yada, yada. References: BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, E.R., Roadrunner cartoons, the Hanson boys.

If there's one story more unpleasant than "Death Room," it has to be "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away"--another attempt by King to be veddy veddy literary. This is the story of Alfie, a travelling salesman who checks into a motel to kill himself. Alfie has found his only joy in life for the past few years in the strange act of recording the restroom graffiti he sees on his travels. The story ends with Alfie making an absurd challenge to mother nature, a challenge we never see the result of... and so maybe he kills himself, maybe he doesn't--we'll never know. The most deeply unpleasant moment of the story comes when Alfie worries what would happen if someone found his corpse beside his pathetic notebook of bathroom poetry:

"Yet the notebook might be a real embarrassment once he was dead. It would be like accidentally hanging yourself in the closet because you were experimenting with a new way of j**king off and got found that way with your shorts under your feet and s**t on your ankles."

Why, Stephen, why? What is this supposed to make us feel? And where has the significance gone?

But, oh yes, there was one other story I read before I gave up on the book. "The Man in the Black Suit." Something about a country boy going out fishing and meeting the devil by the river. The devil chases him around for a while then lets the boy alone. Something like that; I forget.

BTW, After abandoning EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL, I picked up "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" and am finding it very enjoyable. I'm just afraid that King is one of these poor writers who can't sift his material and distinguish when he's writing well from when he's writing poorly, and it's such an exhausting job--as a reader--to do that job for him.

Having been a big Stephen King fan since high school, I rarely found myself disappointed with his work. Last year's "Dreamcatcher" was my least favorite book of his by far. I was afraid "Everything's Eventual" might suffer the same problems I had with his last novel, but thankfully, I was overall very pleased with his newest short story collection.
I prefer scary stories, but in this case, the variety of stories was the best way to go. There's a bit of everything here, from downright chillers like "The Road Virus Heads North" to the more comical "L.T.'s Theory of Pets". The title story, "Everything's Eventual", was scary in a totally different way as it described the ruined life of a gifted young man who has been given the job from hell. "The Road Virus Heads North" is my favorite of them all; I was practically shaking as I read it. My only complaint with the novel is the too long "The Little Sistes of Eluria". Having not read any of the Dark Tower series, getting through this story (longest in the book) was a chore and made me quit reading it for a few weeks until I struggled through it.
I'd recommend this book to anyone, horror fan or not. There's enough variety here to please almost any reader. Fans who might be disheartened by "Dreamcatcher" should not pass this one up, it will restore your faith in the "Master of the Macabre".

Stephen King has been queried many times: "How do you write?" His simplistic (if cunning) response: "One word at a time". The "Master Storyteller" has an abysmal well of ideas that never seem to end. Everything's Eventual marks the literary giant's seventh (if you include Hearts in Atlantis) collection of short stories since the alpha, Night Shift was published over two decades before. All the compilations have had one thing in common over the years: They all have a trash-to-treasure ratio that varies with substance. Everything's Eventual is no different. There are several mediocre tales, but for the most part it lives up to the hype with moderate success. In Everything's Eventual, as with other King SS collections, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Well all have our favorites from these short story collections. A few of the exceptional gems are: "Autopsy Room Four", "The Man in the Black Suit", "The Road Virus Heads North", "Riding the Bullet" and a short novella "The Little Sisters of Eluria" (which serves as a short, welcomed prequel to the Dark Tower series). Most of SK's books will be adored by his rabid and faithful fan base regardless of substance; Everything's Eventual is a must have for any fan and a great pickup for the casual reader. There's a little something for everyone inside...if you have the courage to enter!

This is by far by favorite King short story collection since Night Shift. Here's what I think of each story.

Introduction: Normally I skip introductions and afterwards, but King's style of writing them always draws me in. In this one he talks about the "lost art" of the short story.

Autopsy Room Four: Obviously inspired by similar stories, but King puts his own little twist on this common tale.

The Man in the Black Suit: I've never really understood all the fuss about this story, which actually won a major award. Still a good one and from anyone else it would be amazing. Probably the reason I drop the collection to 4 stars.

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away: A meditation on life and death and long empty roads. Highly recommend.

The Death of Jack Hamilton: Probably the other reason I drop the collection to 4 stars. I just didn't like this one.

In the Deathroom: One of my all time favorite King stories. The audioversion is fantastic.

The Little Sisters of Eluria: As a Dark Tower nut, this was a welcome addition to those stories.

Everything's Eventual: A fantastic little story that I've read three or four times now. I'm fascinated by the character and the way his story is told, and I was so glad to see him in another work that I won't name here so it doesn't spoil that other work for someone.

L.T.'s Theory of Pets: If you're looking for a solid ending, this isn't the story for you, but I like it.

The Road Virus Heads North: A great story, feels a little like Rose Madder in some ways, with a great ending you might not see coming.

Lunch at the Gotham Cafe: This story really confused me at first, but the second read really brought out the details I missed. EEEEEEEEE!

That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French: A wonderful little story with a wonderful title. Originally published in the New Yorker, where I read it the first time.

1408: A really scary story, and even better on audio. There's a blast from the sax on the audio that actually made me JUMP!

Riding the Bullet: I first read this when King published it as an eBook, and I had trouble with reading it on the screen. This second time around, reading it on paper, was much better. They're even making a movie out of this one, and I can see why. It's very visual.

Luckey Quarter: I'm not sure I get this story, but it feels like it was a fitting way to end the book.

All in all, some great King that is better than I make it sound. Highly recommended for all King fans and anyone who likes short stories!

I feel that Stephen King wasn't up to his usual standards in this book of fourteen dark tales. Three-fourths of the stories in this novel I have previously read or heard about. The cover story was one of the few that I haven't read before. The writing style was nice, as it always is for King, but some of the stories weren't up to par with his normal spookiness. The second story, however, about the child meeting the devil at the fork of the river was a thriller for me. I have heard it once before, but the way the story was written was pure genious. I felt like I was actually with the boy, seeing what he was seeing, running just like he was. I enjoyed this novel, but I feel that King could have come up with some newer, less original stories. Hearts in Atlantis was a much better novel than Everything's Eventual.

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=ZikvWB48LCQ
Please people with the money, if you buy a new book, include a used one in your shopping cart. That will help the store enormously in their storage, and it can help you too. At some places the price can’t lower to lesser a penny. Take a used book for a 0.01$ anywhere.
It has many usage including, “Cash4Books.net”
Recycle or Burn it for survival heat. Use two books as spacers to raise your monitor because it’s always better to view at eye leveled to the center of your screen. Even better, send it to donation, any library would take it, or the third world too.
Do not fear a book because it has no teeth!!
When you open your used book, wear gloves if you have to, then you’ll realize, “This book ain’t that back after all.”
Good read and peace!!
- Ricky

Everything's Eventual is good, but not great. There are a couple of good short stories in this novel that would grab your attention.
One of them being 'Lunch At The Gotham Cafe', which I found really gruesome, and '1408'. One I didnt really care for was 'Everything's Eventual' because there was nothing the story could offer to me. I read the story nonetheless, and I got it just to read 'Riding The Bullet' which I found out was ok, not great, just ok.
There were some other stories that were bland 'Autospy Room 4' and some others but I cannot call them off the top of my head.
But I have to say that 'In the Deathroom' is one of the top three best. Good, but not great like Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

I'm about to finish these tales and have determined that they are not as interesting (or as good) as many of his other collections, mainly Night Shift and Nightmares and Dreamscapes. The stories seem to touch on ideas he has already used (kind of like Tommyknockers and Dreamcater). The story of The Road Virus Heads North is very similar to the Sun Dog in Four Past Midnight (I did enjoy Virus though). And he throws in a silly story about a mobster dying of a gunshot wound, please (not so enjoyable)! It is worth reading, especially if you check it out of your local library or wait and buy the paperback. Three of the stories are available on audio in Blood and Smoke. They are great when read my the Master himself.

Readers should know that the Roland story, Lunch at the Gotham Cafe, the airplane crash/Purgatory story, and at least one of the other stories in this volume are reprints. I wasn't expecting that, and I was disappointed. On the other hand, since the original publications were in less well-known venues to mainstream readers, they may still be new to many.
I found this anthology to be entertaining but not especially strong. A buried-alive (or, in this case, autopsied alive) tale starts wonderfully but falls apart at the end. The gunslinger story is a little silly. The Man in the Black Suit and the haunted hotel room story stand out. Nothing in here had the impact, for me, of something like The Langoliers.

Most of these stories are good to great, with the one notable exception--the cannibalistic nuns was the weirdest and hardest one to get through for me. It's appropriate because I've always felt that the church is nothing but a bunch of parasites. so save the nun/gunslinger story for last. The best story was probably the guy getting a divorce with the lunatic Maitre D going ballistic with a butcher knife. That was...killer. Another great one was Autopsy Room 4. Then there's Room 1408. Don't go there. haha. That means it's another great story. Remember, save the gunslinger/nun story for last(I still never understood the ending to this day).

I'm an avid fan of Stephen King's short story and novella collections, and I snapped up Everything's Eventual as soon as it was issued in paperback. I was somewhat disappointed; Everything's Eventual lacks the creepiness and horror of Night Shift and Skeleton Crew (King's first two collections of short stories) and the rich characterizations and technical detail of Nightmares and Dreamscapes (his third collection, 1993).
"Autopsy Room 4", the lead-off story in Everything's Eventual, is quite good and appropriately creepy. It's downhill from there. There's a long short from King's Dark Tower series, a series I've never enjoyed. "Lunch at Gotham Cafe" concerns a psychotic waiter and a divorcing couple in a restaurant; very poor story- the relationship between the waiter's antics and the couples' marital problems never gells.
I hope Mr. King returns to form with his next collection of short stories or novellas; I've always enjoyed him more in those literary genres, moreso than his occasionally ponderous novels.

When hearing about the new movie, I had to pick up the book and was privelaged to take a gander and all the short stories. Here are the short reviews on each:

Autopsy room 4 - a tense, and engaging story of a man who is confined to the prison of his body. He thinks he is still alive even though his is in an autopsy room. Sometimes funny in its approach to the subject. Reminds me of Hitchcock. (5 stars.)

