Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King **Introduction** If I had to name some things other than family that had been a constant part of my life I would be hard pressed to come up with a list of answers. Posessions break or become surplus to requirement, people come and go and personal circumstances inevitably change. Reading has always been a big part of my life, I was introduced to the delights a good book could offer at a very early age so I suppose I could add reading to my imaginary 'constants list'. Stephen King by default therefore features on my list too having read every single book he has ever written in my time and like a good friend has been ...  Read the complete review

Well, I've finally read Stephen King's latest book, unless he's managed to sneak another in while I've waited to get to this one. Published in 2010 I imagine he's working on another even as I write this, he is still my favourite writer and I like to think I know a few of his writing tricks by now. The clues are there for anyone to see if they look hard enough, he often writes them into his stories. So when I read 'Under the Dome' I knew a book of novellas would soon follow. This time the critics seem to have come down on the right side of the reviews, with many saying it's one of his best and darkest books yet. I don't know about the latter, I've been in some ...  Read the complete review

the thing I like about Stephen King is that, although he writes in a relatively small genre (horror/ psychological thrillers) he always finds new ways to tell old stories; unlike some other genre authors, (...Dean Koontz...ahem) you never feel he is phoning in any of his stories, despite his longevity. Some of my favourite King stories come from his novellas, and this book is no different. It features four novellas, of varying length and quality, but all with the same underlying theme; what would an ordinary person do in an extraordinary situation? would you do the same? Do we all have a darker, inner person that comes to the surface sometimes? . Its a great ...  Read the complete review

Stephen King has been on something of a roll recently, turning out a series of books which in terms of quality, match those of his earliest efforts. As noted in my previous reviews of King's recent works, his shift away from supernatural to psychological horror has proved fruitful, breathing new life into an author who in the mid-late 90s seemed to be running out of steam. This run of form continues with Full Dark, No Stars, itself a further departure from the author's recent offerings. It contains four stories - each longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella (making them somewhat hard to describe!). In some ways, this is possibly the hardest ...  Read the complete review

I eagerly anticipate the release of any Stephen King book and this one was no exception. I bought it the day it was released and had finished it within the week. So... 'Full Dark, No Stars' is made up of four 'novellas,' or long-short stories. Until I read short stories by Stephen King I was not a fan, however his take on them has definitely turned me. The length of all four stories in this book seems just right to me-not so long that you get bored, but long enough to give you a feel of each charcter and allow you to become involved with the story. I found myself immersed in them straight away. Although Stephen King is known as predominantly a horror ...  Read the complete review