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Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Volume I
Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Volume I
Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Volume I
Audiobook9 hours

Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Volume I

Written by Stephen King

Narrated by Stephen King, Kathy Bates, Matthew Broderick and

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

A star-studded cast of readers present unabridged tales of horror and suspense from Stephen King’s classic bestselling short story collection.

Stories include:
Introduction (Stephen King)
Suffer the Little Children (Whoopi Goldberg)
Crouch End (Tim Curry)
Rainy Season (Yeardley Smith)
Dolan’s Cadillac (Rob Lowe)
The House on Maple St. (Tabitha King)
Umney’s Last Case (Robert B. Parker)
Head Down (Stephen King)
Brooklyn August (Stephen J. Gould)
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 17, 2009
ISBN9780743583367
Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Volume I
Author

Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is the book that makes me question whether Stephen King isn't better at writing short stories than novels. There are twenty-four pieces, all told, and they're wildly varied- with not a single clunker present. King is in rare form, in fact, and occasionally takes some horrible premise - especially in the cases of 'Chattery Teeth' and 'The Moving Finger,' either one of which could have turned out like some R.L. Stine Goosebumps fare - and spins it into a screamer. The best pieces aren't horror at all, though- 'Head Down' (a non-fiction piece originally published in The New Yorker) immortalizes the triumphs and heartbreaks of Owen King's Little League team over the summer of '89, perfectly capturing a moment in time, and 'My Pretty Pony,' which was salvaged from a Bachman novel that didn't quite pan out, possesses a truly painful beauty and is one of the very best short fictions I've ever read.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Stephen King is a much better short story writer than novelist. In On Writing, he explained that he opposes what he calls "plotting," by which he basically means figuring out ahead of time where the story is going---which explains why the longer the work of his, the weaker (if not outright awful) the ending tends to be.His short stories tend not to suffer from this problem, both because plot is not as crucial to a good short story as it usually is to longer literary forms; and because, where it is important, structuring a shorter piece does not seem to overtax his ability like a novel does.There is a more serious dimension to many of King's stories than one might expect, and I like that about them. For one thing, there is a strong moral sensibility to his writing, and while I disagree with this moral sensibility (it being strongly informed by his Methodist upbringing), I like the fact that it's there at all. Too many writers these days are amoralists, whether explicitly or by omission, so it's somewhat refreshing to read a collection of stories that contains a little moralizing (though it's usually pretty subtle, almost more a mood pervading the piece than an obvious point to the story).Another thing I like very much about King's writing is the sort of self-reflective nature of it, the examination of what it is that a writer is doing as an artist---namely, recreating the universe in his own image. This comes across most strongly here in the story "Umney's Last Case" (though King has dealt with it explicitly elsewhere as well, notably in The Dark Tower series). But the implication is present in the rest of the collection, growing out of the interconnectedness of detail and the integrity of style, which communicate the feeling that all of the characters in all of these stories inhabit the same world, and that it's Stephen King's world, a fact of which he is well aware and wants his readers to be aware, as well.Several of the stories here are attempts to utilize the style of other writers, such as H. P. Lovecraft in "Crouch End" and Arthur Conan Doyle in "The Doctor's Case". These attempts are surprisingly successful. "The Doctor's Case", for instance, is a Sherlock Holmes story in which Watson solves the case---a twist that Conan Doyle himself may never have employed, but which King manages to pull off very much in the spirit of the original Holmes stories. At the same time, King makes these stories his own, bringing them into his own artistic vision.There are several stories here that are basically adult versions of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark---stories about downpours of carnivorous toads, incredibly long fingers poking out of bathroom sink drains, and chattery teeth with a will of their own---but even these are pretty fun because King does not take them too seriously, but is perfectly aware of their absurdity and tells them with tongue slightly in cheek. If he tried playing them completely straight, the readers' ability to suspend their disbelief would become a real problem. Thankfully, he does not.Finally, there is a non-fiction piece about little league baseball, to which King brings his fiction writer's sensibility and makes it surprisingly suspenseful, and meaningful.All in all, a solid collection of work, and probably one of King's best books.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is King’s third short story collection, mostly assembling stories he’d written in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s since the publication of his last collection, Skeleton Crew, but also containing a few bits and pieces from the ‘70s and some unpublished work.I was wary of this one, because circa 1990 is when King started to show sings of decline – and also because his story in Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse was absolutely terrible and actually dated from 1986, which throws my whole concept of King’s decline out of whack. But anyway. This was for the most part a decent collection with. My two favourites were ‘Chattery Teeth,’ about a travelling salesman in the deserts of the south-west, which was one of those moments King hits a pitch perfect note on setting and character, and also looked like it was going to be a very different horror story from what I’d imagined (but then was the original idea after all); and ‘The Moving Finger,’ about a mild-mannered man who suddenly finds a wiggling human finger impossibly sticking out of his bathroom sink plughole.Some of the others are hit and miss. ‘Crouch End’ is a Lovecraftian tale about two American tourists who stumble into an ancient, eldritch part of London. The part told from the tourists’ perspective is great, but the other half of the story follows two local policeman. King is apparently unaware that American and British culture are, relatively speaking, almost identical, and their dialogue is overflowing with English slang – “Pull the other one,” “a swatch of the old whole cloth,” Give us a fag, mate,” “doddy old prat,” etc. Similarly, ‘Home Delivery’ is a good zombie story on a remote Maine island, with feelings of isolation that are simultaneously uneasy yet (given the state of the world) reassuring. King ruins this atmosphere with an interlude from the spaceship sent to investigate the orbiting alien craft creating the undead, which ends with a cliched scrambled radio transmisison as everything goes to shit, and is irritatingly narrated with calm detachment by the comic British professor figure attached to the mission. And then there’s a pretty bad story called ‘Dedication’ which bothered me not for the fact that it involves a black hotel maid eating semen off the bedsheets of a wealthy guest as part of a voodoo ritual, but more for the uncomfortable way King regularly portrays black characters, up to and including phonetic spelling for their dialogue.The collection gets more experimental towards the end – there’s a Bachman-style crime caper, a Sherlock Holmes story (which is surprisingly not bad, given how badly King fumbled in ‘Crouch End’ when portraying those exotic, bizarre, non-American people known as the English) and a Raymond Chandler pastiche called ‘Umney’s Last Case’ which also has its own Stephen King twist, and which he says is his favourite story in the collection. Then there’s a fairly long non-fiction piece about a Little League team making it to the finals, which bored me the same way the movie Field of Dreams did – I assume if you’re not American, you just can’t understand. The book wraps up with a poem about baseball and an old Hindu fable.Nightmares and Dreamscapes also has (and I think all short fiction collections should) a section of author notes at the back for most of the stories, describing their genesis and original publication and what King thinks of them. These were always interesting to read, if a little confusing sometimes – in the notes for ‘The Moving Finger,’ for instance, King says, “My favourite sort of short story has always been the kind where things happen just because they happen… I hate explaining why things happen.” This, from the writer who ruined more than one perfectly creepy story in Night Shift by explaining various frightening things as being caused by Satanic witchcraft rituals.Overall, this is certainly the least of the three Stephen King short story anthologies I’ve read, but for the most part I enjoyed it and it was worth reading.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Indeholder "Introduction", "Dolan's Cadillac", "The End of the Whole Mess", "Suffer the Little Children", "The Night Flier", "Popsy", "It Grows on You", "Chattery Teeth", "Dedication", "The Moving Finger", "Sneakers", "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band", "Home Delivery", "Rainy Season", "My Pretty Pony", "Sorry, Right Number", "The Ten O' Clock People", "Crouch End", "The House on Maple Street", "The Fifth Quarter", "The Doctor's Case", "Umney's Last Case", "Head Down", "Brooklyn August", "Notes"."Introduction" handler om ???"Dolan's Cadillac" handler om ???"The End of the Whole Mess" handler om ???"Suffer the Little Children" handler om ???"The Night Flier" handler om ???"Popsy" handler om ???"It Grows on You" handler om ???"Chattery Teeth" handler om ???"Dedication" handler om ???"The Moving Finger" handler om ???"Sneakers" handler om ???"You Know They Got a Hell of a Band" handler om ???"Home Delivery" handler om ???"Rainy Season" handler om ???"My Pretty Pony" handler om ???"Sorry, Right Number" handler om ???"The Ten O' Clock People" handler om ???"Crouch End" handler om ???"The House on Maple Street" handler om ???"The Fifth Quarter" handler om ???"The Doctor's Case" handler om ???"Umney's Last Case" handler om ???"Head Down" handler om ???"Brooklyn August" handler om ???"Notes" handler om ???