All that you love will be carried away - Depressing but interesting journey of a man's last thoughts that involve bathroom quotations.
(4 stars)

The man in the black suit - Intensly creepy and memorable. The description alone of the man makes for an uneasy feeling. It got under my skin, alright. (5 stars)

Death of jack hamiliton - while running away from the cops, one of the dillinger gang boys gets shot and this is his tale of passing on. Curiously interesting. (4 stars)

1408 - A psychological approach of a hanuted room. Way different than the movie. Movie added a lot more content. In my opinion, movie was better than the actual original short. (3 stars.)

That feeling, you can only say in french - Deja vu overload. It turns your mind around a bit. Don't really know where it goes. (2 stars)

Riding the bullet - Sooner or later, we all have to go. But which will go first, the mother or the son. In this dark tale, a driver leaves the descision up to the son. (5 stars)

King's best book in years and best short story collection since the mid-1980's. I'm glad to report that these fourteen tales by and large harken back to an earlier style of King, and his O. Henry Award winning piece "The Man In The Black Suit" is among the greatest short stories ever penned. There were a few stories in here that didn't hold up to the standard of the better offerings but none are bad or worth skipping over. I can't say that anything in here is especially frightening but there are more than a few creepy moments and, as has always been true, King is as effective as any living writer when it comes to tapping into the bare human emotions within his characters.

It's nice to see him back with some good stories, willing to take risks and still managing to scare us. While I've read a few of these before, I'm happy to have them collected in one volume, especially the Dark Tower novella. The introductory essay is, per the usual, wonderful; it always feels like the man is talking directly to you. Let's hope the art of the short story never dies. With writers like King to champion it, it should be around for a long time.
Oh, and if you're on the fence about this one, read "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe," excerpted here on the store. It's excellent, and gives you a good idea of where King is coming from these days: stronger character work than in some his earlier collections, without losing the edge of horror and gore to drive it home.

It was with mixed emotions that i began reading this book. I have been a fan of King for many years now, but his last 4-5 books have really disappointed me. It seems that King had run seriously out of good horrorstories to write, hitting the abosolute lowmark with the Dreamcatcher. Black House although was a great book, but i think that this was more due to the Dark Tower connection and the fact that it was co-authored by Peter Straub.
But this collection is no less than fantastic. There are hardly any misses, and some of the stories were so good that i cannot help but rate this collection as just as fine as Skeleton Crew and Night Shift. Welcome back Stephen King, may we please get more of the same quality!!!

Wow, talk about a disappointment! I haven't read a Stephen King book in at least 10 years, although I used to be a big fan and avidly read everything he wrote. But once I graduated from college I moved on to other authors.
This book was a gift, and since I hadn't read King for so long I thought it would be nice to see what he was up to, especially as I've always preferred his short stories to his novels. What a letdown! There isn't a single satisfying story in this entire collection! One gets the feeling these are stories King knew didn't have any hope of becoming full-fledged novels (a good call on his part), but he's evolved into an author with verbal diarrhea, incapable of rejecting any of his ideas merely because they're weak. So he wrote these the best he could, and all of them fail to impress in a big way. This book should be retitled "Stephen King Cleans Out His Desk Drawer".
King still has a way with words, and he even manages to elicit a few chuckles and gasps along the way. But these stories have no point to them! They don't go anywhere! There's no satisfying ending to ANY of them! Did King suddenly realize he had no idea where to take each story and so wrote a hurried ending so that he could move on to the next? I found this to be the most frustrating aspect of these stories, as several of them really held my interest as I was reading them, and I was rooting for King to find a way to end them with a flourish. But instead of a flourish what I got was a fizzle.
Any other author would have had a very difficult time in getting this collection published, as it falls far short of industry standards in the horror genre. Which raises another point: the book is subtitled "14 Dark Tales". Few of these stories are dark; most are just bizarre little slices of life of different people going through different experiences, most of which are entirely unbelievable (and predictable as well). I am truly shocked that he won an O. Henry award for one of these stories. It certainly doesn't say much for the competition that year.
Overall, this book is not recommended to anyone save for most diehard King fan. But then King could type 400 pages of gibberish and his diehard fans would hail the work as the new "Avant-Garde King". <sigh>

Everything's Eventual does not entirely contain new material, most of these stories have been published elsewhere. It is, however, a very enjoyable collection of stories.
There are some real gems in this collection from the Hitchcock-like Autopsy Room 4 to the strange twist at the end of L.T.'s Theory on Pets. It even has an addition to the story of Roland, the Gunslinger from the Dark Tower series further explaining an episode from King's sequel to The Talisman, Blackhouse.
As always King aims to please with this collection of short stories. Too often we get so caught up in novels that we forget the pleasure of a story, as King puts it, you can finish in one night.

King put it all together in this book. I will admit there were a few stories that I wish he would have finished (I know they are finished but I wanted a conclusion!!). It was a great read that you don't often get from other authors -- where one is willing to show you some of the other works that just are not a novel.
If he keeps writing them...I will keep reading them!

Often, less of Stephen King is better than more! That may seem to be a contradiction, but his later novels tend to go on to almost agonizing length, and cry out for some editing. I understand his new Dark Tower work (as yet unpublished) is 900 pages!!! Anyway, I enjoy a well-written short story occasionally, and this book is full of them. I've read a few of these stories in other places, but they are all uniformly interesting to me, some more than others, of course. It shows that King can write pithily (as Bill O'Reilly would say) when and if he wants to, and that's a sign that the old talent is still there inside of him. If he'd only let it out in his novels1

Stephen King is a master of the short story, there is no doubt about that. In Skeleton Crew, Stephen King remarked that a short story is like "a kiss in the dark from a stranger." He goes on to say that although that is not the same as an affair or a marriage, that kisses can be sweet and "their very brevity forms their own attraction." While some of his novels can strain your lower back when you lift them, and The Stand and the Dark Tower series are phenomenal examples of King's prowess as a storyteller, some of the most engaging and entertaining fiction that Stephen King has ever written has come in short story form. When I was a teenager I plowed through Night Shift (the cool cover with its peering eyes and the disturbing inner cover gave me nightmares) and King's short stories led me to the short fiction of Ray Bradbury and Roald Dahl and many others. In the introduction to Everything's Eventual King bemoans the fate of short stories and pleads with us to keep it alive with our interest and our attention. His best argument for the continued survival of the form is contained in the stories that follow his introduction. I won't tell you anything about them...you need to go get this book and read them yourself. But don't buy it just because it's by Stephen King...buy it because these kisses in the dark are so worthwhile.
ALSO: The Price of Immortality... A unique and intriguing DARK FANTASY full of plots and twists.

I guess there will always be snobs for everything.

This is a work of short stories that King had written over the years. You can tell that some were simply thoughts written down, some unfinished and never polished to shine...but they were still good tales that were worth telling.

Stories like The Road Virus Heads North (I can still, to this day, see that maniacle face in my mind's eye), 1408 (which is now a movie!), All That You Love Will Be Carried Away (which made my heart ache), The Man in the Black Suit (which still gives me chills)and who can forget the mental image drawn in Everything's Eventual, the books title story, of Dinky finding new ways to get rid of his left over money.

These stories left a major impression on me - so much so, I gushed and recommended this book to all my friends who were King fans.

I think part of the dislike for this book comes from people expecting King to write Carrie everytime he sits down. Appreciate the stories for what they are! Great stories that give you chills or makes you laugh, or cry.

This is my favorite book of all time. King captures my exact idea of Hell, and a few other theories I still believe. I couldn't stop once I started. But definitely worth it if you only want to read a little bit each night or something. The short stories are great for people who don't want to sit down to a full novel while still reading something to pull you in in a few pages.

After having finished the Dark Tower series several months ago, my mind and heart has often wandered back to Roland and his unforgettable Quest. I picked up Bev Vincent's 'Concordance' to whet my whistle after the Quest was all said and done just to try to delve-in a bit further, and perhaps take something additional and previously unseen away - which I was able to do. Still, I longed to learn more of Roland and the Quest.

For a birthday I purposefully asked for this book 'Everything's Eventual', for the sole reason that this one additional short tale concerning Roland was enveloped within the pages, if even for only a scant few.

To revisit Roland again, if even before the events of the Gunslinger, made my heart race and feel happy and sad all within the limited pages of his tale. It felt as if King had never put the pen (or typewriter) down, and I was immediately swept up once again into the world that has moved on. Despite the fact it is a short tale, there are clear references to characters and concepts that will re-emerge later in the series, and lend a certain understanding to things that may have been perhaps previously brushed aside or overlooked. It lends itself as a bridge; a filler of gaps and a vehicle to recollect and reinforce attributes of later stories - especiallly events in book six of the DT.

I applaud this short story and in fact do highliy recommend paying the few bucks it costs to read 150 more pages about the hero of Mid-World (technically all worlds), Roland of Gilead.

I don't read many books of short stories because I have found that I either LOVE the short stories or get very annoyed with them. I think it may just be because I always want more...

I thought that this collection was pretty good. Overall I would recommend it. If I were to recommend it to my friends, I would warn them there were a number of stories that I absolutely loved, but many that I struggled to get through because I just wasn't interested.

The book begins with a great introduction from Mr. King and then we jump right into "Autopsy Room Four." I LOVED THIS STORY! I've found myself thinking about it again and again afterwards. It was the perfect first story for the book. I found it to be absolutely terrifying and I couldn't put it down!

If you are buying this book for the movie tie-in to 1408, you might be disappointed because the trailer for the movie and the plot of the short story really don't seem to mirror each other, so I have a feeling the two don't resemble each other down to the smallest detail. Word is that King gave approval to the movie version, so perhaps it maintains the emotional resonance of the short story which is, by the way, as spooky and eerie as you'd expect, so much so that it is easy to forget how well King writes.

In addition to the stories, one of my favorite parts of this book was the preface and author's notes on the stories, by King. Budding writers in this genre of horror or psychological suspense/horror should focus carefully on his writing advice. He doesn't give it lightly and he also doesn't mince words. You may primarily buy this book for the great and riveting tales within, but you may also find yourself equally fascinated by what King writes about...ssbout HOW to write and his own perspective on his craft. He confesses that he has been surprised that some stories which he considered less than stellar have won awards, showing that he is still capable of being surprised by his readers and reviewers. I expect that is part of the thrill of what he does, discovering what touches readers and what does not.

