Skeleton Crew - Let's Discuss! *SPOILERS*

[Odetta]

Story List

•The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet
•Beachworld
•Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game
•Cain Rose Up
•For Owen
•Gramma
•Here There be Tygers
•The Jaunt
•The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands
•The Mist
•The Monkey
•Morning Deliveries
•Mrs. Todd's Shortcut
•Nona
•Paranoid
•The Raft
•The Reach
•The Reaper's Image
•Survivor Type
•Uncle Otto's Truck
•The Wedding Gig
•Word Processor of the Gods


This set has one of my favortie all-time short stories in it... Survivor Type. Just creepy! What did you think of this collection? What are your favorties?

[Jean]

my absolute favorite here is The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet

I also love Cain Rose Up and Here There be Tygers

[Jimimck]

Big fan of Word Processor of the Gods and The Mist. Have read both multiple times. The Jaunt is one of my all time favourite short stories, and to this day I can still picture the son at the end of the story after he comes out of the Jaunt. Sends a chiver down my spine every time I think about it....

[Jean]

and to this day I can still picture the son at the end of the story after he comes out of the Jaunt.to this day I fail to block it out, however hard I try

[mtdman]

I love the Jaunt. One of my favoritest King stories.

Remember "The Tomorrow People" from British tv? They called their teleportation power 'jaunting'.

Uncle Otto's truck is good too.

[BROWNINGS CHILDE]

Favorite stories are Survivor Type, The Raft and The Mist. But, this is my overall favorite collection.

[mae]

Nona! One of the best ever.

[divemaster]

My second favorite collection (behind Night Shift). I group the stories as such (no particular order within each grouping):

Excellent:
The Monkey
The Jaunt
The Raft
Word Processor of the Gods
Survivor Type
The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet

Very good:
The Mist
Mrs. Todd's Shortcut
The Wedding Gig
The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands

Ok story:
Here There Be Tygers
Paranoid: A Chant
The Reaper's Image
Uncle Otto's Truck

Just didn't do it for me:
Cain Rose Up
Beachworld
Nona
For Owen
Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)
Big Wheels: A Tale of The Laundry Game (Milkman #2)
Gramma
The Reach**

**This one is constantly anthologized in the "best of" collections. Really? Of all the King stories, this one is the one everyone grabs for their collections?

[divemaster]

I love the Jaunt. One of my favoritest King stories.

Remember "The Tomorrow People" from British tv? They called their teleportation power 'jaunting'.

Uncle Otto's truck is good too.

In Alfred Bester's classic The Stars My Destination, folks can "jaunte" from place to place (though not through outer space). I believe Bester's concept was a direct influence on the King story. (Good book, too!)

[TCCBodhi]

Strange that this is the one that I'm rereading right now. On The Mist right now, but feeling that jolt of anticipation for The Jaunt. That final mental image of the son coming out of the Jaunt is pretty intense.

[Jimimck]

That final mental image of the son coming out of the Jaunt is pretty intense.


One of the scariest images I think King has ever given me....

[Jean]

Yes.

[mae]

What didn't you like about Nona, divemaster? It's one of my all-time favorite King short stories!

[mae]

The Losers Club did three episodes on Skeleton Crew:

https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/06/episode-70-the-mist/
https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/06/episode-71-skeleton-crew-pt-1/
https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/06/episode-72-ranking-stephen-kings-skeleton-crew-pt-2/

[Eternal Unity]

The Mist is a dark story.
The Jaunt was cool.
Survivor Type, Sai King was probably was under the influence when he wrote that one.

Greg

[jsteltor]

Maybe this has been discussed already, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mist mentions that the Skeleton Crew version is slightly different than the Dark Forces version. Does anyone know what changes were made for SC?

[Eternal Unity]

Maybe this has been discussed already, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mist mentions that the Skeleton Crew version is slightly different than the Dark Forces version. Does anyone know what changes were made for SC?

King re-wrote The Mist for Skeleton Crew, according to the Notes, which are at the end of the paperback edition of the story collection.
He changed the overall rhythm of the story so it'll flow more to the reader.
Same flow can be found in the story The Langoliers from Four Past Midnight and in the novel Revival.

Greg

[jsteltor]

Thank you

[St. Troy]

Thoughts on Skeleton Crew from my somewhat recent (2016) re-read:

The Ballad Of The Flexible Bullet - still as excellent as ever. One of my favorite King short stories.

The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands is an excellent old-school “weird tales”-type thing, folded within the framework of an enjoyable return to 249B East 35th.

The Reaper's Image - short, packs a punch. One of his better ones.

