Four past midnight is EASILY my favorite collection of novellas by Stephen King. I am just starting to review all of the books i've read, so I chose this one because I have so much to say.

The Langoliers:

“That was when Brian felt something—something like a bolt—starting to give way deep inside his mind. That was when he felt his entire structure of organized thought begin to slide slowly toward some dark abyss.”

This collection starts off with a bang! Or a rip I should say. A rip in the time space continuum. This novella is one of Stephens longest novellas, page count wise. It sort of drags in the middle but it sets up the characters very well. Would have really enjoyed this as a full fledged novel. This is very weird Stephen King, but for me, the weirder the better. The movie adaption is very cheesy, as are the majority of his movies of the time. The special effects are shockingly terrible but it was nice to see this novella brought to life. Heavy Dark Tower connections due to my opinion that the rips in time are thinnies (in my opinion).

Secret window, secret garden:

“Pissing and thinking have a lot in common, he thought. You can put them both off.. But not forever.”

One of Stephen's best twist endings. King is known for questionable endings but this is one of my favorites. He loves to write about writers. Mort Rainey was a very relatable character if you've ever gone through a rough separation. Being in the mind or Mort was a fun ride. Is he an unreliable narrator? I'll let you find that out on your own. The adaption had Johnny Depp. Enough said.

The Library policeman:

This novella is messed up. One of Stephen's most horrifying stories. When it comes to content.. there is a scene in this book..that is literally horrifying. I will say nothing further because that scene must not be spoiled. It is a trigger warning for some. I have no triggers and read extreme horror so it didn't bother me. I will never return a library book late, EVER again. Such a great novella. You will not forget this story. It will stay with you. My most recent re-read was in 2021 and the imagery is burnt into my brain, unfortunately. He intended to horrify and he succeeded.

The Sun dog:

“You never ever asked Lady Luck for a date; she had a way of standing men up just when they needed her the most. But if she showed up on her own . . . well, it was wise to drop whatever it was you were doing and take her out and wine her and dine her just as lavishly as you could. That was one bitch who always put out if you treated her right.”

Stephen might have saved the best for last in this collection. We get another appearance from Pop Merrill!!!!! I love my castle rock characters. That alone should give you the urge to pick up this collection. Love the references and it was nice to see what Pop was up to. Same old tricks. The Sun dog involves Kevin who, every time he takes a picture, there is a dog who is not present when the photo is taken...and it keeps getting closer...and closer....and closer. Another scary novella compared to most he's written and a great way to end this book. Reminded me a lot of the concept of needful things and we get another dog. This one is not as scary as cujo if you ask me. But this journey left quite a lot of disturbing imagery. Not even close to the library policeman's.

In summation this collection is perfect to me. 2 of the 4 have adaptions, and they will never make the library policeman into a movie..if they do..they will have to cut the best scene in the whole book. By best I'm referring to most horrifying. I will never get over that scene. Would love to see a Sun dog adaption. For me the weakest entry was secret window, secret garden, and I give that novella 5 stars. You cant go wrong with this book and this is Stephen King at his best. A little bit of everything. Science fiction horror from the midnight hour. ( )

I knew I had read this compilation of novellas, but it had been many years. I specifically wanted to re-read The Library Police, since I now work in a public library. It was hilarious and scary all at once! (Hilarious to me, maybe not to the typical reader... things about the workings of a library were very old-school and struck me as funny. But they were likely accurate, too--times have changed, for example, and we don't require SILENCE in the library!)
The other stories were great, as well. I really enjoyed The Langoliers more than I did the first time around.
Listening to these stories, read aloud, was very pleasing! (Even Secret Window, Secret Garden, which was read by James Woods--I didn't much care for his reading voice at first, but I pushed through and came to enjoy it.) ( )

#944 in our old book database. Not rated.

Four very good short stories.
The Langolier's: What happen's to today when it's over? A small group of traveller's finds out.
Secret Window, Secret Garden: While trying to prove his story was not plagiarized, a writer remembers a past event and feels guilty.
the Library Policeman: While borrowing books to help with a speech, a gentleman meets a strange librarian who threatens to send the Library Policeman. Why does that conjure up horrible memories.
The Sun Dog: A simple Polaroid camera causes fear in the great town of Castle Rock. No matter what you aim the camera at, the photo of a big mangy stray dog appears on the photograph.

I thoroughly enjoyed all 4 books. ( )

None of them memorable enough to remember them now, two weeks after finishing it.