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The most interesting thing about this book is that I was arrested while reading it.A collection of mediocre stories. He's improved since his previous collection, Skeleton Crew, and here he never descends to the dire awfulness of some of those stories, but there's nothing here that really stands out. Many of the stories are marred by tedium or silliness.That said, when you're in a cell for 15 hours you're grateful for an undemanding read. It gets an extra star from me for that reason.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I love short stories and I grew up with Stephen King's shorts. I still remember the "Quantum Leap" episode based on King. King has the ability to bring me that warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of my stomach. His prose somehow seems antiquated, as if you were being taken back to the rural past (of perhaps 40 years ago) where lonesomeness takes on an evil life of it's own. Here are 23 of King's short stories. The most memorable for me are "The Night Flier", which the vampire afficianados will suck up, and "The Moving Finger". "The Moving Finger" could be the King story that has subconsciously affected me the most. I cannot wash my hands in a bathroom or kitchen sink without thinking of this story and that damned daemonic finger. That's why I'm always sure to have on my person a sharp pocket knife. *Laughs hysterically*
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another book by 'The King' of horror that you won't want to read alone on a cold, dark night.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book of Stephen King's short stories was not up to my epectations. It seemed very different, and apart, from his others and the formats of the stories and the way they were written did not strike chords in me like his other collections did. Although it was generally a disappointment, there were a couple stories which maintained my interest all the way through. Nevertheless, for the most part it was a letdown.2 stars.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Stephen King's 'Nightmares and Dreamscapes' treasurechest of short stories contains a few rare gems, some gold coins and unfortunately also a few wooden nickles.It's good quality wood, but some of these stories pale in comparison to the gems. These stand out as works of beauty, showcasing King's ability to draw the reader in. In contrast, stories like 'The House on Maple Street' and 'You know they got one hell of a band' just fall short. All in all a very enjoyable variety of stories, with some more inspiring than others.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    At 692 pages, "Nightmares & Dreamscapes" is a doorstopper of a book. I planned to read it a story at a time over a period of weeks, but as usual got hooked on King and read it straight through, right from his usual folksy introduction (each of which I am sure he writes solely for me!) to the charming little moral folktale tacked on at the end. The stories are to say the least, diverse. I would call this collection "King's Scrapbook. There are 20 stories in "Nightmares & Dreamscapes". I don't think many readers will like ALL of the stories, but there are such a variety, that most of the readers will like SOME of the stories, and some will like MOST of the stories. Chances are everyone will find one or two that will stay with them forever.

