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Skeleton Crew by Stephen King

3 reviews

bookbelle5_17's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Review of Skeleton Crew

By: Stephen King

This is one of King’s collections of short stories, though some of them aren’t that short, starting with The Mist. Like most collections I liked some stories more than others and the collection had a mixture of creepy as well as fun concepts, but some were meh. It does demonstrate that King isn’t just a horror writer, but good character writer and is able to write in other genres. I enjoyed The Jaunt, a science fiction story, about a machine that’s like the Transporters in Star Trek, but instead of looking at as a cool advancement it shows the risks involved. Another favorite is “The Monkey” where a toy monkey decides people’s fates. I love the idea of a toy being a threat and how possibly our protagonist might be crazy. The “Word Processor of the Gods” is about a man being given a whole made word processor from his nephew, which can delete and return people. This begs the question of what you would you do this situation. “Gramma” is about a boy who fears being alone his dying his grandmother. It is relatable with the discomfort of having to taking care of your grandparents as the grow old and become cranky and irritable. Some of the stories left me confused or unsatisfied like “Here There be Tygers”, “The Wedding Gig”, and “Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game”. I must admit I had to look up other’s reviews just to see what happened in “Morning Deliveries”. “The Raft”, “Nona”, and “Uncle Otto’s Truck” were unsettling and creepy while “Beachworld” and “The Reach” were boring for me. “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet” deals with a favorite theme of mine, which is a character losing their mind. Even with the boring stories he writes authentic characters that feel real. With his shorter works King is blunt in a more instantaneous with the horror because the length of the stories is shorter, so he doesn’t take as much time to get to know the characters and build towards the horror when it’s there, though not all the stories have horror elements, or the horror is subtle. Of course, he has characters that are alcoholics, cocaine addicts, and writers. Each of these stories have something of King’s usual uncomfortable content like villains, or unlikable characters, being described as fat in a grotesque way and men with vulgar minds. And of course, the females are overly sexy, mean, or too passive, which is a downside of some of his work. This collection was just okay, but I did like some of the stories, so I’m content with my reading experience.

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bruinrocks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This collection of short stories started off real strong with some of Stephen King’s most atmospheric stories with characters that I found I cared for and wondered what would happen to them as the stories went on. As I neared the end I found the stories to start becoming a little nonsensical and I had a hard time following that last 5-6 stories. Some of the standouts were The Raft, one of King’s most claustrophobic stories, 4 kids stuck on a raft, a monster lurks in the water, what will become of them? The Monkey was another really strong one that was very unsettling and creepy, a monkey that bangs cymbals, each time he does bad things happen, read it to find out what. Survivor Type, King’s most grisly story, a man stuck on a pile of rocks in the middle of the ocean with no means of escape or hope for help, hunger sets in, how hungry can a man get? Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut, a beautiful imaginative romp through a mysterious world, finding ways to get from Point A to Point B in the shortest way possible, but is it really possible? The Jaunt, King’s version of a space sci-fi, jump on the Jaunt and have a look for yourself.

I’d recommend this collection to any fan of Stephen King, and anyone looking for some grisly and atmospheric horror stories. Not for the ones with a weak stomach, this collection gets messy.

Overall I give this collection a 3/5. The performances were exceptional some really good narration in this collection, with only a few weak ones sprinkled throughout. The writing of the stories varied in quality with some of King’s best work, but also some of his worst, with the last 5-6 stories being fairly uninteresting and hard to follow.

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_penny_'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

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