Mrs. Todd's Shortcut, The Jaunt, The Wedding Gig, The Raft, and Survivor Type are good, but not among my favorites.

I feel like I'd enjoy Nona and The Reach more if I could tell what was going on. Not that I couldn't follow what story there was; I just always had the feeling there was a bit more to it than he was telling us.

In The Wedding Gig, is he alluding to The Black Spot ("...Billy-Boy…formed a band of his own...an all-black combination...")?

In Nona, was Charlie Logan the person known as "lard ass" Hogan, of The Body? After all, this story did have an appearance by Vern Tessio.

I wonder what Tabby thought upon reading Word Processor Of The Gods.

The Mist, The Monkey, Uncle Otto's Truck, and Gramma (probably the best of this group) are still good stories, although I'm no longer as wild about them as I once was.

King's traffic cone story (in Notes, at the end) is quite entertaining.

Morning Deliveries: (Milkman #1) strikes me more as a writing exercise than writing.

I'm apparently not a poem guy; Paranoid: A Chant and For Owen did nothing for me.

So fond am I of my own writing that I will close by quoting a long passage (about the character of David Drayton in The Mist) directly from my notes taken during that re-read:


It must be said: David Drayton is a cheesy asshole. Let’s examine:

Seeing that Norton’s “eyes crawled over her [Steff’s] tight T-shirt” and that later “his eyes went to the front of Steff’s T-shirt again” meant Norton “was not a man I was every going to be able to really like.”

But only a few hours later, our hero was “developing an uncomfortably strong feeling for” Amanda Dumfries and “wanted to make love to her," despite the fact that his “wife was at home, maybe alive, more probably dead, alone either way…”

And not long after that, he did the deed, considering that “this was a way…to take the curse off what Ollie and I had just done [cut down and hid the dead soldiers’ bodies]…the only way.” Not since Friend of the Year Dennis Guilder have we seen something this cheesy in the way of justification.

Sure, you’re in a tough spot – maybe have some more beer, or even some hard stuff, maybe some junk food – but this?

[Eternal Unity]

Paranoid: A Chant is full of Espionage Conspiracies.
Very Cool!

[Jon]

Thoughts on Skeleton Crew from my somewhat recent (2016) re-read:

The Ballad Of The Flexible Bullet - still as excellent as ever. One of my favorite King short stories.

The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands is an excellent old-school “weird tales”-type thing, folded within the framework of an enjoyable return to 249B East 35th.

The Reaper's Image - short, packs a punch. One of his better ones.

Mrs. Todd's Shortcut, The Jaunt, The Wedding Gig, The Raft, and Survivor Type are good, but not among my favorites.

I feel like I'd enjoy Nona and The Reach more if I could tell what was going on. Not that I couldn't follow what story there was; I just always had the feeling there was a bit more to it than he was telling us.

In The Wedding Gig, is he alluding to The Black Spot ("...Billy-Boy…formed a band of his own...an all-black combination...")?

In Nona, was Charlie Logan the person known as "lard ass" Hogan, of The Body? After all, this story did have an appearance by Vern Tessio.

I wonder what Tabby thought upon reading Word Processor Of The Gods.

The Mist, The Monkey, Uncle Otto's Truck, and Gramma (probably the best of this group) are still good stories, although I'm no longer as wild about them as I once was.

King's traffic cone story (in Notes, at the end) is quite entertaining.

Morning Deliveries: (Milkman #1) strikes me more as a writing exercise than writing.

I'm apparently not a poem guy; Paranoid: A Chant and For Owen did nothing for me.

So fond am I of my own writing that I will close by quoting a long passage (about the character of David Drayton in The Mist) directly from my notes taken during that re-read:


It must be said: David Drayton is a cheesy asshole. Let’s examine:

Seeing that Norton’s “eyes crawled over her [Steff’s] tight T-shirt” and that later “his eyes went to the front of Steff’s T-shirt again” meant Norton “was not a man I was every going to be able to really like.”

But only a few hours later, our hero was “developing an uncomfortably strong feeling for” Amanda Dumfries and “wanted to make love to her," despite the fact that his “wife was at home, maybe alive, more probably dead, alone either way…”

And not long after that, he did the deed, considering that “this was a way…to take the curse off what Ollie and I had just done [cut down and hid the dead soldiers’ bodies]…the only way.” Not since Friend of the Year Dennis Guilder have we seen something this cheesy in the way of justification.

Sure, you’re in a tough spot – maybe have some more beer, or even some hard stuff, maybe some junk food – but this?


I must say i thoroughly enjoyed Survivor Type. Likely my favorite of King's shorts.