Hello everyone and welcome to the Stephen King cast, One Man's Musings on the Works of Stephen King.

Each week I will review one entry in the bibliography of Stephen King and the chronological order of publication.

Over the last few weeks, I've been stuck in 1990, as that year marked the re-release of what many consider Stephen King's masterpiece, The Stand.

Well, I'm done with that review, but I'm not out of 1990 yet, because

not only did he publish his 1,000-plus page novel that year, he also published his second

novella collection, Four Past Midnight. In 1982, King had published different seasons, a collection

of novellas which included The Body, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,

apt pupil, and the breathing method. Four Past Midnight is a structural sequel that also sees the publication

of four novellas. He'll go on to publish another set of novellas in 2010 with Full Dark No Stars.

Of the four novellas in Four Past Midnight, one was adapted into a TV miniseries and another as a film starring Johnny Depp and John Dutro. Two movies, of course, are The Languiliers and Secret Window Secret Garden. The other two novellas in the collection are the library policeman and the sun dog. Each of the novellas are thematically connected with the concept of time. Now this doesn't mean that King is going to be playing with time travel, though he does with the Languiliers,

but rather that King was fascinated with the malable nature of time and wanted to explore it on a thematic level.

Now, just as he had done with Night Shift and Skeleton Crew before, King opens up the text with an introduction that continues his evolution of his storyteller persona.

Now if you remember, Night Shift began with King positioning himself as a Rod Serling or cryptkeeper type figure,

laying the spooky stuff on pretty thick. By the time he introduces skeleton crew a decade later, he's much more at ease with himself.

He's settled into his role and his relationship with the reader.

Here he continues that relationship, not even attempting a scare.

At this point, he doesn't have to live the persona the way a professional wrestler would have to.

He knows what you want, and he knows that you trust him enough to give it to you.

It's a pretty friendly relationship.

It's 1990 at this point and it's been five years since his last collection, since he

last spoke to us like this.

His introductory line is fun and friendly.

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