Four Past Midnight Hardcover – 27 Sep 1990

4 seperate stories:
1. The Langoliers. This one was my favorite. Its haunting as hell and will keep you hooked until the end. Of course almost everybody has seen the made for tv movie but its a great read even if you have seen the movie. As with all Stephen King the characters are very believable.
2. Secret Window. My third favorite. There are a lot of notable variations between the book and the movie, some not for the better but otherwise the story was excellent. Get ready for a wild ride into the human mind.
3. The Library Policeman. My second favorite. This was an intense and exciting tale of seeing your childhood fears as an adult. Twisted and might even put a sentimental lump in your throat.
4. The Sun Dog. My least favorite. This one seems to be Kings attempt at a quick page filler. Seemed like amature writing at best. Very disapointed he saved this one until last. The plot was so rediculous i had to force myself to finish it.

The collection as a whole, minus The Sun Dog, was a King must read. I would have given 5 stars without the last story but its there. But even so if you are a King fan then you need to check out thos collection.

Four Past Midnight
By Stephen King
Genre: Horror

I’m not really a fan of short story anthologies. So why buy a short story anthology? Wasn’t paying attention and bought it thinking it was one story.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Stephen King. He is one of only four writers I would call my favorites. So, even after I realized my mistake, I read the book.

FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT is a collection of four short stories written by the incomparable Stephen King.

• Story number 1, THE LANGOLIERS, I’ve read before and seen the movie. It’s great! It’s a scrape-your-fingernails-along-the-arm-of-your-chair kind of story. A real white knuckler, if there ever was one. Strange rolly-poly, furry, nothing-but-teeth demon creatures are eating the world and all those left in it! I love it.

• Story number 2, SECRET WINDOW, SECRET GARDEN, is about fiction writer Mort Rainey whose wife is a cheat, whose life is a mess and whose idyllic get-away turns out to be a really bad place to be when a stranger named Shooter shows up and accuses him of plagiarism. To prove to Mort that he’s not fooling around, Shooter kills Mort’s dog with a screwdriver and then uses that same tool to make Swiss Cheese out of another man’s brain. This guy is seriously crazy and Mort’s not too far from being the same. It’s an okay story…but left me feeling kind of…sigh. Do you know what I mean? This one fell flat for me.

• Story number 3, THE LIBRARY POLICEMAN, is just…weird. Sam borrows books from the local public library (not realizing when he walked through the doors he stepped back into the 60’s and was met there by a truly demonic librarian). When the books come due, he’s confronted by the Library Policeman who brings back some horrific memories from Sam’s past and some brand-new horror to deal with. This one was more exciting for me than SECRET WINDOW… but, still, not what I would consider King’s best.

• Story number 4, THE SUN DOG, is true STEPHEN KING HORROR. Young Kevin gets a polaroid camera for his birthday. His first shot though—a family pic—doesn’t develop. What does is a picture of a dog walking by a fence. Kevin tries again, and again and again. Every picture is of the same dog. Kevin soon realizes when he takes in the scope of all the pictures together that the dog is moving along the fence and getting closer and closer to the cameraman—him! Before long, the dog will attack and the true terror begins! Some of the characters in Sun Dog will appear later in Needful Things—one of King’s most horrifying stories. I loved Sun Dog and when I was through with FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT I was still hungry for the scare… so I re-read Needful Things!

Not bad—for an anthology—after all!

I enjoyed these stories very much, indeed. They all captured my interest very quickly, and held it to the very end. These are the types of tales- not too long and not too short- where Stephen King really shines.

It has always amazed me how he is able to turn nothing into something- how he is able to take the slimmest of plot lines, the barest of ideas, and create something very interesting and fun out of it.

My only complaint isn't really even a complaint, it's more a source of fascination. His ability to take themes which, looked at from a distance, are really quite juvenile and spin them into something suspenseful and mysterious and mature is a source of fascination in and of itself. I mean Library Policemen? A possessed camera? A time-warp in the sky? I mean come on. And, yet, I was easily able to suspend disbelief.

It's fascinating to watch such things develop and unfold. And it's great fun to experience them and witness the mystery.

The one exception to a borderline-juvenile story was Secret Window, Secret Garden. That one was very adult, and, in my opinion, the creepiest. This is because it dealt with a very real and very scary idea- losing one's mind in the worst way, all the way into the realm of violent paranoid schizophrenia.

Stephen King is one of my all-time favorite authors and this was one of my favorite compilations which I'd read not long after it was published in hardback. Years later, I still really enjoyed how King's take on time travel and using air travel to demonstrate it was brilliant. After rereading "Secret Window" and "The Library Policeman", I actually found that I liked them more than I did when I read them previously. The twist at the end of "Secret Window" was great. I've never seen the movie adaptation and now I'm curious to see how it translates onto film. "The Library Policeman" was a good combination of monsters and playing on old childhood fears. The only story out of the four that I still didn't warm up to was the last, "The Sun Dog". It isn't that it's poorly written, it's just that the story doesn't appeal to me...judge for yourself though.

I consider some of Stephen King's writing literary. He has an excellent command of the elements of writing. Combined with his great imagination and wonderful story telling I love to read his books. Four Past Midnight consists of four stories with The Lagoliars being the best. It is a treat to read anything by him. I highly recommend this book along with all his others.