Title: Four Past Midnight
Author: Stephen King
Published Year: 1990
Pages: 744
Four Past Midnight is a collection of four novellas written by one of the masters of horror himself, Stephen King. This book includes the following novellas: "The Langoliers", "Secret Window, Secret Garden", "The Library Policeman", and "The Sun Dog". I do have to say that I enjoyed all four of the novellas and having novellas instead of one long book also helps when you don't exactly have the time to focus and read like I used to (don't worry, I am learning to adapt and will continue my reading adventures). Both "The Langoliers" and "Secret Window, Secret Garden" have both been made into silver screen editions (i.e. tv miniseries for the first and an actual full-length feature film for the latter). An extra bonus for this book is that for each selection King has a sort of introduction to each one explaining some of the thought behind each one.
"The Langoliers" may sound familiar to those of you who have watched Stephen King's works come to life on television and in film. Before I read as many of his books that I have as of present I found this on the sy-fy channel one day and decided to watch it. I didn't expect the mini-series to be as long as it was, and now after reading the actual novella I can understand why. There is a lot of action packed in the over 200 pages of writing, and most of it can actual be found in the mini-series edition too. I won't give away any surprises, but there are some things that differ between the two which is a common theme in most books that have been adapted for film or television, anyways onto the actual story. In this particular story we follow the story of people that suddenly wake up on a plane only to find that most of the passengers are missing, yet they have all left things behind that should not have been including such things as pace makers and teeth fillings just to give you an idea. Luckily for the people on the plane one of the people that is left is a pilot so the plane is able to fly. Also on the plane is one man who does not want to go along with the others and is personally fighting some inner demons of his own throughout the story. The story follows the group's realization of what kind of situation they are in and how they handle it. Not only is there conflict with the paranormal, but the passengers on the plane itself have to deal with conflict among the group. The paranormal part comes from what is the thing that made the passengers disappear and the airport they arrive at look like a ghost town. I personally like the story better than the mini-series adaptation since there is more character development and a whole different twist presented.
In "Secret Window, Secret Garden" the reader follows the conflict that an author has with another man that claims the author stole one of his stories. This one was made into a feature length film titled "Secret Window" which is an average movie based on my opinion. After reading this I am going to re-watch the movie and see how it compares. At the time I watched the movie I did not know it was based on this novella, and now my curiosity is sparked to see how well the two relate to each other. Not only does the author that is the main character have to deal with this conflict of being accused of stealing a story, but he also goes through his thoughts and feelings of dealing with his ex-wife since they are now divorced but they haven't completely separated their lives from each other along with their personal belongings. He also deals with an internal conflict with himself trying to determine whether or not he is going crazy and whether or not he is making up or hallucinating the man that claims the author stole his story. Lots of conflict in a novella and twists and turns makes this story intriguing and I personally did not want to stop reading it once I got into it.
"The Library Policeman" has got to be my favorite out of these four stories. Maybe its just the book nut in me, but I could actually place myself in the story and understand what the characters were going through. In this story, the library policeman is story that is used to get kids to return their books to the library on time and in a good condition on top of that. The story goes that if a kid (or in this case, an adult) does not turn their library books in on time, the library policeman will come after them and its not a nice policeman at that. Sam the main character in this novella forgets to turn his books in on time and the library policeman comes after him. Not only does he have to deal with this menacing other-worldly being, he has also ran into the old librarian at his small town librarian who has her own evil agenda. I won't spoil it by stating what this agenda is, or how it all fits together, you'll have to read the story to find out. I spent a lot of time at the small town library in the town I lived in where I grew up. I was at the library easily at least once a week, and I could picture the events in this novella taking place in the small town I grew up in. Any story that I can really identify with gets and extra brownie point with me.
Castle Rock is a primary town in many of Stephen King's works, not only in novellas like this one, but also in his short stories and full length novels. "Sun Dog" is one of these works that takes place in this fictional town of his. As mention in King's introduction to his story, this one takes place before the full length novel of Needful Things. I personally love how King is able to take and intertwine many of his stories and bring them into each other at points too. For this novella, it follows the story of Kevin who is just celebrating his 15th birthday at the beginning of the story. Kevin receives a Polaroid camera for his birthday, but there is something weird with the camera. He takes it to the local guy in town who is a sort of tinker, and the story just keeps getting stranger and stranger from there. This camera does not produce the picture you are taking, but of a different time and each one advances in time with each picture taken. Preventing the beast from coming out of the picture becomes a life and death struggle for Kevin and his dad. The whole time I was reading this story I kept thinking of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps: Say Cheese and Die! book, but I am pretty sure that this came out before that one, and this one is directed at an older age group as well.
So as a wrap up, this selection includes plenty of twists and turns and a bit of terror along the way. Its not something that will keep me up at night, but will keep me thinking long after I put the book down and start on whichever one I pick up next.
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