Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales

by Stephen King

Book Overview

Includes the story "The Man in the Black Suit"--set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine A collection of 14 dark tales, Everything's Eventual includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four stories published by The New Yorker , and "Riding the Bullet," King's original ebook, which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade. Two of the stories, "The Little Sisters of Eluria"...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743235150
• ISBN13: 9780743235150
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Condition not "very good"

This book is excellent, I read it years ago & wanted a hardcover copy. However I'm very disappointed with what I received. While the pages themselves are in good condition, the book itself has seen better days. I really wish I could post pictures to reviews as this is what I would expect an acceptable to good book to look like. It's without a slip, dented, has black scratches on both sides & brown stains at one end.(possibly coffee?) Not thrilled with this one at all.

Amazing book

Probably my favorite of King’s collection books

King's Most Rewarding Collection

The introductory essay on short story-writing is worth the price of this collection alone; fans of King's "On Writing" book will want to pick this up for that reason. General fiction fans may find the O. Henry-winning story "The Man in the Black Suit" to their tastes, while more diehard fans will delight over the "Dark Tower" novella included. Add to that the short story "1408" (the basis for the John Cusack movie) and other rare King bits such as the eBook-only "Riding the Bullet" and you have King's most consistent collection to date...until his next one is released in Fall 2008, of course. NOTE: This "movie tie-in" version (for the "1408" adaptation) does not include any new material; it is simply a new printing of the same collection that was originally published in 2001.

Best collection IN YEARS!!!

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!

I went to war with King's twisted mind and lost.......again!

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

Why King is "King"

I've been a Stephen King fan for many years. His ability to make the most mundance events or setting terrifying, and his keen grasp of human nature and human foibles place him near the top in pure literary genius. That he happens to write horror is only incidental, and in a way unfortunate, for the mass market appeal of his novels and stories has prevented King receiving due credit as one of the great American writers of modern times.Perhaps King's legacy will begin to change with "Everything's Eventual". This is an eclectic and versatile collection of short stories, in which his talents are generously displayed. It has been a while since I've read Stephen King, and I couldn't help but notice a subtle change in style - a melancholly wisdom and maturity I've overlooked in any of King's earlier works. "All that you Love Will be Carried Away" is a beautifully sad, yet darkly humorous story that captures this theme of resigned fatalism. "The Man in the Black Suit", while as terrifying a story as King has ever writen, has a depth and moral undertone that transcends King's familiar "Good vs. Evil" story line. For shear gut-turning terror, it doesn't get much better than "Autopsy Room Four": leave it to King to have the reader not wanting to turn the page, yet unable to overcome the morbid curiosity, while at the same time finding humor in an autopsy about to be performed on a very-much-alive patient. "The Death of Jack Hamilton" tells a tale of the John Derringer gang, and "In the Deathroom" finds an American reporter caught in a brutal in a south American interrogation chamber. "The Road Virus Heads North" is told from the roughly autobiographical viewpoint that King does so well, and who but King could make even a yard sale ominous? There isn't a bad story in the lot, though I found "The Little Sisters of Eluria" playing on themes a bit too familiar. But I suspect diehard "Dark Tower" fans may find it one of the best in the collection. Other tales of divorce and marriages gone bad, a sinister conspiracy, and a haunted hotel room reflect classic King morbidness, yet also build on this deeper, philosophical undercurrent.Each story is either introduced or closed with a brief vignette by King. While typically I find editorial inserts annoying, In "Eventual" I found them interesting and instrumental to the overall success and flow of the book. In summary, a must read for Stephen King fans, and a great way for the unintiated to get introduced to him.

One of King's very BEST: 14 dark tale gems

If a hideous monster with an evil leer and razor sharp teeth tore Stephen King apart limb-from-limb, Everything's Eventual would go down as one of the FINEST works of his life. Quite often authors, singers, writers and performers fall into a rut, repeating themselves until they unwittingly almost become parodies of their own successful styles. They stop growing and mark time (while collecting the $$$). You CANNOT say that about Stephen King in Everything's Eventual. In this book of 14 highly-polished little literary gems you can SEE how he has expanded on his huge talents and advanced his art. Some of the stories are more-or-less horror stories. Others don't quite fall into that classification. But not a single one of them is stale. For instance Autopsy Room Four is a modern-day twist on the Hitchock-type tale of a man who's alive and considered dead. I'm NOT giving anything away by telling you that -- and as soon as you read it you'll howl with delight at the surprise ending (there are almost two endings to this story and both are a great). King's stories move like guided missiles, climbing to new heights in plot and style, swerving in brand-new twists (funny and sad) -- and all the while he seems to be (respectfully) playing with the genre he has helped to popularize. If you ever thought King was repeating himself rest assured: he does NOT here. I love short stories and this is now my most prized collection (I will NEVER sell it or lend it...but I WILL re-read it). Without listing them all, my favorites here include the book's title story, Everything's Eventual (a tale about a 14-year-old with an unusual talent; his narrative from the kid'spoint of view sounds JUST like a 14-year-old I know...King gets inside the kid's head); The Death of Jack Hamilton (about gangster John Dillinger); In the Deathroom (a story about a captive with a twist with a great ending); LT's Theory of Pets (do you laugh or cry...or both?); the Road Virus Heads North (classic suspense from start to finish); Lunch at the Gotham Cafe (he got the idea seeing a couple argue at a cafe); and 1408 (offspring of The Shining?). King explains along with each story how he got the idea and/or why he decided to end it the way he did. The bottom line: Everything's Eventual is a page-turner and one the BEST short story collections you will ever read.