I officially shocked myself with the dislike I experienced with these four stories. I remember really liking The Langoliers, and not minding Secret Garden, Secret Window. I had no memory of Library Policeman, and dimly remember thinking The Sun Dog was only okay.

This time around, quite frankly, I didn't like any of them. Maybe it was the mood I was in, I don't know, but I found all the dream sequences--a plot device that I absolutely despise--particularly frustrating, as every one of the four stories had at least one, and usually multiple sequences. I also found most of the characters, with the exception of Dirty Dave from Policemen and Kevin's father from Sun Dog.

I will say that each of the four stories had fantastic concepts, but, unfortunately, each one was buried under unsympathetic or stock King characters, interminable sidetracks, plot devices seemingly designed only to extend an already bloated story, and endings where the protagonist seems to pull the solution out of his ass. Solutions come from dreams, from dying girls, from gut feelings.

Each one of these stories are fantastic short stories of twenty-fifty pages or so, not the 200-page behemoths each one ended up being.

I'm so disappointed. I had been looking forward to this one. ( )

Classic Stephen King. Each creepy in their own way. ( )

A wonderful collection of four short stories (novella sized) from the master of horror. The stories are "The Langoliers" - one of my all time favourite King shorts, "Secret Window, Secret Garden", "The Library Policeman" and "The Sun Dog".A must read for fans of King. ( )

A re-read after more than twenty years. Will it stand up?

Short answer: Absolutely. :)

The Langoliers fits snugly in the New Weird category, pretty much entirely esoteric SF with gremlin-types, alternate dimenions and/or time travel on a plane... There are no snakes here! :) The characters are a blast and we've got a firm horror vibe going on here where we are kept guessing as to who among all these random sleepers will make it to the end. Thoroughly enjoyable novella, but not my favorite. It's probably best that it was relegated to a TV movie. :)

My favorite is a toss up between Secret Window, Secret Garden, and The Library Police.

First, though, Secret Window, Secret Garden, which only slightly resembles the movie with Johnny Depp, or at least more or less. :)

This one was pretty fantastic for the writing insights, the plagiarism scare, the descent into paranoia, and the general ultimate break from reality. What's better than a writer being driven completely crazy by a story and/or a man with a definite grudge over a story? No spoilers, but so many wonderful twists happen, couldn't help but fall in love all over again.

And then there's The Library Police, which is a wonderful twist on early childhood nightmares, a diatribe on fear, Red Licorice, and a cool twist on vampirism. It was definitely probably the most effective and convoluted of all the novellas in this book, I think, and also the most scarily fantastic, diving into some of the most weird and eerie escapades, even outdoing Secret Window, Secret Garden on several levels, but maybe not as much for the MC.

The last novella, The Sun Dog, is classic SK not only for setting dropping and character dropping, but also in the twist he's known for... turning everyday objects into a nightmare of continuing and evolving proportions, driving all those involved into a deeper and deeper despair and fear. :)

Does SK have a think about mad dogs? Even Cujo was referenced here. But the dog in the photograph has got to be even better in this novella. It's absolutely more elusive and menacing, giving up on immediate danger and far-off menace for a much more paranormal and evil menace that gave me, at least, a more pervasive and ongoing fear.

It also happened to be my least favorite of the bunch, but it was still effective. :)

The middle two were plainly amazing, though. :) ( )

Only Stephen King can consider something that stands at 300+ pages a short story...

Good collection though. I really enjoyed The Langoliers, and the others were pretty good too, though I found the ending of The Library Policeman a little lacking. ( )

Four novellas by Stephen King: The Langoliers; Secret Window, Secret Garden; The Library Policeman; and The Sun Dog, which I rated as 4* or 4.5* each. I liked The Langoliers best and The Sun Dog least, but at 4*, still very good. Vintage Stephen King, looking at different fears - fear of flying, fear of past transgressions catching up with you, fear of forgotten childhood abuse remembered, and fear of the supernatural. ( )

Though I like King, this collection was perhaps a bit too much more of the same old King to impress me. There are four long novellas. I knew the plot of The Langoliers from the TV miniseries, which seems to have been fairly faithful. What you get in the written version is much more interior monologues from a variety of characters, including the out and out crazy one. I think King considers science fictional horror, dealing as it does with time slips, but not any kind of science you could make work, as the travelers in a plane slip a few minutes out of synch with the normal world and discover what's left behind gets chewed up by a zillion PacMen-like creatures. Engaging for all its silliness. Secret Window, Secret Garden is one of King's writer nightmares -- someone accuses a writer of having stolen a story and will stop at nothing to get an apology. This is a thin and obvious story, the weakest in the book. The story that follows, The Library Policeman, is probably the best, with a lot of overtones of It. The main character is interesting, as are several side characters, and the story changes directions several times. The Sun Dog, about a Polaroid camera that takes pictures of -- and starts to attract -- something terrible from somewhere else -- on the other hand pretty much goes in a straight line from start to finish.

