The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

"[King]serves up a potent mix of stories that land in and around the horror genre. Not surprisingly, most are classic King page-turners, but the choicest finds in this bazaar are the stories behind the stories or, more correctly, in front of them. King introduces each story with an explanation about the motivation for writing it. You don't need to be a writer -- or a King fan -- to find these fascinating.Anyone who's ever wondered about the creative process will find the author's path to each story revelatory...Each story is compelling in its own way, though I'm guessing each reader will have favorites and it's doubtful that any two lists will be the same."--Cathy Jakicic, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Stephen King taps economic uncertainty and his own deep well of creativity to create 20 unsettling stories...It may be seven more years before King delivers another collection such as this one. Depending on how ordinary people continue to fare in the face of harsh reality, his topics of concern may shift in the meantime, as may those of his audience. Readers can be thankful, however, that he's still out there pitching stories with all the craft and guile he can muster."--Michael Berry, The Portland Press Herald

"There are a lot of good stories in this collection: moving, disturbing and in between. 'Summer Thunder' imagines a post-apocalyptic world of startling beauty...In 'Morality, ' a marriage goes south when a wife falls prey to the imprecations of her employer -- not sexual, but ethical. The idea is that we are all complicit, fundamentally, in what happens to us, that the stain of sin is a collective one...When King gives himself a little room to move, the effects are not only unnerving but also deeply human, a series of riffs on love and loss."--David Ulin, The Los Angeles Times

"Shortbut sweet...horror abounds in these collected tales...King confidently inhabitsvaried realms, from the American frontier, where a tale of justice plays out, to a Florida island with deathly secrets. He prefaces each story with anexplanation of its genesis, providing a fascinating glimpse into the mind ofremarkable writer."--People

"King's constant readers will devour this new collection -- the author is in rare form, not only talking to the reader directly in each introduction, but in making his characters fully human. Their hopes and their dreams are all on display. King says himself in the opening pages, 'Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.' Indeed."--Doug Knoop, The Seattle Times

"Renowned author King's impressive latest collection wraps 20 stories and poems in fascinating commentary...the stories themselves are meditations on mortality, destiny, and regret, all of which showcase King's talent for exploring the human condition...this introspective collection, like many of King's most powerful works, draws on the deepest emotions: love, grief, fear and hope."--Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

"A gathering of short stories by an ascended master of the form... This collection speaks to King's considerable abilities as a writer of genre fiction who manages to expand and improve the genre as he works; certainly no one has invested ordinary reality and ordinary objects with as much creepiness as King... Best of all, lifting the curtain, King prefaces the stories with notes about how they came about. Those notes alone make this a must for aspiring writers."--Kirkus

"To the reader's delight, King provides a backstory for each tale, enticing the reader with a memory or scenario that prompted that particular selection's birth... The stories collected here are riveting and sometimes haunting, as is the author's style. Surprise endings abound. King is in a class all by himself. Be prepared to read voraciously."--Library Journal, starred review

"BAD DREAMS packs plenty of bite into the 20 stories found here... a welcome dose of horror from the modern master. A large helping, too: Dreams weighs in at 495 pages, every one of which whips by as you plunge into one jolting tale after another... in the space of just a few pages, King can leave your nerves thoroughly jangled. As always, King conjures nightmares you don't necessarily want to wake up from."--Preston Jones, The Fort Worth Star Telegram

"[King]has always had a wicked (in more ways than one) sense of humor, too, and it'soften on display along with the scary stuff in his new short story collection, THE BAZAAR OF BAD DREAMS...One of the bonuses of Bazaar is that each story is preceded by a note from the author about its genesis... If you're looking for King's paranormal horror side, though, Bazaar has plenty to satisfy you...And if you want King in full funny tall-tale mode, head for Drunken Fireworks.It's the hilarious story of how its narrator, a Maine native named Alden who lives with his mother in a modest cabin on the 'town side' of Abenaki Lake, gets into an ever-escalating Fourth of July arms race with a rich guy on the other shore who's rumored to be 'connected, ' if you know what I mean. One lesson: Never buy a firework called Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind."--Collette Bancroft, The Tampa Bay Times

Includes the story “Premium Harmony”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine

The masterful #1 New York Times bestselling story collection from O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King that includes twenty-one iconic stories with accompanying autobiographical comments on when, why and how he came to write (or rewrite) each one.

For more than thirty-five years, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this new collection he introduces each story with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing it.

As Entertainment Weekly said about this collection: “Bazaar of Bad Dreams is bursting with classic King terror, but what we love most are the thoughtful introductions he gives to each tale that explain what was going on in his life as he wrote it."

There are thrilling connections between stories; themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. In “Afterlife,” a man who died of colon cancer keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again. Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Others address what happens when someone discovers that he has supernatural powers—the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits;” the old judge in “The Dune” who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw names written in the sand, people who then died in freak accidents. In “Morality,” King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win.

“I made these stories especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.”

Stories include:
-Mile 81
-Premium Harmony
-Batman and Robin Have an Altercation
-The Dune
-Bad Little Kid
-A Death
-The Bone Church
-Morality
-Afterlife
-Ur
-Herman Wouk Is Still Alive
-Under the Weather
-Blockade Billy
-Mister Yummy
-Tommy
-The Little Green God of Agony
-Cookie Jar
-That Bus Is Another World
-Obits
-Drunken Fireworks
-Summer Thunder