The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Stories

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Stephen King, Dylan Baker, Brooke Bloom, Hope Davis, Kathleen Chalfant, Santino Fontana, Peter Friedman, Cotter Smith, Will Patton, Edward Herrmann, Frederick Weller, Mare Winningham, Craig Wasson, Thomas Sadoski, Tim Sample

Winner of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award

Includes the story “Premium Harmony”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine

The masterful #1 New York Times bestselling story collection from O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King that includes twenty-one iconic stories with accompanying autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each one.

For more than thirty-five years, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this collection, he introduces each story with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing it.

As Entertainment Weekly said about this collection: “Bazaar of Bad Dreams is bursting with classic King terror, but what we love most are the thoughtful introductions he gives to each tale that explain what was going on in his life as he wrote it."

There are thrilling connections between stories; themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. In “Afterlife,” a man who died of colon cancer keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again. Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Others address what happens when someone discovers that he has supernatural powers—the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits;” the old judge in “The Dune” who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw names written in the sand, people who then died in freak accidents. In “Morality,” King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win.

“I made these stories especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.”

Stories include:
-Mile 81
-Premium Harmony
-Batman and Robin Have an Altercation
-The Dune
-Bad Little Kid
-A Death
-The Bone Church
-Morality
-Afterlife
-Ur
-Herman Wouk Is Still Alive
-Under the Weather
-Blockade Billy
-Mister Yummy
-Tommy
-The Little Green God of Agony
-Cookie Jar
-That Bus Is Another World
-Obits
-Drunken Fireworks
-Summer Thunder

a good look to the past.

Stephen King absolutely killed it in this collection of short stories. it felt like his older stories but with a newer theme. King focused on death and old age a lot when he wrote these, but his overall talent is completely apparent and the whole book feels like night shift, even, or better maybe, you decide.

Suggesting Something Else

As a fan, I was pretty impress with "The Bazaar of Bad Dreams" by Stephen King. I'm not going to list all 20 stories and write a synopsis about them, but overall, they were all pretty well done. There are a few that had been retold in the past, but Stephen King put some thought into this collection. In someways, he has become a better storyteller by getting to the point in his short paragraphs instead of a long drawn out novel.

For those of you who are seeking horror from SK, You should try to pickup his early set of novellas.

"Skeleton Crew" is 22 sets of stories from the earlier years from the Master of Horror that are more bazaar than this one. I'm not sure if Audible has the full version, but it's worth searching elsewhere and getting the complete audiobook. Most of those stories are much more horrifying than "The Bazaar of Bad Dreams".

I wouldn't be a true Constant Reader if I could suggest something else.

Best Stephen King Work I've Read

Any additional comments?

Why won't more authors do this? I loved the narration by Steve, I loved hearing what or who inspired him to write, and even if you're not a King fan this is worth every single credit in your account!
All of the narrators nailed it, the stories had me engaged, ALL OF THEM, and there are so many it will have you listening for a while. You see much of the literary King, but also the dark side shows it's teeth from time to time. Poetry has a spot, and there were a lot of older stories that had new life breathed into them. Use your credit or buy it, you won't regret it.
Best book of 2015!

Interesting Mix

This was an interesting collection. I enjoyed the intros to the stories Mr King provided.

Several of the stories really made an impression, most were interesting, only a couple did I not care for--more a personal taste thing than because they were not good.

Some of the ones I liked were the one about the Bad Little Kid, the baseball one about Blockade Billy, The Dune, and the one about Herman Wouk. That last was a sad one.

All the narrators, including Mr King himself, were topnotch. Well worth the credit.

Great Collection

Each and every story is a wonderful trip into the unexpected, twisted, bazaar, shocking, or in some cases, really sad.

None of the stories I would classify as "horror" - but in there own way, they do terrify. I'm not a big sports fan, but loved the story about Lucky Billy. Also, I kept skipping over the story that started with "something under the bed" because that is one of the things that gives me the most chills. However, this story turned out to be completely different that what I was expecting.- - and don't worry - the under the bed reference is not a spoiler--you find that out in the first 60 seconds.

A lot of the stories deal with the subject of death - what happens when we die, and if there is an "afterlife" at all. Interesting views on the subject.

Adding to the stories, the narration was just excellent. King narrates a few himself. He also gives a little insight into how he came up with the idea for each one, and those little interjections between each story were gems in themselves.

For a short story collection --highly recommended.