Over the years, I've been one of King's greatest fans and fiercest critics. I think the last book of his I truly enjoyed was way back with Dolores Claiborne. And I definitely didn't enjoy the last short story collection he produced.
So I approached this one with some degree of trepidation. But, to my delight, within a few pages of the first story, I was absorbed. And I enjoyed every one of the four novellas/shorts in this collection. It seemed like a real callback to better days.
Under The Dome - Stephen King
2009 seems to have been a good year for King, because he also wrote this and, once again, it seemed like the old King resurfaced. There wasn't much that was new about the plot - King himself has revisited this one before, as did Star Trek in part in the sixties - but that didn't matter. Here was King doing what he does best - producing a set of characters so real, so complicated, who don't always do the right or smart or logical thing, that you are immediately invested in their fate and want to see them win out against the evil hounding them.
LabRat
Athos: If you'd told us what you were doing, we might have been able to plan this properly. Aramis: Yes, sorry. Athos: No, no, by all means, let's keep things suicidal.
