by Stephen King
Night Shift (1979)
* * (Okay) Realistic
In the aftermath of the A6 super flu – Captain Trips – a group of friends spend the night on a deserted beach after burning a dying man on the pier.
Wow, that’s bleak. And unfortunately, boring. In what appears to be the seed of the larger – greater – story, The Stand, we are introduced to the idea of the final few survivors of a super flu that decimates the world’s population. Where this story fails to achieve the normal Kingian levels of greatness is in its brevity. We are given just a snapshot of these characters and this situation. I’m more interested in who they are, and how they came together, and where they go from here. Instead, we are offered just a few hours of one night – even the burning of the body is told in only a paragraph or two of flashback. The whole – story? – was simply less than expected. It’s a great idea, only not fully realized (yet).
No comments:
Post a Comment