In the preface, for example, he brings up an important subject, the evolution of the short story and its possible demise. He writes so deftly about such a serious subject! I happen to be equally concerned, coming from a time when short stories filled so many magazines I read, from Atlantic to Redbook to Saturday Evening Post. I grew up reading them in magazines my parents had around the house. Try to find a typical, mass market magazine that contains short stories anymore, especially by writers whose words will become classic. Pretty hard, isn't it? Sad - at least to me and, based on what he wrote, to King as well.

He also touches on an E-book he wrote and his concern about how well it did. He was both fascinated and...yes, horrified. You'll have to read this book to find out why.

Anyway, this book is well worth reading, perfect for those who only have limited time and who find the idea of an entire book on one subject too daunting. I have a feeling you'll read this one straight through, even if you THINK you're going to only dip into one or two of the short stories. You'll be hooked and enthralled before you know it.

Some of the stories pay homage to other writers and if you are queasy when it comes to reading graphic details, consider yourself forewarned. I found the first story "Autopsy Room Four" to be particularly hard going but stuck it out - and I'm glad I did. Its genesis was an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, something I'd never have known if King hadn't pointed it out. Once he did, I actually remembered the particular episode with Joseph Cotten and- like King - agree that it was one of the spookiest Hitchcock episodes out there.

I absorbed these stories. In trying to bring short stories back to life, Stephen King has adopted 14 of his very own, very best, very frightening stories and put them all in one book. Once you have read the first story "Autopsy Room 4", you will not put the lights out. In fact, our master of macabre never does allow us to put the lights out does he? It's a fabulous compilation of some of the scariest stories I have read by my very favorite author of all time. A few of the stories mosied along like old friends, but if they didn't shock you, they surely did gross you out. Thank you Stephen King, once again.

I liked Black house because the real Stephen King actually wrote something good, but this time he has hit a bullseye every single story is either funny or frightening. I especially love Lunch At The Gotham Cafe, in which a chef goes mad, yet it fills you with a dark comedy feeling even though this man is a complete horror you can't help but secretly laugh at the description King writes about the mad chef, other ones include LT's Theory of Pets which I have heard on Audio CD, but I promise you will absolutely love this collection of stories. You also get Ride The Bullet, which is King's most known E Story

...but i couldn't get past the first coupla' stories! (By the way, I like almost all of the rest of King's work.)
First of all, I should say that I really don't like short story collections to begin with, and when I found out the next "short" story was 60+ pages long, and threw the book across the room, against the wall!
Well, not exactly, but I was relatively sad, because E.E. houses my now-favorite short story, "The Man in the Black Suit." (Which won an O'Henry [award])
Although it houses SOME decent short stories, it doesn't have enough. I myself prefer the now-somewhat rare "Six Stories"(?), a much shorter version of E.E.

Some cool stories! Scary,creppy and down right sad.nice to have on my book shelf. The good thing about short stories you don't have to read the whole book all at once you can read a short story every other day once a month shoot even once a year hahaa they are short stories they're fun to read enjoy them.

The number of stars references the closest average for the thirteen stories in this book that I read. I didn't bother with The Little Sisters of Eluria, because I am not a fan of the Dark Tower Saga, and I didn't really want to spend the time reading an eighty page "short story" that I wouldn't enjoy anyway.

For each of the rest, a star value is below, along with any thoughts that I had on them.

Autopsy Room Four 3
The Road Virus Heads North 3
That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French 3
Riding the Bullet 3

Pretty average stories, all told. Nothing new, original, or particularly well done in any of them. The third of these has a particularly obnoxious title, as if the author thought that it was cute to say Deja Vu in 11 words. Not for that, I would have given it four stars, as the ending is slightly unexpected. As even the author references, Riding the Bullet (a hitchhiker gets picked up by a ghost), Autopsy Room Four (autopsied alive), and That Feeling... (the temporal quantum bubble of repeitition) are pretty standard fare for horror novelists and writers in general. The Road Virus Heads North is an interesting enough story, or it would be, if it didn't strike me as stolen from a movie or television show, I can't remember which, featuring a painting of a house with a fence out front, where a boy is, and then isn't. For some reason, the latter was way scarier, and the story in this book is pretty dull by comparison.

L. T.'s Theory of Pets 2
The Death of Jack Hamilton 2
Luckey Quarter 2

These three stories have little to recommend them. The first is, like the first four stories, a retelling of what happens in a classical urban legend. In this case, though, it is more about what happened BEFORE that. Unfortunately, what happened BEFORE that is boring. The second is about a friend of John . Not particularly good, but quite boring. The third is just lacking in real detail. It has no horror, it has little enough fiction. If anything, it seems like a vignette from The Dead Zone mixed with a little bit of Everyday America. Boooring.

The Man in the Black Suit 3

I'm not surprised that this story won an O. Henry award, per se. Rather, I am surprised that Stephen King wrote it. It is a good story, although it, again, feels like something that is taken out of IT. It was fun to read, though.

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away 4

This was one of the better stories in the collection. This one focuses on a purveyor of Latrinalia (look it up). This was well-written and believable. This is what short stories should be. I liked the ending, as well.

In the Deathroom 4

This was also really interesting. In a way, it departed, quite a bit, from normal King-esque horror. Instead of the quotidian fears, this one is quite reasonable. That doesn't stop it from being interesting, though. I particularly liked the ending. I thought that it was nice that he stuck with the optimism even through the end, rather than the more obvious ending of having the character wake up screaming and having the whole story his imaginings as he is tortured.

Everything's Eventual 4

The titular story of the collection, and one of its longer offerings as well. It also happens to be one of the best. Imagine what you would do if you received seventy dollars every week (in addition to free rent, no bills, all the food and frivolities you can write on a white board), but you had to spend it all? This is an interesting question, and the story could easily have been expanded into a novel akin to something that Bentley Little would write. The fact that it is a tight little short story makes it all the saucier.

Lunch at the Gotham Café 4

This is a good example of how the quotidian can be quite good. And disturbing. An unpleasant lunch spoiled by the deranged, psychopathic snap of a Mideast Side New York maitre d. It was funny, particularly, when the divorcing wife and husband are forced to confront a non-quotidian event, and are not brought together by it, but driven further apart. There is some real characterization here, and it makes the collection worth reading.

1408 4

This story gets a special mention solely because it nearly scared me into a bowel movement. It is also a pretty uninspired tale of the horrors of a haunted hotel room (again, a rehash of old ideas). It did not scare me on any of its own merits, but in conjunction with the Dolphin Hotel from A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami. As anyone who has read these two novels knows, there is a haunted, of sorts, hotel in them. It is called the Hotel Dolphin. That is the name of the hotel where room 1408 is. Creepy coincidence? Perhaps.

So, in general, nothing here is particularly inspired. Most of the stories are unoriginal, at best. All of them are readable, though. There are a lot of retellings, granted, but all fiction consists of similar motifs, and you just have delightful differences in the familiar to separate your favorites from those you loathe. In this case, most of them are pretty tepid.

If you are looking for short fiction by Stephen King, pick up the Skeleton Crew or Nightmares and Dreamscapes. If you have them, and the rest, grab this one too. There isn't much that is disappointing, just a lot that is familiar.

C

Harkius

King is at his best when writing short stories, and this book proves it. I found it to be far better than "Nightmares And Dreamscapes" and on a par with "Skeleton Crew", but it wasn't quite as good as "Night Shift", which remains his best collection of short stories. King has really matured as a writer, but he doesn't quite crank up the scares like he used to. Still, there are some gems here. "The Man In The Black Suit" is the most frightening thing he has written in years, and fans of the Dark Tower series will love "The Little Sisters of Eluria". Unfortunately, King has the annoying habit of allowing his liberal politics to intrude on some of his work, and it ruins the title story. But all in all, this book is another great read from the master of horror.

First, I am a long time reader of Stephen King, and as such, I think I'm warranted when I say that his short story collections have always included some of his best work. Unfortunately, if that still remains true, then it would appear that we're getting close to the bottom of the barrell when it comes to unpublished works by the Master of Terror.
Don't get me wrong - any writer would give his left hand to write half as well as King, and these stories if attributed to someone else would be an impressive collection indeed. However, coming from King, I was rather unimpressed by the sheer lack of nerves that I had while I was reading the stories. His last collection, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, kept me enraptured from beginning to end; I couldn't put it down, and not because I was afraid, but because every *single* story in that collection was better than the previous one. Not so with Everything's Eventual.
King writes in the introduction that the stories were ordered by chance, by the draw of a card. At first, I thought that was an interesting way to arrange things, but after plodding about halfway through the book, I realized that the "sheer chance" had resulted in an uneven presentation of stories. Some were very good (the title story, for instance; "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away"; and the story of the boy who meets the devil while fishing), but most were downright formulaic and bland ("The Road Virus Heads North" or "1408" -- the latter a terrible attempt to evoke Lovecraftian terror). And as an avid King fan, the inclusion of "Riding the Bullet", "The Little Sisters of Eluria", and "LT's Theory of Pets" seemed somewhat of a gyp, as I already owned these stories in the formats they were originally released.
Perhaps it's good that King appears to be determined to step down once his Scribner contract is fulfilled; hopefully he'll go out at the top of his game, like a Seinfeld or Cheers. Unfortunately, given this collection of stories and his last full-length novel, it seems to this Constant Reader that Mr. King is writing purely for his own bemusement and not for those fans waiting for the scares we received in It, Christine, and The Stand.
Overall, for a King fan the collection is satisfying in its own odd way; I'm glad I bought it, and glad that I read it. But would I recommend it, especially to a non-King fan? Nope.

Stephen King has out done himself again! A book about 14 dark tales kept me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end. No one story ties in with another, but each one is breathtakingly ingenious. From the autopsy room to the walls of rest area rest rooms, the stories were packed with non-stop action and excitement. Stephen even added his own comments with each story. I really enjoyed this book! The language is vulgar in some stories so I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. But if you love deception with a light twist of horror, then this book is definitely for you.

