Review: Classic King -- a real treat for long-time readers
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 1, 2011
Stephen King's story, MILE 81, is a delight for any of his readers with memories of the classic stuff - CHRISTINE and PET SEMETARY and CUJO and great stories like "The Mist" and "The Body."  This is King at his best, with characters so real they remind you of people you've known for years.  I've always felt King did his best work with his shorter fiction - here his prose is tight and perfect, giving the story itself a chance to both terrify and delight the reader.MILE 81 is about a long-abandoned rest stop on Rt. 95 in Maine.  Ten-year-old Pete Simmons, who has been left behind when his older brother runs off to play daredevil bike stunts, decides to explore the old rest stop to see if he can scare up an adventure of his own.  What happens is something he never could have imagined.  A succession of other travelers also pull into the rest stop, each investigating a strangely muddied station wagon inexplicably parked there.  King's story is divided into sections, each one giving us a brief glimpse into the lives of these varied characters before they are sucked into the horror of what awaits at the Mile 81 rest stop.The story is both colloquially fresh and intensely exciting.  I liked Pete, and I understood him completely.  I liked the others, too - insurance salesman Doug, horsewoman Julie, the Lussier family, and Jimmy the cop.  These are real people who find themselves in Stephen King's "Twilight Zone" world on a perfectly ordinary afternoon.  And you know it's true - horror seems more horrible when it happens in broad daylight, with the traffic whizzing by and the sun shining.Great story - classic King.  Highly recommended.