A popular book when it came out, and recommended for King fans, but if you don't like King, don't bother. ( )

The best novella in this collection was, "Secret Window, Secret Garden". The rest, I found, were mediocre and lacking in many ways. ( )

In Four Past Midnight, Stephen King shows that even the concept of time itself can be a dangerous and deadly monster. Collecting 4 novellas (The Langoliers/ Secret Window, Secret Garden/ The Library Policeman and The Sun Dog with a short preview of Needful Things at the end) that show how much of a horror time itself can be.

In The Langoliers, a handful of passengers on an airplane find out just what happens to today once it becomes yesterday.

In Secret Window, a writer is accused of plagiarizing the wrong man to cross and it becomes a race against time to see who wrote the words first.

In The Library Policeman, one mans personal monster from his past returns years later when he becomes over due on returning his library books in time.

In The Sun Dog, a young mans birthday camera is taking snapshots of a horrible approaching beast that threatens to come out of the pictures and kill in the real world.

All these amazing stories are fallowed up with a short preview of Needful Things and collectively Four Past Midnight promises to keep you turning the pages around the clock. ( )

as i do with books that have novellas in them, each gets its own review:

the langoliers - this is alright. i enjoyed it even while not being too into the story. i'm not sure if the time at the end was a mistake (east coast v west coast time) that was overlooked but it wasn't the only thing that didn't sit quite right for me. (there's no uproar, once real time is back, over an airplane crashed into the terminal?? just some details like that missed or aren't addressed.) this was ok but nothing great, for me. 2.5 stars

secret window, secret garden - i really like the idea here, and that it's an unreliable narrator telling the story. how do you patent story ideas? how can you say if an idea really belongs to one person? the center of this story was really good. i don't feel like he made me believe mort's motivation, though. so many decisions mort made - the story depended on him making those decisions - just weren't backed up with any sort of reason. it was all nonsensical to me, which is too bad, because if he could have written a few extras sentences to make me not do a double take (over and over), it would have worked so well.

this was written in the late 80's, and here he predicts the future, both cordless *and* cellular phones:
"...hiding in the bushes, perhaps, while he spoke to Mort on some sort of cordless telephone. Ridiculous, of course." ha.

good potential, good writing, just missing a couple of steps. 2.5 stars.

the library policeman - another solid idea, this one with similarities to other stories of his (most noticeably to it) and themes he likes to revisit ("The persistence of evil. How it waits. How it can be so cunning and so baffling and so powerful.") but just not as satisfyingly fleshed out. i actually like the concept of turning something safe and comfortable into the scary thing, but it wasn't done as well as he could have done it. i mean, he actually used the phrase: "But it was no nightmare. It was terrifying, but it was no nightmare." he can do better. 2 stars.

the sun dog - this is the most suspenseful and even scary of the stories, up until the climax. still, it felt the most fleshed out and fulfilling from a character perspective. the climax felt a little over the top for horror's sake, but it was well written from beginning to end, and i enjoyed it, except for the weirdness in the climax. plus, there was the tried and true stephen king ending that i like so much. 3.5 stars. ( )

Four Past Midnight is a wonderful collection of four ‘short’ novels Stephen King wrote in the late ’80s. They include the Langoliers, a light-hearted adventure romp that revels in its own ridiculousness; Secret Window, Secret Garden, the closing of a thematic trilogy King wrote about the power of storytelling; the Library Policeman, in which a man is haunted by his childhood fears, traumas, and a monster feeding on the emotional turmoil of children; and the Sun Dog, a lead-in to Castle Rock’s final moments in Needful Things, and in which a demonic monster works its way across dimensions through a Polaroid camera.

[N.B. This review features images and formatting specific to my book site, dendrobibliography: Check it out here.]