I feel an eerie desolation in the spirit of those dislikers and critics having a perverse pleasure in attacking King, and his works. I think most of it comes from the jealousy they feel for him (I call this "why-him-why-not-me-mamma" syndrome) but a substantial part of it also stems from feeling frustrated. Frustrated because they damn know well that although there is quiet a lot of sheer pleasure and fun (and invaluable moments) in King's stories, they desperately fail to grasp it; but this is not their fault: their vision somehow focuses only on two-dimensional rectangles, squares and geometric figures.
Alas I have pity them because no matter what they think or how much "eyebrow-rising high literature snobs" and their followers whine, King shines in an eye-dazzling way among the literal boredom and bareness of the last quarter of the twentieth century. During that last quarter, from the very beginning of his career with Carrie through the last steps of his immense kingdom, Everything's Eventual, he is the one and only author who have somehow managed to remain popular, as well as loyal to his readers and fan base, and achieved to yield time-resisting, precious and miraculously prolific works, with touchy, realistic and futuristic visions. It was as if there was a committee composed of different ghost writers, each of whom was specialised on another subject and churning out a book a year when it was his or her turn. From telekinesis to child abusing to incest, from other-worldly creatures to fantasy and epic stories and novels ("there are more worlds than this"), King have always tried to give his best to the ones who are able to understand him, and what a pleasure it is to understand him; to share his several worlds with his sweet, guiding voice, talking to you as if a long-time friend of yours is telling you what happened in the neighbourhood. And "Everything's Eventual" is simply a showdown of his almost endless talents, every piece reflecting a milestone forming his most-envied career, from sheer horror ("Autopsy Room...", "Road Virus...") to his hommage to his masters ("Room 1408") to his epic saga ("Sisters of Little..."), from despairing human beings ("All That You Love Will Be...") to political touches (Title story), from great insights to everyday family life ("LT's Theory of Pets") to his unique insight in children's lives ("the Man in Black Suits") to simple, but haunting ghost stories with deft touches ("Riding the Bullet") Each one being a palpable evidence how and why King became so successful, so beloved and each one has its own answer: He is extremely talented but in a so unique manner that the other talents of his period (and the most of the ones in the past) have fallen short of catching up with him. Besides, they were not long-winded enough.
Having said that, I would like to give a sincere hug and a big kiss to him for what he has done and given to us for years. Damn, I am proud of him, of reading him, of being a fan of him; I never regretted a moment I spent with him and I am sure this is the truth for many other fans capable of dancing in the dark with this ever-unmatched man. He has done so much for us for years...
Now critics and dislikers should find someone else to prey on as King will soon drop the curtain down. But I think they will have a very hard time in finding one because there is no one around more brilliant than him, who will be worth to attacking for the sake of attacking and envy....and ultimately they will get bored and isn't that EVENTUAL?
PS: For those who complain that the stories were published before, and feel cheated, isn't that written in the book synopsis? I think you are literate, and I guess you can read it before the purchase.

Stephen King never fails to pull you into the story and that he did with this one. King keeps you guessing what will happen next and his books are full of twist and turns. Don't bother trying to figure out the ending because you never know with one of kings books. I would recommend this book especially if you are a Stephen King fan. If you aren't a fan this could be the book that makes you a fan.

The book Everything Eventual was one of the best books that I have read. It has some certain good qualities to it. The book consisted of fourteen short stories. The stories may have been short, but all of them had the content to get me interested in reading more and more of the book. Every story had some sort of twist to make the book that much better. This book kept me so interested that I did not even want to put it down. It did not matter how long I sat there and read it, I always wanted to read more. Even when I finished the book I wanted to read more. I just can not wait for Stephen King to come out with his next book. Hopefully it is as good as this one.

For the most part, I enjoy reading Stephen King's works. Some of his books stay with you long after you have read them. Some don't. I find that what I like best are the introductions and comments regarding the stories that he has written. I also enjoy reading his essays and musings on life. His novels tend to be a little too heavy with the descriptions for me.
My thoughts on the stories in this collection:
Autopsy Room Four - a good story, but felt like the subject matter had been done too many other times.
The Man in the Black Suit - I really liked this story. Scary subject matter.
All That You Love Will Be Carried Away - the idea of writing down restroom graffiti in a book was interesting, and I liked reading the examples. But I would have liked more of an idea of why the man thought his life was so bad.
The Death of Jack Hamilton - boring
In the Deathroom - This was a good story. No supernatural elements, just the evil of people. Liked it all, except the very end.
The Little Sisters of Eluria - felt like reading a novel. I liked the story, it made me want to read the Dark Tower series.
Everything's Eventual - liked the story, and the idea of the job Dinky has. It was an interesting existance.
L. T.'s Theory of Pets - enjoyed the story, but not sure what happened at the very end. The Axe Man?
The Road Virus Heads North - scary, scary story
Lunch at the Gotham Café - liked the story, except for the very end.
That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French - Creepy, the story was unveiled slowly
1408 - scary, but not the scariest in the book
Riding the Bullet - liked it, an interesting dilemma for Alan.
Luckey Quarter - I liked the fantasy.
So overall, I enjoyed the book. I like the short story format. Easy to just read one or two as time allows. Stephen King is good at writing short stories.

King's first collection of short stories since 1993 ("Nightmares and Dreamscapes") shows the horror master still at the top of his game. There isn't a dud in the bunch. King chose the order of the stories by shuffling all the spades in a deck of cards plus the joker; and the serendipitous result, he says, created a nice balance between "the literary stories and the all-out screamers." But these stories are already a nice balance in themselves: eerie and spare, chilling and vivid, full of strong voices and real characters getting a jolt of terror out of an ordinary day.
Like the horror writer in "The Road Virus Heads North," who stops off at a yard sale on his way home. Or the divorcing couple who get the true measure of one another in a bloody encounter with a maitre d' in "Lunch at the Gotham Café." Or the woman in the acidulous marriage whose sense of déjà vu keeps getting sickeningly stronger on her second honeymoon in "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French."
An O.Henry prize winner (and one of King's least favorite stories), first published in "The New Yorker," reveals the roots of an old man's fear in a boyhood encounter with the devil on an idyllic stretch of trout stream in rural Maine. Another "New Yorker" story, "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away," is a poignant, haunting tale of a lonely traveling salesman whose graffiti collection engenders a life or death dilemma.
The story King says is his favorite, because of its unexpected shift from humor to horror, "L.T.'s Theory of Pets," turns on a gruesome twist at the end, which didn't stick with me half so much as the chilling aftermath of a choice forced on a college kid during his hitchhiking encounter with Death in "Riding the Bullet," first made famous as an e-book.
In a Dark Tower story, "The Little Sisters of Eluria," prequel to King's seven-volume (book five, now completed, is 900 pages) "magnum opus," Roland is attacked by green mutants and wakes in a gleaming hospital tent staffed by "nurses of death instead of life." Teeming with romance, adventure, horror and heroics, this story has a literally creepy ending.
The title story, "Everything's Eventual" features a naïve young high school drop-out with a certain talent but no clear ambition, who discovers his dream job is a nightmare. Though the stories are in a randomly chosen order, "Autopsy Room Four" is the ideal opener, a pitch-perfect blend of black humor and visceral horror told by a golfer who wakes up on an autopsy table. Inspired by a "Twilight Zone" episode, King gives it a thoroughly up-to-date twist. The poignantly low-key "Luckey," about a motel chambermaid who receives a "luckey" quarter as a tip, is an appropriate closer too. Gritty, but plaintive too, the story holds a hopeful note.
Most stories are told in the first person and King's narrators - young, old or middle-aged - seem to speak right into your ear, so immediate and expressive are their voices. They are, mostly, ordinary people whose ordinary lives take a heart-stopping turn. There are also a couple of successful horror writers and a few motel rooms, including the haunted one, room "1408."
King accompanies each story with a short note about its inspiration and development, and sometimes a few words about how the writing went and what he thinks of the story now. An introduction laments the lack of outlets for the short story form and shares a few of his marketing ventures.
Short stories, says King, do not come easy. His are pared down and cut close to plot, character and setting, with each of these elements honed and none of the manic digressions you sometimes find in his novels. A terrific collection, imagination harnessed.

Being a die-hard King fan, I was very disappointed by this collection; mostly because out of the 14 tales presented, I had already read/heard eight of them in other formats. I have listed those below. Perhaps a book of short stories is intended to be a collection of stories already printed/recorded in other formats, but I was expecting to read new material from King - not have over 1/2 of this book be recycled material from the last five years. Be aware of this before you purchase this book. Had I known what was included, I probably would not have purchased it.
Of the new ones, I wasn't very impressed with many of them. But I have to admit, my views may have been tainted once I opened the book and saw the table of contents.
On the positive side, "1408" scared the goodness out of me. I heard it on audio and it frightened me so much that I still haven't read it in the short story collection. If you like to be afraid, there are a few stories in here that will do it. "Riding the Bullet" is another great one if you love the side of King that makes you sleep with your bedside light on - that is if you can ever get to sleep.
"Lunch at the Gotham Cafe", "1408", and "In the Deathroom" were all on Blood and Smoke, an audio book by King, released in 2000.
"The Little Sisters of Eluria" was in Legends, edited by Robert Silverberg, 1998
"Autopsy Room Four" was in Robert Bloch's Psychos in 1997
"The Road Virsus Heads North" was in 999, New Stories of Horror and Suspense
"LT's Theory of Pets" was released in an audio version.
"Riding the Bullet" was released online for download

I will just write a short review on this one and not bore you with a lot of details. Some of the short stories in this book were excellent. A couple of stories were very mediocre for King and two stories downright stank. Since most of King's stories now tie in together especially with the dark tower series it is still a must read as is his collection Hearts In Atlantis. You get bits and pieces of information from most of his work now that give you more insight into the world beyond ours where Roland and the dark tower exist. Worth the read but if you are not a huge King fan like I am I suggest buying the paperback of this book.

Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales, is Stephen King's fourth short story collection, and I think it's a very good and unique one. Even though it doesn't have the same Bizarre mix of stories like Nightmares
and Dreamscapes or the memorable stories of Skeleton Crew it's still very
good. For one thing, it only has eight horror stories, and out of those eight only five are supernatural horror stories, but don't let that keep you from buying this awesome collection because they are some of King's Best Horror Stories. Autopsy Room Four contains both horror and black humor and details a paralyzed man in an autopsy room trying to show he's still alive before it's too late. It's not the best story in the book but an interesting read. The Scariest stories are by far The Man in the Black Suit, The Road Virus Heads North, Lunch at the Gotham Cafe, and 1408.
The Man in the Black Suit, about a very old man who recalls meeting the devil in the woods as a child, literally haunted me, an extremely dark story that for some reason reminded me of Joe R. Lansdale. The Road Virus Heads North, about a popular horror writer who stops by a yard sale on the way home from a book signing and buys a macabre painting that has a life of it's own and turns his life into a living nightmare. Lunch at the Gotham Cafe is a little slow starting out and is about the twisted relationship between a divorcing couple and the even more twisted Maitr'd
who brings out their truly dark nature in the more gruesome way. 1408, one of King's scariest stories ever, is about a true ghost story writer who stays in a supposedly haunted hotel room with a sinister history and soon finds out that the room is more alive than haunted. Out of all the non horror, Everything's Eventual, a story about a kid with special powers, is my favorite, and there are only a few bad ones, notably All that you love will be carried away, The Death of Jack Hamilton, L.T.'s Theory of Pets and Luckey Quarter. Overall, King delivers here.

