Library Journal
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King (Everything's Eventual) is back in the short fiction business with this collection of 20 stories. Most have been previously published, but two ("Mister Yummy" and "Obits") are new and one ("Bad Little Kid") is newly available in English. With such topics as a monstrosity of a car (no, not Christine), a sand dune that writes the name of people who will soon die, a study in morality, and even a cowboy tale, the anthology explores vastly different landscapes and introduces listeners to interesting characters. Each of the stories are prefaced by King himself, and the narrators, 16 total, are perfectly matched to their pieces, though Edward Herrmann, Mare Winningham, Will Patton, and Cotter Smith stand out. The stories differ in length, from longer tales, such as "UR" and "Mile 81," to quite short fables like "The Bone Church" and "The Dune." This would be a perfect choice when trying to ease a new fan into the King realm. -VERDICT Recommended for any library with a good King collection and patrons who love well-crafted short stories; in other words, all libraries should purchase. ["The stories collected here are riveting and sometimes haunting": LJ 10/1/15 starred review of the Scribner hc.]-Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly
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Renowned author King's impressive latest collection (after 2010's Full Dark, No Stars) wraps 20 stories and poems in fascinating commentary. Each work's preface explains what inspired it and gives readers insight into King's writing methods, with occasional tidbits of his daily life. The stories themselves are meditations on mortality, destiny, and regret, all of which showcase King's talent for exploring the human condition. Realistic and supernatural elements sit side by side. The tragic "Herman Wouk Is Still Alive" contrasts the charmed lives of two world-famous poets enjoying a roadside picnic with the grim existence of two single mothers who are taking one last road trip. "Under the Weather" tells of a man's fierce love for his wife and the terrifying power of denial. "Summer Thunder," a story about a man and his dog at the end of the world, is a heart-wrenching study of inevitability and the enduring power of love. Other standouts include "Ur," about a Kindle that links to other worlds, and "Bad Little Kid," about a terrifying murderous child (complete with propeller hat). This introspective collection, like many of King's most powerful works, draws on the deepest emotions: love, grief, fear, and hope. Agent: Chuck Verrill, Darhansoff and Verrill. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A gathering of short stories by an ascended master of the form. Best known for mega-bestselling horror yarns, King (Finders Keepers, 2015, etc.) has been writing short stories for a very long time, moving among genres and honing his craft. This gathering of 20 stories, about half previously published and half new, speaks to King's considerable abilities as a writer of genre fiction who manages to expand and improve the genre as he works; certainly no one has invested ordinary reality and ordinary objects with as much creepiness as King, mostly things that move (cars, kid's scooters, Ferris wheels). Some stories would not have been out of place in the pulp magazines of the 1940s and '50s, with allowances for modern references ("Somewhere far off, a helicopter beats at the sky over the Gulf. The DEA looking for drug runners, the Judge supposes"). Pulpy though some stories are, the published pieces have noble pedigrees, having appeared in places such as Granta and The New Yorker. Many inhabit the same literary universe as Raymond Carver, whom King even name-checks in an extraordinarily clever tale of the multiple realities hidden in a simple Kindle device: "What else is there by Raymond Carver in the worlds of Ur? Is there oneor a dozen, or a thousandwhere he quit smoking, lived to be 70, and wrote another half a dozen books?" Like Carver, King often populates his stories with blue-collar people who drink too much, worry about money, and mistrust everything and everyone: "Every time you see bright stuff, somebody turns on the rain machine. The bright stuff is never colorfast." Best of all, lifting the curtain, King prefaces the stories with notes about how they came about ("This one had to be told, because I knew exactly what kind of language I wanted to use"). Those notes alone make this a must for aspiring writers. Readers seeking a tale well told will take pleasure in King's sometimes-scary, sometimes merely gloomy pages. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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A dream team of talented performers reads these 18 tales and two poems by master fictioneer King. Several of the stories-including "Blockade Billy," a baseball yarn with a predictable violent punch line, and "Under the Weather," an exploration of the grim effect a tragedy has on an ad man-are not the author's strongest, but they are given a boost by, respectively, Craig Wasson's keep-rounding-the-bases-and-slide-into-home exuberance and Peter Friedman's conversational narration, which shifts the emphasis from the repetitiveness of what he's saying to the compelling way he's saying it. Other stories are as strikingly composed as they are performed. As wonderful as the professional readers are, it is King's nasal voice that distinguishes the production, preceding each story with information about its creation. He also begins the collection with an intriguing introduction explaining the differences between writing novels and short fiction, warning about the stories that follow: "The best of them have teeth." A Scribner hardcover. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

This collection begins with an introduction by King on why he writes short stories. To the reader's delight, he also provides a backstory for each tale, enticing the reader with a memory or scenario that prompted that particular selection's birth. Some of the pieces have been previously published. Some have been polished and revised-"Ur" was originally written as a "Kindle Single" for Amazon. Veering from the short story format, King published "Tommy" as a poem in Playboy in 2010. For baseball fans, watch out for the unexpected ending in "Blockade Billy." With "The Little Green God of Agony," King hints at how his life experience shapes his works. VERDICT The stories collected here are riveting and sometimes haunting, as is the author's style. Surprise endings abound. King is in a class all by himself. Be prepared to read voraciously. [See Prepub Alert, 6/1/15.]-Susan Carr, -Edwardsville P.L., IL © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

For thousands of readers, few things are more comfortable than hunkering down with a Stephen King short story an odd fact, considering how uncomfortable some of those stories make us. With this, his more-or-less tenth collection, King offers an arsenic sugaring to his poison pies: brief intros describing the hows, wheres, and whys behind each tale, from working out personal demons to instants of dumbstruck inspiration. The faithful might have already read or heard a few Ur, Blockade Billy but King's batting average is just as strong with the unfamiliar tales as with the familiar ones. The van strike that almost killed the author in 1999 haunts the book; vehicular accidents crop up everywhere, perhaps most disturbingly in Herman Wouk Is Still Alive, a nihilistic shocker about a dual suicide by car, and, most entertainingly, with The Little Green God of Agony, which King confesses is directly inspired by his rehabilitation. Here, an exorcist of sorts extracts pain from a sufferer in the shape of a globular green beastie. Though the stories swing from sad to wistful to grim, it's this cackling sense of play that makes Uncle Stevie so much fun to have around. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Why not order a few copies? This King kid, he might be going places.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2015 Booklist