    "A really good collection of short stories by the 'fearmister" himself.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A fairly good compilation of stories by Stephen King. Some of them (Night Flier, Ten O'Clock People) work better than others (The Moving Finger, It Grows on You). Surprisingly, my favorite story was the completely out-of-character "Head Down" which followed a little league team during a championship season.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    At nearly seven hundred pages, Nightmares and Dreamscapes is quite large for a single author collection. And its contents are varied. King delivers suspense, crime fiction that would be at home in the Hard Case series, non-fiction sports writing, a poem, a fable, a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, 'pure' drama, a final visit to Castle Rock and, of course, the horror he is most famous for.The diversity makes the book seem less focused than his earlier collections, Night Shift and Skeleton Crew, but it keeps this long collection from feeling repetitive. I would recommend both of those older collections ahead of this one (though Night Shift is only slightly ahead of it), but this is not an also-ran collection. There are some real gems here. I especially liked 'Dolan's Cadillac', 'The Night Flier', 'The Moving Finger', 'Rainy Season', 'Crouch End' and 'Umney's Last Case'.As usual, I enjoyed King's Introduction and end Notes section (where he discusses what inspired some of the stories, or just gives interesting factoids about them) as much as I enjoyed the stories themselves. I found myself wishing he had included a note for each story.A good, solid collection. Not as strong as Skeleton Crew and less focused than Night Shift, but worth a read for sure.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Not destined to be a classic, but still a very readable collection and a fun way to pass the afternoon. King's short stories are more or less always reliable. I am absurdly fond of "The Ten O'Clock People," which is kind of a silly story when you think about it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A collection of horror stories by the matster. Not as focused as his precious anthologies, N&D has something for everybody.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of my favourite short story compilations. "Take my hand. Hold on tight, and believe" Dolan's Cadillac, Popsy, Chattery Teeth...
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A collection of twenty short stories, one miniature screenplay, one long essay, and one poem. I have to confess that I didn't finish the essay. It's about little league baseball, and I'm sure it's fine if that's something you're interested in, but I personally have trouble imagining a subject I'd find more tedious. As for the stories, with the exception of one or two clunkers they were readable enough, falling somewhere in the okay to pretty good range, but as a whole they lack the polished creepiness that generally marks King's best work. They certainly lack the surprising, insightful poignancy of "The Body," which I'm fully prepared to call the best thing he's ever written, never mind the fact that I haven't actually read everything he's ever written. There's a story or two in here where he might be attempting something similar, but those are infinitely less successful. Quite a few of the stories do feature some interesting, imaginative central conceit -- a pair of wind-up novelty teeth with a will of their own, a human finger poking inexplicably out of a bathroom drain, a small town populated by dead rock stars -- that make them quite entertaining, anyway. Others... really don't.Overall, I'm not sorry to have read it, and, at 700 pages, it went surprisingly fast. But it never quite delivered the pleasant pre-Halloween chills I was hoping for.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A real box of SK gems, with a couple of duds just to keep you going.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The allure for this short story collection was that it was narrated by a cast of marvelous actors and actresses. Tim Curry, Whoopi Goldberg, Rob Lowe, Gary Sinese, Jerry Garcia, and more narrate this haunting and poetic short story collection by the master of horror. Some were doozies but others were utterly captivating. "Dolan's Cadillac" and "The End of the Whole Mess" were two of my favorites in this large collection. Overall a great read for fans of horror and Stephen King. Perhaps not his best short story collection, but readers will be sure to unearth a few gems that they won't soon forget.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A few good stories, ruined by weird music and terrible narration.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Stephen King puts together another great collection of stories to keep you up at night!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Here's another enjoyable collection from Stephen King. I prefer his short fiction over his longer works, and this book was a worthwhile read for me. Though some stories weren't quite to my taste, several stood out for me: "The House on Maple Street," "Sneakers,""The Night Flier," "Popsy" and "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band" was fascinating but quite frightening. My favorite in the collection has to be "Sorry, Right Number," which was both eerie and heartbreaking.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    There's a variety in this collection in addition to short stories, including an essay, a poem and a reimagined Hindu parable.Some of my favorite stories are "The Night Flier," "The Moving Finger," "Umney's Last Case" and "The Ten O'clock People."