Stephen King has once again proved himself The Master with this excellent collection of short stories. They won't all scare you - some will give you chills and others will give you nightmares - but they all bear witness to Mr. King's unique brand of compelling storytelling. The "Sisters of Eluria" (a short prequel story to the incredible Dark Tower series) alone is worth the price of the book.
I especially liked the small prologue and/or epilogues with each story. It's always interesting to take a gentle probe into the mind of a man some call a lunatic and others call a genius.

This is, by far, King's best short-story collection. I had gotten the impression, by word-of-mouth, that since "Bag of Bones," King's writing has been more mature, more literary and deeper than anything he's been putting out. With "Everything's Eventual," he proves he's as good as everyone's been saying. But don't think that these stories aren't scary -- there are quite a few that will keep his loyal readers in frightened fits. Check out "The Road Virus Heads North," "1408," "Riding the Bullet," and "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe," the last of which is beautifully written. The more literary stories include "The Man in the Black Suit," "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away," and "The Death of Jack Hamilton." While these stories may not scare you as much, take a good look at King's writing: These are certainly deeper than anything he's written in "Night Shift" or the unholy abomination that is "Skeleton Crew." Be sure to check "Everything's Eventual" out! It's well worth the read. And thank you, Mr. King, for putting out one last, wonderful!, short-story collection!

Hard to write a review for a collection of short storys so I will keep it short, every story is creepy and memorable, my favorites are Room 1408 wich is a very creepy haunted hotel room story that raises goosebumps and a fear of motel rooms even though its just a short story,The Autopsy room four is extremly clever and horrifying, I think every one can imagine being paralised, aware of every thing going on around you and about to have an autopsy performed on you, can you get much scarier than that???? Not in short form, a must have for all who like storys short enough to read on the train or on lunch brakes

I love the Stephen King novels, but his book of short stories is great for beach reading, or while waiting to pick the child up from football practice, etc. There's nothing like the short stories for the hectic days of summer. Though not all of the tales in this collection are 'scary', they are strange and attention grabbing, as only a Stephen King story can be. For those who don't have time to commit to a full length novel, this book is a must.

Chrissy K. McVay

author of 'Souls of the North Wind'

I have always been a Stephen King fan from the first book I read (The Stand) back when I was a measley 16 years old (sometime in the 70s if I remember right). I love the way King develops his characters and the way he involves you in his novels and stories by using things that are familiar to all of us. I love the fact that horror is usually his genre, but he shines no matter what genre he writes in. He could write romance novels and still be the best author ever.

Everythings Eventual is in my opinion, his best collection ever. I've always loved his short stories as much as his novels, but this collection fleshes out his characters in a way that no other collection has done. And every single story hits home in this collection. A few stories in this collection might have been a little weak in King's standards, but in anyone else's standards, they would be gems. My favorites were "The Man in the Black Suit" (talk about an eerie feeling, it scared me more than any other story ever has), "The Little Sisters of Eluria" (this was my second time reading this and it was just as good as the first time I read it), "L.T's Theory of Pets" (talk about an emotional roller coaster of a story), "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe", "1408", and "Riding the Bullet" (a masterpiece). All the other stories were also good in their own right, but these were the best.

This book is highly recommended. Please Stephen King, never stop writing. I hope he reconsiders his retirement because I can't imagine reading without looking forward to Stephen King's next book. He is the best and I have read a lot of authors.

Being disappointed in the last 3 or 4 works of SK,I started not to even bother with this one.I'm glad i did.I devoured the whole collection of 14 tales in two days.Vying with Skeleton Crew as his best compilation,there is a lot here for every King aficianado.As usual,SK uses the short fiction to take you back to a previous novel or to give a prologue of a novel to come.Every tale is worth reading and it will be interesting to see where these stories lead in books yet to come.No doubt,King will come up with something weird.Enjoy!

A nice collections of short horrific stories. Every one of them a winner.
I hope that King keeps writing despite his earlier comments. He does however make a comment in one of his introductions that repetition is his version of Hell. Too bad because these are a lot of fun.
Strangely, the cover of the book is just as creepy as the stories as you gradually turn it from front to back things go from odd to down-right horrifying. Pretty cool.
Now if we could just get him to make at least one more visit to the sleepy little town of 'salem's Lot...

Staying on the straight and narrow path of "good" writing, Stephen King releases his collection of 14 Dark Tales. I am writing this review just a few hours after I finished the book, therefore, everything is still fresh in my mind, and perhaps i'll go so far as to say my opinion should be valued.
Going against many of the unspoken rules, I will only speak upon the stories that I personally thought were exceptionally well written and the ones that I really enjoyed.
The first story in the book is about a man that has an unlucky experience in an autopsy room. The story is basically ripped off from Alfred Hitchcock (King admits to this in his notes). But the ending is quite hillarious and if you want a quick laugh, read this one first.
The story about the Road Virus is a well written story about a traveling man that made an unplanned stop at a yard sale. This stop turned out to be deadly. I would say that this story is the creepiest of the entire collection. My skin was crawlng the entire time I was reading it, and if you're a diehard King fan like I am, then that is what you expect from his writings.
Not to be disrespectful to King's literary skill, but there was only one more story that really stood out in my mind and that I consider worthy of mention. Lunch at Gotham Cafe. This story is about a man that has reveived a "Dear John" letter from his wife. He is invited to lunch by his wife's attorny to work out a few details of the divorce. I don't want to reveal much of the story but let's just say that after you read this story, you will look at the maitre d of a restaurant in an entirely new aspect.
If you decide to purchase this book, I have one piece of advice to you. I would like to remind you that this is a collection of short strories and they don't necessarily have to be read in the order that King has layed out for you. If someone had told me this before I started the book, I would have definitely saved a few stories for last (*hint*).
Overall, this book is a great buy. It was a birthday present that is greatly appreciated.

After buying this book I had already read all the stories from blood and smoke, L.T.'s Theory of Pets, and the online book Riding the Bullet so I was kind of skeptical if the other stories would be as good as the ones I had already read. I was blowed away by the other stories, they were teffific. Not one story in this book is dull. Autopsy Room 4 was a great opener, Road Virus heads north was no doubt the scariest in my opinion, Lunch at the Gothem Cafe was no doubt the bloodiest. I was totally surprised when King mentioned the little po-dung town that I live in(Fort Scott, KS) in his story All that you love will be carried away. Each story is unique in it's own way. If you are one who thinks that King has lost his touch when it comes to telling a good horror story then I suggest that you read this short story collection. I prefer his later works personally just because I think that King has matured as a writer throughout the years. I think King is not a horror writer or someone who writes drama every once in a while. King is not classified under any of those, he is classified just as a storyteller and a superb one at that. King is in his top form in this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a king fan, or anyone who just likes to read good horror story because each story will blow you away!

Amazing. If you aren't already well versed in the tour de force of fiction that is Stephen King, you won't regret picking up one of his beloved short story collections. STEPHEN KING IS A STORYTELLER EXTRAORDINAIRE.. And he shines so brightly in this type of format.

Books like these are amazing for keeping bedside. Read a dark tale before bed or on a rainy afternoon.

My favorite is "Everything's Eventual." It, and it's protagonist, Dinky Earnshaw, stayed on my mind long after I finished the telling.

Everything's Eventual is a collection of short stories written by Stephen King. The stories deal with everything from being trapped in a paralyzed body to suicide. The moods of the stories also vary greatly. Some are sad, depressing stories about the death of a friend while others are just outright scary.

In the book, some of the stories were actually scary. A few examples of this were Autopsy Room Four which deals with having an autopsy performed on you while you are still alive and The Man in the Black Suit which is about a boy who comes across the devil while he is fishing. There is also Lunch at the Gotham Café, which is about a couple who have a run in with a deranged waiter.

Other stories are less scary and simply tell a story. An example of this would be All That You Love Will Be Carried Away. This story tells about a man that is sick of his life of being a T.V. dinner salesman and is trying to decide whether or not to commit suicide.

Overall, I thought most of the stories were very good. They were all very different which made it easy to go from one to the other. The ones that were supposed to be frightening were just that, and the stories that were supposed to be suspenseful or teach a life story also did their job very well. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to be scared, read a touching story of friendship, or even someone interested in the thoughts of an old man that doesn't feel important enough to continue living.

A review I read on the store.com from Lynn Harnett said that the book had a good balance between the stories. I disagree with this because it seemed like some of the shorter or less interesting stories were overshadowed by the longer, more intense ones. However, I agree with someone named Luke who posted a review saying that the variation between stories helped keep him interested. The large differences between stories created the same effect on me. One story would be really scary but the next would be calmer. This created a nice change of pace that helped me keep reading.

It's always comforting to know Stephen King's got a new short story collection. It distills his best talents, and it's the form where he shines. Horror is a genre especially suited to short stories, and it's unfortunate that many publishers tend to avoid them, claiming they don't sell well or that people prefer novels...utterly untrue.
I didn't enjoy this collection as thoroughly as Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and felt there were a couple of stumbles in it. However, the four stories that merit its four-star rating more than made up for 'em:
All That You Love Will Be Carried Away: We all crave the little tidbits found along the way, and try to create a narrative out of the ephemera that litter the sidewalk in front of us.
Everything's Eventual: For its perfect pitch of the voice of a nineteen year old with a conscience. For the classic conceit of a malevolent but well-dressed mysterious superpower.
The Road Virus Heads North: Because I love to make up stories behind that cracked toothmug I found at the Goodwill, but that mug didn't hunt me down thank god.
1408: The single SK story that really and truly messed me up. I will never pick up a hotel telephone casually again.

