Four Past Midnight
(Libby/OverDrive eBook)

Jet passengers are stuck in a time-slip, a psychopath accuses a writer of plagiarism, a man with an overdue book encounters a demonic librarian and a boy's camera snaps photos of a huge and nasty dog in these four horror novellas. According to PW , ``None is wildly scary, and only ``The Library Policeman'' offers King's typical, colloquial, hard-driving conversational style with its compulsive readability.'' (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

YA-- Like some denizen of the dark, King weaves a spell evoking terror and shivers as he takes readers on a nightmarish journey in this quartet of novellas. In ``Longoliers'' a group of airline passengers awake to an empty plane, and an empty world. They have become stuck in time, out of sync with the present at 20,000 feet. ``Secret Window, Secret Garden'' finds novelist Mort Rainey confronted by an eerie character who accuses him of plagiarism, and has come to settle up. In ``Sun Dog,'' Kevin Delevan gets exactly what he wanted for his 15th birthday, a Polaroid ``Sun 660'' camera, but every picture he takes shows a salivating ``hell hound'' getting closer and closer. In ``Library Policeman,'' the best of the four, Sam Peebles borrows two books from the library late one night, and the librarian warns him not to be late returning them. What Sam doesn't know is that she was a child murderer who committed suicide in 1960, and when he loses the books, her library policeman pays him a visit. Four Past Midnight is one of King's best recent works. It is hard to put down, truly chilling, and sure to be enjoyed by YA horror aficionados everywhere.-- John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A double-double Whopper hot from the grill of ""America's literary boogeyman,"" as he puts it in his introduction: four sizzling horror novellas sandwiched within the theme of ""Time. . .and the corrosive effects it can have on the human heart."" Sure, they're dripping with excess wordage and high-calorie sentiment, but cut away the fat and there's still more steak here than in any other horror book of the year. The premium cut sits on top: ""The Langoliers,"" whose wildly original premise--that a group of airline passengers travel a few minutes into the past to encounter the entities that eat Being, leaving Nothingness--unfolds in classic King fashion, with a psychic blind girl, a demented financier, a mystery writer, and a British spy awash in mounting suspense (why is the beer ""Flat! Flat as a pancake!""?; and what is that sound like ""Animals at feeding time"" at the place near the airport?). And if the entities turn out to be more whimsical than scary (""sort of like beachballs""), they bounce the tale into King's most upbeat ending ever, a rhapsodic celebration of life. Next comes ""Secret Window, Secret Garden,"" the most self-conscious novella of the four, a dour and tense reworking of Misery and The Dark Half. Here, the crazed fan of the former and the animus-made-flesh of the latter meld into the avenging figure of John Shooter, a failed writer who claims that top author Mort Rainey has stolen one of his stories. Or is Rainey only dreaming Shooter, as penance for a past sin? More inventive--and the scariest of the lot--is ""The Library Policeman,"" turbo-engined horror about a vampire of fear masquerading as a librarian; a subtext (and one graphic scene) of child sex-abuse hones the story into a modern morality tale. Last comes ""The Sun Dog,"" more gleefully splattery horror about the terrors of childhood, wherein a boy comes to own a Polaroid camera that takes pictures only of a menacing hound from hell. King says that"" 'The Sun Dog'. . .sets the stage"" for a ""long novel called Needful Things""--already written. The four novellas here, he confesses, were mostly written ""during the two years when I was supposedly retired."" Some people just don't know how to take a vacation--not that King's fans will mind: there's grand entertainment value here, reflected by the massive first printing of 1.5 million. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The self-described ``America's literary boogeyman'' here serves up four horror novellas; none is wildly scary, and only one offers King's typical, colloquial, hard-driving conversational style with its compulsive readability. A jumbo jet flies through a time-slip in The Langoliers . Marooned a few minutes in the past, a few surviving passengers try to get home . . . while off in the distance the langoliers, creatures (``sort of like beachballs'') who eat up time after it's been used, close in. In Misery -esque Secret Window, Secret Garden , a writer accused of plagiarism by a psychopath has an awful time trying to prove his innocence. The Library Policeman , the collection's standout, pits a middle-aged businessman with some overdue books against a demonic, life-sucking monster of a librarian. The Sun Dog features a boy's Polaroid camera, which, no matter where it is focused, takes pictures of a huge, mean and ugly dog. In each successive photo, the dog, slobbering and slavering, approaches the edge of the picture plane. There is an inappropriate abundance of heartwarming sentimentality here; where King used to slaughter the innocents with gleeful impunity, he now apologizes for the deed, and love will out. 1,500,000 first printing; $750,000 joint ad/promo with NAL's publication of The Dark Half; BOMC main selection. (Sept.) Copyright 1990 Cahners Business Information.

Jet passengers are stuck in a time-slip, a psychopath accuses a writer of plagiarism, a man with an overdue book encounters a demonic librarian and a boy's camera snaps photos of a huge and nasty dog in these four horror novellas. According to PW , ``None is wildly scary, and only ``The Library Policeman'' offers King's typical, colloquial, hard-driving conversational style with its compulsive readability.'' (Sept.) Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information.

YA-- Like some denizen of the dark, King weaves a spell evoking terror and shivers as he takes readers on a nightmarish journey in this quartet of novellas. In ``Longoliers'' a group of airline passengers awake to an empty plane, and an empty world. They have become stuck in time, out of sync with the present at 20,000 feet. ``Secret Window, Secret Garden'' finds novelist Mort Rainey confronted by an eerie character who accuses him of plagiarism, and has come to settle up. In ``Sun Dog,'' Kevin Delevan gets exactly what he wanted for his 15th birthday, a Polaroid ``Sun 660'' camera, but every picture he takes shows a salivating ``hell hound'' getting closer and closer. In ``Library Policeman,'' the best of the four, Sam Peebles borrows two books from the library late one night, and the librarian warns him not to be late returning them. What Sam doesn't know is that she was a child murderer who committed suicide in 1960, and when he loses the books, her library policeman pays him a visit. Four Past Midnight is one of King's best recent works. It is hard to put down, truly chilling, and sure to be enjoyed by YA horror aficionados everywhere.-- John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information.