Most of the four novels are wonderful, among my favorite work from Stephen King even under the weight of their own cheesiness and fluff, particularly…

The Langoliers

Despite having never read this before, every beat of the Langoliers was familiar and comfortable. I grew up with the ’90s TV miniseries — awful largely from hammy acting and corny special effects — and loved it despite its faults. It’s also, despite those faults, remarkably close to the novella. Most of the dialogue and the pacing seemed unaffected by the translation between mediums.

Mr. Toomey, one of King’s strongest, most developed villains, still gives the same screaming rants, pulls the same delusional stunts; Bob Jenkins, a mystery writer, still lectures the the logic of the plot to both other characters and the readers, forcing banal exposition; the Dinah, a young blind girl, is still the same prescient and wise pre-teen (whose disability gives her magic powers) as seen in many other Stephen King stories.

The Langoliers, about a plane that flies through a thinny (a la the Dark Tower) into a frozen fragment of the past, is corny, unbelievable, and amazingly fun. Even knowing the answers to the mystery of the empty Bangor International Airport our passengers find themselves in, I wasn’t any less fascinated by the decaying world or the approaching balls of razor-teeth and hair, or in watching our passengers try to escape with their lives both from the langoliers and Mr. Toomey’s collapsing mental state.

If I have one complaint, it’s that most characters don’t speak like real people. Much of the dialogue is exposition, boring explanations and logical debates over what is going on around them. The magic of this story is in the monsters, not the people.

Secret Window, Secret Garden

Secret Window, Secret Garden is Stephen King’s final attempt at the trials and tribulations of being a writer, of the horrors that the writing process itself invokes. The Dark Half tackled the same concept just a year earlier (but in a more on-the-nose fashion, with lots of blood and guts and murder). Misery came first, and remains the most successful of the ‘trilogy.’

Author Mort Rainey (i.e., Stephen King) is struggling with his writing amidst an ugly divorce. He’s still stuck on the spite that divorce inspired in him: He lashes out at everyone, blames others for his problems, an spends a lot of his time depressed, napping, and otherwise hiding from the world. He’s not pleasant.

A stranger shows up on his doorstep with a damning accusation: Mort Rainey plagiarized a story from him years earlier. This stranger, John Shooter, never published this story, making how Mort Rainey could have plagiarized it suspect. (This is based on a real incident from Stephen King’s life.) Regardless of the proof Rainey offers for his ownership of the story, Shooter’s actions quickly escalate and he starts removing evidence and threatening the lives of Rainey’s family.

This is the closest King feels he came to telling the story right — the story of the writing process — but it’s not perfect, and still feels fairly slim. (Misery’s still the best attempt.) The ending, differing wildly from the movie, is sudden and unsatisfying, not quite living up to the atmosphere of the prior 150 pages. Still, that atmosphere was foreboding and addictive, and a step above the Dark Half, which told the same story with three times as many pages and cliches.

The Library Policeman

King states in the introduction that he started the Library Policeman as a black comedy, and it devolved into horror naturally. I wouldn’t say the transition is necessarily natural — it seems like a jarring and confusing genre switch — but it provides a unique charm to the story. Library Policeman‘s silly, at points, and moves from being a light-hearted love story wrapped in a ridiculous concept of childhood spooks (the library police of the title, coming after Sam Peebles for not returning his books on time) into some of King’s darkest and most demented horror he’s ever written.

The transition is so disturbing, this story is often regarded with loathing by Stephen King fans. Without spoilers, I thought the mystery of the library policeman unraveled exceptionally.

It was disturbing, though, particularly ‘the scene’ that makes this story so maligned. Far more-so than Pet Sematary, often regarded as one of King’s scariest and most violent.

The meat of the story follows Sam Peebles, who offers to give a speech to a drunken community gathering at the last minute. Without any experience in public speaking, he visits the local library for the first time to check out some helpful books from an eerie librarian. He loses the books, misses the return deadline, and suddenly finds himself followed the librarian and her policeman. It sounds ridiculous, but: Wow. A disturbing town history of hidden murders and monsters (and a lot of ties to King’s greater mythology around It and the Dark Tower) quickly unravels.

The Sun Dog

The Sun Dog is a wonderful idea that devolves into predictable gore and guts. The story of a cursed Polaroid camera, printing only photos in slow motion of a demonic, mangy dog (a la Cujo, also set in Castle Rock) lunging towards the photographer is deeply unsettling and mysterious — but the end result is disappointing given the setup.