The last King book I read before this, was 'Bag of Bones', which I absolutely loved. But this...the opening story, 'Autopsy Room Four', was quite funny; the next one, 'The Man in the Black Suit', could have been so much more, but still delivered a few chills. The title story was somewhat interesting, and 'That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French' had an interesting idea...but none of them quite delivered *the punch*. I didn't read 'The Little Sisters of Eluria', since I never gave a hoot about King's Dark Tower-series, and I read 'Riding the Bullet' a couple of yeas ago, and couldn't bear going through it again...it's utter crap! Mr King has written a good deal of great books, but if you wanna read his short stories, go for 'Night Shift' or 'Skeleton Crew'. This one doesn't do him - or the readers - any justice.

Being a Stephen King fan, I thoroughly enjoyed the 5 tales selected from the fourteen to be read on this 8 disc audio book.
What makes this recording special however, is the tremendous voice acting/casting for the stories in question. Justin Shaw turns out a flawless portrayal of Dinky Earnshaw, a 19 year old teenager with a special gift that lands him his dream job but begins to weigh on his conscience in "Everything's Eventual". Oliver Platt's whisper-like voice confides his horror to the listener of "Autopsy Room Four".
Definitely worth a listen!

Like Stephen King's body of work, this collection of short stories is a mixed bag. A few were chilling and original, others seemed little more than rambling. I'm not holding it against King. When you're as prolific as he is, not every story's going to be a home run. He has enough great novel that he's earned a few strike-outs and he's still among my favorite authors. That said, this collection is not a strike-out, only a few of the stories are, and another few are so-so (base hits, if you will). I enjoyed the read, but not as much as I usually enjoy King. Kings fans should definitely read it (I won't tell you which stories I liked or didn't like since we all have our own tastes) and readers looking for a few nights of scary stories could do worse.

Stephen King just gets better and better. His fourteen short stories highlight his mastery of a difficult form of writing. I particularly liked his down home remarks at the beginning or end of each story explaining a little about how he happened to write it and what he was trying to achieve. King has the uncanny ability to talk directly to the reader, one-on-one as if you are the only person in the world.
The stories have been previously published (I had read the four that first appeared in "The New Yorker"), but I was delighted to have them in book form and reread them with great pleasure. For all you Dark Tower fans, there is an excellent addition, "The Little Sisters of Eluria."
Not one of the fourteen stories disappointed me; they were varied: humorous, reflective, and scary. If you think the Old Master might have lost his touch at scaring you sideways, try "The Road Virus Heads North." Some particular favorites: the title piece "Everything's Eventual" told by an oh-so-believable teenaged boy made this sinister tale poignant as well as inevitable. King saw a handsome couple arguing in a fancy New York restaurant and somehow came up with "Lunch at the Gotham Café" (see cover of book for illustration. Be sure to check the back cover as well!). I'll let SK tell you about the whys of "In the Deathroom."
"This is a slightly Kafkaesque story about an interrogation room in the South American version of Hell. In such stories, the fellow being interrogated usually ends up spilling everything and then being killed (or losing his mind). I wanted to write one with a happier ending, however unreal that might be. And here it is."
But we know in our hearts that it isn't going to be that "happy," don't we?
"Everything's Eventual" is an unqualified blue ribbon group of short stories. I predict new King fans on the horizon

Stephen Kings short stories never seem to amaze me. Sometimes it almost seems like he's trying to teach some sort of life lesson through the story (Riding the Bullet) other times he's just trying to scare the hell out of you (Autopsy Room Four) not to mention just to hack and slash his way to glory (Lunch at Gotham). These elements are what make his novels great but shown separately in his short stories they really show that Mr. King is an extremely diverse and multi-faceted author.

I've grown disaffected with Stephen King in recent years. While a fan of his early work like <i>Carrie</i> and <i>The Shining,</i> I felt that he gradually lost touch with the essence of his craft as his books swelled beyond all reason into foot-thick carnival funhouses where every page revealed a new, cheesy twist jumping out at the reader. I don't think I've truly enjoyed one of his novels since <i>Pet Cemetary,</i> and I stopped buying them years ago.
But I must admit that <i>Everything's Eventual</i> seems to be a return to his original form. I haven't read every story yet, but tales such as "Autopsy Room Four" and "Everything's Eventual" are good reads. And in "1408" King did something I didn't think him capable of any more-he scared me, to the point that I was jumping at shadows after reading it. Mind you, as a fan since childhood of writers like Bierce, Poe, Chambers, Lovecraft, and Barker, I am Not Easily Spooked. If you enjoy tales of horror, I highly recommend this book.

Even though its seems unreal, Stephen King has not written a short story collection in almost a decade (see NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES). However, the flexible grandmaster returns to the form with this fourteen-story book while showing (as he continually does with novels), he can still spin quite a superb short tale.

Each tale is dark and demonstrates Mr. King's writing abilities while proving he remains one of the stronger short story tellers today. The theme running through the tale is encounters with the dead spicing up the mundane lives of the living or those who expedite the passage of death. This anthology includes three pieces coming from alternate media, four from The New Yorker magazine, and a former E-book. One added bonus is a Dark Tower longer short story "The Little Sisters of Eluria". Each one and the remaining six are all quite good and a bit or two frightening.

Macabre and clearly paying homage to another versatile grandmaster Edgar Allen Poe, EVERYTHING'S EVENTUAL is another triumph for Mr. King as fans of the ghastly and morbid will enjoy this collection. The great author seems to have accomplished everything in his thirty years of published writing except lift the curse of the Bambino.

Harriet Klausner

king, king, king. what were you thinking? this was dull. i loved his other collections, but this was bad. some of the stories were in fact awful. like "lunch....". SK is famous as a plot-builder, but here the lack of plots and the mediocre telling of the stories, were seen so clearly, it was amazing. the "points" of the stories, were mostly really dull. only two stories delivered ok, and they weren't great either. "dark" tales? the only thing giving me a "dark" feeling, is the fact that SK could manage to write this stuff.

Autopsy Room Four- 3/5 Funny ending, but not too intense
Man in Black Suit- 5/5 Great Campfire tale told as only King can
All that you love... 1/5 Don't even remenber what it was about
Death of Jack Hamilton-4/5 good story of old time crooks
In the Deathroom- 2/5 Kinda stupid
Little Sisters of Eluria- 5/5 for D.T fans 4/5 for everyone eles. Distrubing! I like it!
Eveything's Eventual- 5/5 Brilant! a well-put-together short story.
L.t.'s theory of pets- 5/5 really confused me the first time around. Very good story.
Road Virus Heads North- 5/5 a real page turner. I could'ent wait to finsh, but then I could'ent sleep.
Lunch at Gothem-2/5 Villen lacks depth
That feeling....1/5 Very stupid
1408- 5/5 the scarest thing I have ever read in my life
Riding the Bullet- 5/5 Really cool story. Good twists and turns throughout.

I wanted a book I could easily pick up read for awhile and put down again, only to repeat the process during a recent quick trip. Putting down this book was not a problem...picking it back up was.
In the preface to this book the author laments the changes taking place in publishing specifically the publishing of short stories. The book came out in 2002 and the author was concerned that short stories were dying due to the lack of places to publish and read those stories. Back then there was also the prediction that due to Ereaders paper books would soon disappear as well.
It is now 2014 and thank god paper books are still around. But what about short stories? Well I have read a number of good short stories from many fine writers. I have read a number of short stories from Stephen King. The short stories contained in this book are garbage. They are boring, they are not, in any way, horror related, they usually either end abruptly or leave the reader wanting some resolve.
Mr King doesn't need the money he says so in the beginning of the book so I ask,why as the reader, am I subjected to reading stories that should have just been deleted from his computer?

Upon purchasing this novel, I was eagerly anticipating another collection of Stephen King short stories to equal his "Night Shift", "Skeleton Crew", "Four Past Midnight", and "Nightmares And Dreamscapes". Instead, I was surprised to find these tales ranging from the unexpectedly humorous to the truly frightening. Included are stories which touch upon such topics as covert government operations, and the grimly realistic horrors of an American trapped in a foreign prison; the terror of premature burial is explored. There's even a story of the fantasy/sci-fi genre while another echoes the noir crime fiction of Cornell Woolrich and, of course, the usual "things that go bump in the nit". Overall, a PERFECT sampler of the many styles of Stephen King's writing. A brillant, gifted author, here he proves himself to be more than a master of horror -- all of which is evident in this variant collection.

This book is a wonderful read if you're looking for something that you can sit down and read a story or two and walk easily away from for a little while. Then come back for more later. Stephen King delivers on every short story. I only found one to be lacking. King has wonderful balance of stories in the book. He'll have you laughing one minute then give you the willies the next. A great read for anyone who isn't looking to get involved in a novel long commitment or a lover of short stories.

Welcome back Stephen King!
I thought you had gone totally soft after your last few books.
This one carried me all the way back to the vintage King. Every story is worth reading, and some send those familiar little shivers down your spine, as you glance behind you when reading.
No need for me to review each story - get the book and get spooked with the rest of us.
Keep them coming like this one!

Most of the stories in here were great. I especially liked Riding the Bullet, a classic haunted story. Many others were fantastic, such as 1408. Others were chilling. A few were a bit slow, such as the gangster story (I forget the title). There is a Dark Tower short story, since I've only read the first one, it was a little difficult to follow. Overall it was a great way to pass the nights when you can't sleep.

I have been reading Stephen King stories for over 30 years. He's rarely a let down. This was not his greatest assortment of short stories but I will admit to turning the pages, non stop, until I finished the entire book. A master story teller who makes it feel like he's relating events that actually happened to people he knows ... and you know too by the time he's finished. Well done!

Not one of his "classic works" but a good read. That said, reviewing a collection of short stories can be tricky, because each story is its own experience. Three or four of these are truly outstanding, classic King, and most of the rest are quite good and well worth reading.

I'd definitely recommend this book.

King is spot on in this new collection of short stories. However, not all the included stories are of the horror genre. In this book, King shows that he can branch out of the horror realm that he has been pigeon-holed into.
Of course, there are plenty of top-notch frighteners in Everything's Eventual, including the story of the book's title; The Road Virus Heads North; and the ghost story 1408 among others. These will certainly keep King's usual horror fans on their seats.
But King shows a good range in the book. There is a successful attempt at historical fiction in the work, a short story about John Dillinger. In All That You Love Will Be Carried Away, King tells the story of a man contemplating suicide, and does a wonderful job of creating the morose, helpless mood. Also, in his famous short story Riding The Bullet, King is able to combine horror with a sharply autobiographical tone, as he discusses his own contemplations about death while attending his ailing mother.
If you're looking for a good scare, this collection will do the trick. But it also contains stories of high literary merit. A perfect combination.

