Author: Stephen King

Title: Full Dark, No Stars

Publisher: Scribner

Some of Stephen King's most popular stories, and a couple that have made the most successful movies (The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me) aren't created from his full length novels but are from short stories published in compilation volumes (both of these novellas were first published in Different Seasons, 1982).

While his longer works can flesh out the depth of a character and the darkness enveloping their life, his shorter stories often are based on a simple observation that King has made and lets his imagination run away with.  For instance the Ten O'Clock People short story in Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993) was centered on the diverse mix of people that King noticed becoming friends between cigarette puffs in designated smoking sections at their break times. They crossed race and social statuses that otherwise wouldn't have been broached. That this was the only community that could see the monsters disguised as people because of the nicotine in their system was the creative twist.

In his new collection, Full Dark, No Stars, King offers four new stories that were inspired by random experiences that caught his creative eye and kick started his keyboard. 1922 came into focus by observing the stark photos of rural isolation in a book he read. Big Driver saw its beginnings when King saw a woman getting her flat tire changed by a truck driver on a remote Massachusetts' highway. Fair Extension came to mind as he went on a walk near his local airport and saw an odd man selling recovered golf balls. A Good Marriage was born out a news story King read about a woman who didn't know her husband was a murderer.

While Stephen King's stories and books usually focus on that which is dark, most are complimented, at least in the background, by a source of goodness and light. Writing about this new compilation he shares, "I have tried my best in Full Dark, No Stars to record what people might do, and how they might behave, under certain dire circumstances. The people in these stories are not without hope, but they acknowledge that even our fondest hopes (and our fondest wishes for our fellowmen and the society in which we live) may sometimes be vain. Often, even. But I think they also say that nobility most fully resides not in success but in trying to do the right thing… and that when we fail to do that, or willfully turn away from the challenge, hell follows."

Hell certainly follows Wilfred James who determines that they only way he can keep his wife from selling their farm (since it was deeded to her) and making them move to the city is to kill her while making it look like she ran off with someone else. Tess, a mystery writer, runs into trouble on her way home from a book signing event. She decides it will cause her more harm to go to the authorities regarding the abuse she suffered so she settles on distributing vengeance with her own hands. Dave Streeter has terminal cancer and needs an extension on life. When he finds out what healing will ultimately cost will he make the transaction and live to regret it? Darcy Anderson stubbed her toe on a box that held her husband's secrets. Now that she knows about his darkness how will she confront the evil without destroying everything else in her life that she cares about?

Dark tales? Yes. Horrific? Sometimes. King certainly weaves morality tales that aren't for the weak of heart or stomach. But for those who King refers to as his Constant Readers, who understand his deep appreciation of that which is good, they will also see the stars in this darkly painted sky.

**This Review First Published on 11/23/2010