Like the Library Policeman, the narrative feels uncertain of itself, and it switches perspectives and directions halfway through. We stop following the hero, Kevin, who received the camera for his 14th birthday, and instead focus on the camera’s next owner, the anti-hero Pop Merrill — a selfish but quick-witted miser and wannabe mafioso. Like many of King’s more shallow villains, he’s a misogynistic piece of dirt who, when he’s not bullying people into servitude, spends his free time thinking about sexually punishing every woman in sight or watching porn on a dirty couch in a dirty apartment.

Pop Merrill’s interesting when he’s painted as both good and bad, looking out for the people of Castle Rock by getting them to punish themselves for their own vices; but when we start peeling away his layers, when we see he’s as shallow and evil as can be, I didn’t want to read about him or his attempts to unlock the camera’s secrets. He was boring, evil, and his ultimate fate could be seen a mile away: Unlike with the Library Policeman, once the style and tone of the Sun Dog shifts focus to Pop Merrill, the story loses its mystery.

The first half was as wonderful as the prior novellas; the concluding half as disappointing as any stereotypical King ending. The events of the Sun Dog lead into Needful Things, ‘the last Castle Rock story’ published in 1991 — not the camera itself (which is alluded to), but the characters and the disasters of this book are discussed at length by surviving family.

I was sad to see this as the closing novella in an otherwise strong collection. The Sun Dog wasn’t bad, mind you, just a few steps back from the magic of the Library Policeman or the Langoliers. ( )

"Let the dead stay dead." Good advice! And still, I opened the cover, and began...

Four novellas in this volume. First story, "The Langoliers", has a freaky scenario - what if you wake up on a jetliner to discover most of the passengers and crew to me missing? Especially rough was the terror of a blind girl! Only 11 people remain on the plane, but why? And where did the people on the ground go? My favorite part of this story? The black bearded guy who slept through the whole damn thing!

The second tale, "Secret Window, Secret Garden", is much too much like King's book "The Dark Half". Confusingly so.

#3, "The Library Policeman" is King at his strongest. He turns one of my favorite places, a library, into a scary-as-hell nightmare! My favorite of the three!

And the last tale, "The Sun Dog". A prequel to "Needful Things". Again, King uses his skills to turn a Polaroid camera into something evil. But this story is much too long in developing, pun intended. It would have worked much better as a short, short story.

( )

A compilation of four shorter stories (The Langoliers, Secret Garden...Secret Window, The Library Police, and The Sun Dog). Two were pretty good, two weren't really. If you're a fan of King's work, give this a read. ( )

Four EZ readin stories. Nothing heavy nothing scary. King claims they're all horror but The Langoliers is more technically straight fantasy, and that's the best. It's certainly the only one I remembered since I 1st read this in the early 90s. Last year I saw my manager was reading it. 'Oh,' I said 'That's the one where blah blah blah...'
'Thanks for that Luke,' she said 'I'm only ten pages in.'

Secret Window, Secret Garden is like a short version of The Dark Half. As long as you haven't read that then you'll be able to enjoy this without guessing what's happening TOO early.

The Library Policeman is like a blessedly short version of It. If he can do it in a couple of hundred pages why make us suffer through 1000?

The Sun is the most laboured and has bad special effects. Disappointing.

Overall, this is a great pass-the-time book. ( )

"Let the dead stay dead." Good advice! And still, I opened the cover, and began...

Four novellas in this volume. First story, "The Langoliers", has a freaky scenario - what if you wake up on a jetliner to discover most of the passengers and crew to me missing? Especially rough was the terror of a blind girl! Only 11 people remain on the plane, but why? And where did the people on the ground go? My favorite part of this story? The black bearded guy who slept through the whole damn thing!

The second tale, "Secret Window, Secret Garden", is much too much like King's book "The Dark Half". Confusingly so.

#3, "The Library Policeman" is King at his strongest. He turns one of my favorite places, a library, into a scary-as-hell nightmare! My favorite of the three!

And the last tale, "The Sun Dog". A prequel to "Needful Things". Again, King uses his skills to turn a Polaroid camera into something evil. But this story is much too long in developing, pun intended. It would have worked much better as a short, short story. ( )

I wish I could have given this book higher marks. It was a good story with lots of twist. Very detailed like all of Stephen Kings works. It just didn't captivate me or keep me interested like I was hoping it would. I would have given this a 3.5 star rating if I had the option. ( )

Dull and boring ( )

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