Not the best of King's anthologies but still easily worth the price of admission. Yes, I guess many of these stories have appeared in one form or another before, but I hadn't seen them (and I am an inveterate King fan). 1408 and Everything's Eventual were my favorites - classic King - and all in all I enjoyed this collection a lot more (perhaps because I expected less) than several of SK's recent novels.

Stephen King is at his finest 'gather 'round the campfire and let me tell you a tale'; 14 gems that range from the subtle to the outright in your face horror. With such modern classics as 'Riding the Bullet', 'The Road Virus Heads North', 'Autopsy Room Four', '1408', and the title story . In mere words (King) can make your pulse and heart race a little faster, blood pressure rise; he can make you forget to sleep at night.

This book was really good, i especially like that there were 14 different stories so it kept me interested. When i got done with one story i was always curious to find out what the next one would be about. My favorite one out of all of them was The Man in the Black Suit because that one to me was the scariest and i can realate because i LOVE scary books, i think horror is the most interesting topic to read about. But anyways The Man in the Black Suit was the best because of how detailed he described the "Devil" i've always loved how detailed Stephen King is in his books, but this one was the best he described him all the way down to his crimson colored eyes and his firey, burnt match smelling breath it was really good. It was sad too which made the book even better because it changed so many moods it went from soo joyful to life-threateningly scary then down to completely sad but all and all i would review this book as a must read.

I have been waiting for King to bring out some more short stories, and WOW, did he ever. Great Stories, horrific tales, and even "The Little Sisters of Eluria" is for a great addition to the Dark Tower. Awesome book, if you love King, you will love this book! I remember reading "The Autopsy Room" in a 1972 issue of Hitchcock Magazine, so it was great to see King bring it back here.

This is a really good book, the way Stephen King describes how he used a deck of playing cards to select the order in which these 14 tales would appear was a very good idea. They were all really good storys, there was some scary ones and then there was some none scary ones. My favorite story was All That You Love Will Be Carried Away, it was very good it wasn't scary at all. I found it very interesting to read, It was about a guy who went around the world writing down some sort of quotes in a little notebook, which he loved doing. He had a wife and kids at home, he didn't know what to do. It was his life to go around writing down little quotes in his notebook. At one point he wanted to kill his self, and he couldn't make a decision. So he decide if the lights went on in the farm house that he would write a story about what he discover, but if they didn't then he would throw away his notebook and kill his self. But it never told us at the end what happen. But it was a great story and I loved it.

The man in otopsy room 4 was a very good book writen by stephen king. I think you would like this short story because it is a mistery but when you have to put it down but you just cant till the story is done.

I liked this story because you got to hear a story about a man that is in a otopsy room and the reast you have to find out on your own. My favorite part about this story is that the man is still alive but the rest you have to find out on your own.

Compared to Big Steve's other anthologies, the tales in "Everything's Eventual" lack a lot of the punch of King's other tales, especially those that were published in magazines. The Gunslinger tale works, as it seems to have been worked up for publication as part of a book. Even though the stories are shorter than the ones in "Four Past Midnight," they all tend to wander a lot more.

This is likely King's best short story collection to date. Several of the stories (The Man in the Black Suit, Everything's Eventual, and The Death of Jack Hamilton) are of literary quality. The rest are largely a return to the tight, well-crafted short stories that marked King's early career.

The only piece I did not like was the Dark Tower story. Never been a Dark Tower fan. Even so, there is something in this collection for everyone.

I was very disappointed in this book. I am usually very impressed with all of King's work even his short stories. It seemed to "light" compared to the normal King fare. The only two stories in the collection that even make this readable are "Everything's Eventual" and "The Little Sister's of Eluria". Other than those two stories, instead of fighting to out the book down, I had to fight to keep reading.

I actually was a little aprehensive about this book. I wasn't overly fond of his last 2 books (Black House and Dreamcatcher) and was worried that maybe SK was losing his touch.
I needn't have worried. This book of short stories is fantastic! I never read the stories in a collection in order, and I was surprised that in jumping around, each story was as good, if not better than the last.
My favorite story was probably the one about the man who wakes up only to find that he is in a morgue about to have an autopsy done on him and they don't know he's alive and he is paralyzed and can't tell them. Truly creepy!
If you've been a little worried about SK's writing ability, don't be -- buy this book and you will be happily surprised!

"Everything's Eventual" changed the way I viewed short stories and it turned me into a Stephen King fan. It's a great mix of disturbing and scary stories..too bad there's only 14 of them in the book. The author's comments before or after each story are also very enjoyable to read.
My favorites are 1408, The Road Virus Heads North, and The Man in the Black Suit...but I really like all of them!

I had a definite sense of deja vu while reading this collection of short stories from the undisputed master of the form.
Once upon a time, King treated his readers to genuinely spooky, thought-provoking dark tales in short form. He seems to have returned to that era with this collection.
After being disappointed with his last couple of books, it was great to see his work in some of its past glory...

In my opinion, something very unfortunate happened in with King's accident. He seems to have lost that edge in his writing that kept me begging for more. I was pretty disappointed with this book, as I have been with most of King's post-accident work.
There was really only one story that I found truly entertaining and that was "The Little Sisters of Eluria". I have only read one of King's Darktower series, but I think that is where his heart truly lies now. Everything else is just superficial.
Also, a number of the stories had been published elsewhere. For my money, the story "1408" belongs on the audio-tape and should stay there. It was a great story to have read out loud, but it lost something in print.

By the third story I had to say out loud what I had been thinking after the first story - Stephen King did not outdo himself with this book. I was disappointed in that the stories did not grip me. I had been salivating to borrow the book from a friend. At the end of each story I was left wanting (in a bad way) and it had nothing to do with the usual ambiguous endings that i love. It just left me feeling unsatisfied. The hardest one to get through was 'The Little Sisters of Eluria' followed by 'Death of Jack Hamilton'. Those really made me want to give up. If i didn't have a touch of OCD which compels me to finish a book, i would have done just that. In fact i crossed the Dark Tower series off my wishlist after that. The former story went on longer than it should and didn't deliver and the latter was just plain boring.

After seeing the other reviews i had to ask myself - am I the only one who felt like this? Fortunately a friend of mine, an SK fan also felt the same way.

Still excited about the 5 SK books I have waiting on the bookshelf.

Alana

I have always been a fan of Stephen King and his writing. He has a way of capturing your imagination and making you wonder, 'How come I can't come up with stuff like this?'

Everythings's Eventual is a collection of 14 tales all told from different views and angles. There is even a prequel to the Dark Tower Saga, which motivates you to go back and read the 7 books all over again.

A wonderful read in every sense of the world. Enjoy!

This was not one of Stephen Kings' best. The short stories were ok, but not quite up to par with the rest of his books. I love his writtings, but this was not a favorite. I would recomend this to someone who does not like all the typical nasty, and dragging on of his books. This book is pretty mild mannered compared to his other. I give this a three, because it was alright but not the best i have ever read. It was hard to get excited aboiut this book, and it was very easy to put down.

I'm not a big fan of Stephen King or horror books, but this one really changed my mind. I went to the bookstore and thought of my hate for horrors. then I thought to tip the scale. add a horror to my archive. Should I say more. Yes i should.I don't know why but the 5th is my favorite. Exeptional value and worth every minute of your reading time. get it. get it. get it.

Stephen King returns to what he does best, short stories. His other collections, "Night Shift", "Skeleton Crew" and "Nightmare & Dreamscapes" contain some of his very best work. While there are fewer stories here (only fourteen) some of them are among his very best including "The Man In The Black Suit" and "L.T.'s Theory Of Pets". King is lucky in that he is one of the few authors who can get volumes of short stories published these days, which is a shame.

Wow, this one really cooks! Autopsy Room Four is my favorite. I think this one may have been written after his accident, and if so, he has really put a lot of himself into it. You can really feel what that guy is going through, his anxiety and pain, hear the machinery, and almost smell the sick walls of that room. I don't want to be cut up like that when I'm "gone!" Thanks Stephen!

Good old Stephen King, I've read him for a couple of decades, although not nearly as much over the last ten years (my teenage lust for the macabre has since mellowed). I turn to King when I want something easy and fun to read.

This collection of 14 short stories is perfect for those that want an easy, quick read. King is good at quickly creating believable characters with unique voices - a pity a lot of critics view him as a pulp writer. Some of the short stories are engaging and have unpredictable story lines (Autopsy Room 4, Riding the Bullet, In the Death Room, Everything's Eventual). A few seem a little bit stale or internally illogical (The Road Virus Heads North). That's the trouble with presenting a whole bunch of short stories, written at different times, in different times, for different formats (magazines, audio books, electronic download etc), in one volume - people are going to notice the quality variations (and some plot similarities!).

I don't scare very easily any more over ghouls, zombies and other supernatural beings - terrorism & violence in real world situations is more chilling - but I still had fun with this book.

Even if I'm not thrilled with a particular story by King, I still have great respect for his writing style and vivid imagery. This collection is no exception to that rule. As usual, his stories are very creative, even if a few of them don't have the most satisfying endings (maybe it's just me). There are only two real complaints I have. First, I had already heard four of these stories on tape or CD and had read two others in previous publications. Stephen King does say this in his introduction so he really is blameless but I was hoping for 14 stories I hadn't heard before. Second, in "Everything's Eventual," the title story, I would like to mention that UNM is in Albuquerque, not Las Cruces. NMSU is in Las Cruces. You're hearing that from an ex-NMSU student! He, he, he.

I think Stephen King writes best in short story form. Too often, his regular-sized novels get muddled halfway through the story, and I have a hard time figuring out the whys and wherefores. But with this book, he delivers crisp clear short stories that are totally enjoyable and even scary, which I find has been missing from most of his books in the past 10 years. I loved virtually every page of this book.

Stephen King is a master storyteller. I've always loved his ability to suck us into the minds and hearts of his characters. Usually, King will concentrate so deeply on these "inner views" that the pages roll by and his stories are long and involved. (Thanks, Steve).... In "Everything's Eventual", King brings us all the storytelling mastery to the short story. Its not all goulish and bloody. Some of these stories are scary on another, more personal, level. By the way, I cried my eyes out reading "The Man in the Black Suit" when a nine-year old boy describes a perfect moment in which he truly sees his mother as a woman and loves her all the more. I highly recommend this collection of stories.
PS. There's a little "Dark Tower" number included!! whee whoo!!

