Book Review: "Skeleton Crew", 1985

Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Skeleton Crew" is a collection of short stories written by Stephen King in the 70's and 80's. As a collection, it was very good and had quite a variety. As individual stories, they were both fulfilling and disappointing (depending on the story). I will review the stories individually and they are:
- The Mist
- Here There Be Tygers
- The Monkey
- Cain Rose Up
- Mrs. Todd's Shortcut
- The Jaunt
- The Wedding Gig
- Paranoid: A Chant
- The Raft
- Word Processor of the Gods
- The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands
- Beachworld
- The Reaper's Image
- Nona
- For Owen
- Survivor Type
- Uncle Otto's Truck
- Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)
- Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman #2)
- Gramma
- The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet
- The Reach

Spoilers included.

Rating Criteria
0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.
1/5 – Barely worth any time.
2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.
3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.
4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.
5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.


"The Mist"
The longest story of the anthology, this is a science fiction tale. A strange storm invades the area and inundates it with a shiny mist. From the mist come prehistoric creatures that sense maybe by scent. A man and his son must survive an escape from a grocery store to see if they can find a way through the mist to safety. Very good. Ending was better than the 2007 movie version but it could have used more length.
4/5.

"Here There Be Tygers"
Very short story, this is about a boy who sees (or thinks he sees) a tiger in the bathroom. His maniacal teacher comes to the bathroom to see why he has been wasting time in returning and is attacked by said tiger. Is the tiger real? No idea. Decent but not the best.
2/5.

"The Monkey"
A decent sized tale, this is about a wind-up monkey that chimes his cymbols together and someone/something dies. Coincidence? Probably not. The main character believes it is definitely due to this evil monkey. He's heard it ring its cymbols and find out about how his mother died of an aneurism, or a neighbor boy died by getting hit by a car. When it comes back, when he is an adult, he fears for his wife and children's lives. He takes it and dumps it out in the middle of the lake, hoping that will stop the monkey from playing and killing ever again. Could have used more length but it was sufficient by itself.
3.5/5.

"Cain Rose Up"
A college student (Garrish) goes a bit insane after finals, smuggles a gun onto campus and into the dorm, locking himself in. He says that God was angered at Cain because Cain had thought God was vegetarian. Cain killed his brother because Abel knew God wasn't vegetarian, so God could have meat. Therefore, when Garrish starts killing people by shooting them from his window, he says that God can eat. Gross and in detail, but a good story.
4/5.

"Mrs. Todd's Shortcut"
Two old men sit in a small town and talk about summer people versus all-year people. The one guy (Homer) starts talking about Mrs. Ophelia Todd and how strange she was. She had a thing for finding the best shortcuts wherever she went. She'd go down back roads and see if it shaved off some time, or mileage. As her obsession grew, it started taking a strange turn. She started finding shortcuts that went into a different dimension with trees pulling at you and creatures that aren't the right size or creatures not from this world. Her age started receeding with each run until she looked like a college student. Finally, she asked Homer to go with her and he said that she looked like Diana, the moon goddess - amazing and powerful and wild.
4.5/5.

"The Jaunt"
A scientist has been able to create a method of travel where you can travel long distances with a short amount of energy or time. However, if you go awake, your eye/mind might see things that are not good for the mortal human. The subjects that have gone in awake have either gone insane or have died shortly thereafter. So all must go asleep.
A father who must go to Mars to mine for water has his family (wife, daughter, and son) with him to go through this Jaunt as they move. He tells them of the scientist, the experiments, and the risk of going through awake. Hopefully it will be enough to get them to take the medication to sleep the trip, without being scared. Everything seems to be in order and they go for the Jaunt. However, their son (curious as every young boy is) tricked the Jaunt attendants, held his breath, and didn't take the inhaled medication. He stayed awake for the Jaunt and, afterwards, clawed at his eyes. The son said that the time in "limbo" between Earth and Mars was 'longer than you think'. It could have been an eternity for the mind to deal with though it took the body a short time.
This one was extremely interesting for the science fiction side of it. We are constantly wondering if we can travel the stars or even off of the planet safely. I could see scientists trying to deal with the (potentially inevitable) crude oil/gasoline crisis by searching other methods. This could easily come into our world. And I could see an issue of the mind traveling longer than the body. Who says that Star Trek didn't have that issue, aside the fact that none complained? For the ideas that the story had and the way it was presented, I rather enjoyed this tale. I would have loved to see this lengthened or made into a film, but it was very good.
4.5/5.

