Riding the Bullet by Stephen King
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buy Riding the Bullet by Stephen King at AmazonAuthor: Stephen King
Release date: May, 2002
Media: Audio CD
ISBN: 0743525876
Ranked #77/100 of Essential Stephen King Works
Simply put, "Riding the Bullet" is a powerful story, packing a considerable wallop in its 67 pages; for the record, it was ranked #77 out of 100 by King expert Stephen Spignesi in THE ESSENTIAL STEPHEN KING, which looks at King's entire canon--fiction and nonfiction. Spignesi ought to know; my disagreement is a trifling one--I would have ranked it higher than #77. Though King is best known for his novel length work, he shines and sparkles at shorter lengths--his short stories, and particularly his novellas are striking; in fact, to my mind, the best of them have an impact like a well-placed blow from a boxer, striking fast and hard to leave an indelible impression.
This story is just such a swift blow. Drawing on his real-world experience of watching his mother die slowly of cancer, and tapping into that fear, he transmutes it into a palpable fear that intrudes in the world of the protagonist, a college student who gets the word that his mother is dying at a Maine hospital.
He hitches a ride to the hospital, but the driver isn't what he seems . . . and the story takes a supernatural twist that takes it veering off the road into one of those dark roads to which only King as the writer has the road-map: He knows where he's going, but you, the reader, do not. Trust him, reader; he will see you safely home.
At the heart of this story is the ugly reality that the protagonist must face: He makes a decision that, indeed, is monstrous; he is, as he hates to admit to himself, a bit of a monster himself. No boogeyman here; just ordinary human frailty, the kind that plagues you . . . and me.
As a long-time reader of King's fiction, I have found some of his stories more to my liking than others, but make no mistake -- he's never failed to deliver, as some of these "reviewers" assert. In this story, King delivers the goods.
For a measly $..., King delivers a satisfying story that deserves inclusion in his next short fiction collection -- it's THAT good, as opposed to the well-intentioned but small-minded, and uninformed, reviews (i.e.,opinions) that the other "reviewers" have posted here. - an Amazon customer review
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