Great stuff as you come to expect from the Master. There were a couple that I found myself skimming through (gasp) and eventually skipping. But still a good noncommittal read like any short story collection.

That's how I felt after reading 14 of Stephen King's short stories.
Blah.
Most of his stories started off SLOW, which is understandable, because it takes a while to get to know the characters and figure out what is going on.
Then, most of his stories got GOOD, heck, even GREAT about halfway through. I love how he writes as if you're in the same room with him and he's TELLING you this story out loud, not just writing it. And to give credit where credit is due, he often has some interesting ways of describing things or different situations.
But what is up with his endings?! With such strong middle-sections I was expecting big-bang endings and all I got was a little puff of smoke. Some endings (like in the story 1408) were totally lost on me because the last sentence had almost nothing to do with the story in the first place.

If you want a collection of stories that get your hopes up and then dashes them against the rocks at the last second, then this book is for you. As for myself, I think I'll stick with an author who writes nothing BUT short stories . . . HARLAN ELLISON.

I had never read a Stephen King book before (go figure). I used to love the Alfred Hitchcock horror story collections. Decided to start with short stories by King before tackling a longer book. This book was a wonderful inroduction to Stephen King. Not all were spine tingling horror, but all were well written.

While this is not Stephen King's best collection of stories, on the strength of two stories in particular I can rate this as high as four stars. These two, originally appearing in The New Yorker, are, as one would hope, very well-written and compelling, especially "That Feeling, You Can Only Say it in French."

Unfortunately, some of the stories do not measure up to this. In the "Dark Tower" story, "Little Sisters of Eluria," odd, creepy things happen, but the story has no point. And for some reason, King violates the 'it was only a dream' rule not just once, but twice, in "Riding the Bullet" and "Luckey Quarter."

King presented in Everything's Eventual a fine collection of stories. Not all of them are scary, and you shouldn't read it with the perception of going to read a "scary book", but just without any expectations. And then you'll notice that some of the stories are pretty eerie... even worse then you might expect.

If you're not one of the Stephen King's "Constant Reader", this is a good book to start enjoying his writing. It's a compilation of so-called 'dark' tales, ranging from mysterious stories to sheer thrillers - the best picks from his short stories collections.
Different from a common writer, Stephen King does not like a plot at all, but he prefers to let the story grows at its own will - and most of the times, it ends at a totally different place from what he had in mind. And this is part of the excitement of reading his work. Read it for yourself - and be surprised at how the story goes and ends, while enjoying the growing thrills along the way.

I'll keep it brief. This is not a good book. King's stories are not very intriguing, and after each one, I kept hoping the next would be better-- never really happened. There are a couple that keep you turning the pages, but NONE that leave you with that satisfied feeling of having read something excellent. The best story, in my opinion, is "Riding the Bullet," but King released this one a while ago, and I had already read it.
I don't think anyone should make any profound statements about changes in the quality of King's writing-- every author has his/her good & bad books. This is just one of the bad ones.

I enjoyed this book more so than King's others because he doesn't spend the first 200 pages introducing his characters. He gets right to the story and devours your attention. No two stories are alike, it's hard to pick a favorite. King develops solid characters in a short period of time and gives the reader insight as to why or how he came upon his subject matter.

Make no mistake about this review, although it's not the highest I am a Stephen King fan and will more than likely read anything he puts out. This one has a few really good stories but for the most part it misses the mark. I can't recommend you buy it but you will definetely want to borrow a copy.

Very good book. Interesting tales, and I love the little blurbs by King before or after the stories that give a little background on the story itself. There are 2 maybe 3 'Great' stories in this collection, 4 or 5 'Pretty Good' stories and ther rest are just 'Enjoyable'. And if the WORST parts of something you read are "just enjoyable", then you're doing PRETTY darn GOOD. Read this. People have started to drift too far from being able to enjoy an anthology. This is a good one.

Everythings' Eventual by Stephen King is a great book. I have never really liked short stories in general but these are great. My favorite story was Autopsy Room Four, about a man who is paralyzed and they are about to cut him open. It is very intence. There are 14 great tales in this book and I would reccomend this book to anyone who likes Stephen King or anyone who likes frightening stories!

This is Stephen King's most well-rounded, streamlined collection of short fiction yet. All of the stories are quite good, and a few (The Road Virus Heads North, 1408, Riding the Bullet) are actually scary. I've been reading King for years, and although I have always greatly admired his craft, I kind of thought I had grown a bit too jaded to get freaked out like I used to when I was a young, impressionable neophyte and first read The Shining and 'Salem's Lot. I'm pleased to say, however, that a couple of these stories made me downright nervous. All of them are very cool. There's not a dud in the bunch. Get it, and read it late at night when everything is way too quiet.

Once again, King is at the top of his game! I really missed his short story works and this book brought me just what I needed. Everyone will have their favorites, for they are all gems in their own right. My personal favorites are "The Road Virus" (VERY creepy! I still can't get that painting out of my head!), "Everything's Eventual" (very interesting twist on the whole Firestarter concept...e-mail gone deadly), and "That Feeling..." (everyone has their own version of what "hell" must be like...it's interesting to see how King perceives it).
A MUST READ!!! If you haven't read King before, this book will get you hooked (and up late reading!) :)

Limiting my comments to the audio version of Everything's Eventual. Disappointment is one of the kinder words that comes to mind.
Given that Mr Kings own readings have been uniformly exceptional (with the Dark Tower series representing one of the finest pieces of imagination I've encountered), the current audio presentation is rather lacking. In fact, the reading of "The Sisters of Elyuria" is so bad I never finished listening. The reader sounds alot like my 10 year old having memorized something uninteresting for a school presentation.
Realizing that Mr. Kings time is likely his most valuable commodity, I hope his future audio releases include his own remarkable talent in this realm.
JSH

I am not a big fan of Stephen King novels. His long form books tend to be a bit tedious to read, in my humble opinion. However, the few short stories I had read by SK really impressed me, which led me to this book. After reading, and re-reading this collection, I can see where he gets his reputation as the Master. The short stories here are pure art, a form that gets rarer all the time. Do yourself a favor, pick up this book!

Stephen King's latest collection of short stories takes his Constant Readers from the sublime to the terrifying and never lets go at any point. King is a master of the short-story genre, his discipline and use of the form is the best. From his Dark Tower "prequel" story, "The Little Sisters of Eluria" to "Autopsy Room 4", to telling us about the good heart of John Dillenger, King keeps the pace going. The self-indulgence sometimes seen in King's full length novels is completely lacking here. He gives all for the reader. You can't read these stories quickly enough, yet, you can't slow down enough to savor their shivery sweet excellence. A must-read for King fans and fans of the psycho-horror and short story genre generally.

STEPHEN KING is, quite simply, a master storyteller, and this book, by no means, is the exception. After digesting a story you may kick back to reflect on your own life (for there are elements here that you may truly recognize within yourself), or sit up and take notice (because you have just had the bejesus scared out of you). Either way, you most certainly will be entertained.

I bought this book a few days ago, and I really could not put it down. Each story is different, and each one has its own creepy quality. I pretty much liked all of the stories and the weird twists in them, even Sisters of Eluria, which I did not expect to enjoy because I'm not really into that whole fantasy thing. Out of all the stories, I'd have to say my favorites were "The Man in the Black Suit," "Everything's Eventual," and "Riding the Bullet."
As a new reader (the only other book I've read of his is "Dreamcatcher"), I have never read any of these stories so it was like a new experience to me. They were all very good, and I commend King for his outstanding work.

The master story teller favors us with another collection of mini-yarns. Some are awesome, like the one in the title, and some just fall a little flat. A good read in general with a few hidden jewels. For the Dark Tower series fans, he has hidden a morsel of the gunslinger's past adventures in "The Little Sisters of Eluria", a really good one on it's own. I recommend this book to everyone, not only the die hard fans of Mr. King, but anyone who enjoys short stories.

That's the overwhelming feeling that comes thru in this collection of a decade's worth of shorter works. These are shorter entries but overall more satisfying than some of the author's longer works, recently published. The man can write. Enjoy it.

This book reminds me of one of those shows on the Discovery Channel about how things are made. King explains, in relatively short amounts of space, the genesis of each story. He doesn't try to explain how he actually chooses the words and puts the story together, which is good, because no amount of describing how to apply paint to canvas is going to make me a painter, but it's fascinating to know where he finds the ideas. The stories themselves are mostly good, better than I expected. I was just looking for something to pass the time on a hot afternoon, but the stories are more subtle and much more varied than I remember King's short fiction being. Overall this was a much better book than I thought it would be and I enjoyed reading it.

LT's Theory of Pets is reason enough to buy this (the CD is even better), although the Road Virus heads North is right up there too. Most reviewers have already given the stories' synopses so I'll just cut to the chase- King writes his best work in small doses (Skeleton Crew, Different Seasons) and these 2 stories are just some of his best.

For the first time in many years, I found myself having to slow down my pace reading Everything's Eventual. I just didn't want to finish, it was so good! I would have to stop from continuing on to the next gem after finishing each story.
Night Shift is one of my favorite short story collections by any author, but in my mind Everything's Eventual surpasses the quality of Night Shift by leaps and bounds.
The chilling 1408 is my current favorite, but I'm sure it will change as I re-read the collection.
Absolutely incredible!

I've been a fan of Stephen King for a few years now, and Everything's Eventual is the first collection of his short stories that I've read. I enjoyed them all, mostly because they were all good pieces of literature. I was waiting for King's short stories to scare the pants off me and haunt my dreams, but it never happened in any of the stories. Everything's Eventual was a great book, but it was missing the Stephen King scare-factor that I've come to know and love.

I am not much of a fiction reader (mostlty non-fiction)but I picked this up for light vacation reading. Was I pleasantly pleased! I have never read Stephen King before, but these shorts stories were worth every penny of the book price! Please get the book - you won't be disappointed!

This is some intense stuff. I picked this book up at midnight at a local bookstore and have been reading it all night. These stories are King at his prime. "Riding the Bullet" was my favorite. These are really dark tales - King's first release of 2002! Recommended.