King of the Dark Episode 16: Short Stories
On this episode of King of the Dark, Louis Peitzman, Liz Braswell and Bill Tipper turn from the grand scale of Stephen King's dark epics to the supremely concentrated pleasures of his short fiction. King has published over 200 works of short fiction, most of which have been collected in volumes including Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, Everything's Eventual and others. In many of these — especially some of the earlier stories collected in Night Shift and Skeleton Crew — the master is at his elemental best, spinning tales that take just a few pages to cast a spell that lasts long after the short, sharp shock of the ending has been delivered. So we decided it was time to devote an episode to the glorious — and some times a little gory — work in miniature that is the classic King short story.