Short stories have become a lost art. Just ask Stephen King who, in the preface of his five collections, Night Shift (1978), Skeleton Crew (1985), Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993), Everything's Eventual (2002) and his most recent, Just After Sunset (2008), explains what a "fragile craft" short stories are. "One that can be forgotten if it isn't used almost constantly." King has also explained that often after finishing a long novel, he will have just enough gas left in the tank (or residue at the bottom of the barrel, pick your metaphor) to compose a shorter tale. He has likened them to "a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger" -- as opposed to a novel which requires a much more serious commitment. He notes too, that successful novelists don't NEED to write them, much less publish them, and that doing so is often considered an investment-dwindling indulgence.

However, of the countless film adaptations made from this man's bountiful oeuvre (even I don't know how many there have been, I'd guess between 50 and 70), at least half of them have been based on novellas or short stories. Given that fact, I'd say King is at least as well known for his shorter tales as he is for his long ones. (NOTE: I do not count Different Seasons or Four Past Midnight as short story collections -- they each feature four novellas, and damn good ones, I might add.)

So, how is his latest anthology of horrific brevity, Just After Sunset? Well, even as a King aficionado, I must admit I felt a bit let down by this one. I loved Night Shift and Skeleton Crew -- instant classics both. Nightmares and Dreamscapes and Everything's Eventual were a little further down the rung than their predecessors, but were still vintage King. This one is definitely a mixed bag. Thirteen stories in all, which can pretty much be divided up into Very Good, Good, and Meh. I know King's work well enough to know when he is on auto-pilot, and at least five of these thirteen could have been written in his sleep. If there are any stand outs, they are:

The Gingerbread Girl -- a bereaved woman runs and runs from the nightmare of losing her child to SIDS ... until she has something new to run from.

Rest Stop -- a man hears an incident of domestic violence from behind the Ladies Room door of a highway rest stop and wonders whether or not to get involved.

The Things They Left Behind -- an unsettling tale about a man haunted by the events of 9/11 when his WTC co-workers' cubicle do-dads begin appearing in his house.

N. -- OCD meets The Great God Pan, "the story of a mind crumbling under the weight of its own obsessive thought."

The Cat From Hell -- the oldest story in the book (previously filmed as part of 1990's Tales From The Darkside: The Movie), about a wealthy pharmaceutical manufacturer who has, in the name of research, killed 15,000 cats. His comeuppance has arrived. Meow.

Mute -- a man picks up a deaf-mute hitchhiker and ... I can say no more.

A Very Tight Place -- two feuding neighbors eventually resolve their differences with the assistance of a Port-O-San toilet. Gruesome-but-effective.

None of these stories are out and out horror -- they are more akin to Mathesonesque Twilight Zone episodes or vintage Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Never a bad thing.

I do not believe King's well has run dry -- his previous novel, Duma Key, was the best thing he'd written in years. He is the "American Dickens," and even when his stuff falls short of (often unrealisticaly high) expectations, nobody does it better.

He also has a loooooong novel coming out in 2009, entitled Under The Dome. King described the novel as "very, very long," saying "I tried [writing] this once before when I was a lot younger and the project was just too big for me." King has stated the novel is twice as long as Duma Key, at "over 1,500 pages in manuscript," and "deals with some of the same issues that The Stand does, but in a more allegorical way."

Looks like he got the brevity out of his system. Can't wait.

JUST AFTER SUNSET grade: B