"The Wedding Gig"
This one was decent but not that good. More realistic than fictional. A band has been asked to play at a wedding, which they agree to. It happens to be for a rum runner that has some mafia enemies and for his fat sister's wedding. A shoot-out occurs after someone (from his enemy) insults the fat bride, killing the brother. The band doesn't get paid but they make it out with their life. The sister and her husband turn towards crime later, as if the dealing at the wedding was the cause.
2/5.

"Paranoid: A Chant"
This is so out of whack that I have a hard time rating it. Let's just say that it does justice for those that are paranoid but it doesn't make sense to a rational mind. The setting of the words is so discombobulated that my mind just said "wtf?!".
1/5.

"The Raft"
Four college kids, two guys and their girlfriends, decide to go swimming out to a raft in the middle of a lake. They never thought that there would be something in the water trying to kill them. It seems like an oil spill, until one of the four kids, reaching for it over the edge, is pulled in and swallowed up by it. She screams in pain as it burns/melts the muscle off of her bones.
It pulls one of them through the raft, slurping as a straw, until he is all gone. His ring remains on the raft as a reminder that he had been there.
The third victim, a female, lies down on the raft as the second guy made love to her. He (Randy) was watching the creature/slick to make sure they could stay away from it if it approached the raft but he was hypnotized by it and couldn't react fast enough to the creature/slick when it grabbed her (LaVerne) hair and dragged her in to kill her.
Though he tried to stay away from the slick, it became faster and didn't allow him to sleep. He, hypnotized by the creature/slick and exhausted from lack of sleep, started to let the creature/slick lure him to comfort (maybe to his death). At the end, he asked [himself or the creature/slick] "Do you love?".
This is the first story that really touches the "do you love" question/theme of the anthology.
I saw the "Creepshow 2" movie, released May 1st of 1987, before reading this short story. The story is better than the movie clip. The horror of the written story is amazing, whereas the movie clip is short and doesn't have emotional connection to the characters. The movie clip was, compared to the short story, a 2/5. However, the short story itself was pretty decent.
3/5.

"Word Processor of the Gods"
Richard, husband to a nit-picky complaining wife and a disrespectful son, had a good nephew named Jonathan. His brother, Roger, had married a good girl (Belinda) that Richard had dated prior but Roger did not treat her well. Roger, his wife, and his son died when the drunk driving Roger had gone off a cliff. After his death, Jonathan's gift to his uncle Richard was finally brought to Richard: a word processor.
Though Jonathan had created it, it was strange. Richard found out that it could delete and create things in the real world. A picture of his wife deleted off of the wall and returned to it; a bag of gold brought into the world from typing on it. He decided to take a risk and typed about "my son" Seth. After deleting the sentence about Seth, Seth was deleted from his life and his wife Lina was fatter and more depressed since she hadn't even had a child. Richard decided to take another risk, before the word processor completely quit, and deleted his wife Lina. "I am a man who lives alone except for my wife, Belinda, and my son, Jonathan." The word processor gives him his wish and resets his life with his wife Belinda and his son Jonathan.
A very good tale and perfect sized.
4.5/5.

"The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands"
Story is told by an older man about something that happened years (generations) back. A man, Henry Brower, would not shake hands. He sat down for some cards with other men at the gentleman's club. When he won the final game, he went to pick it up. Another of the men grasped his hand quickly and congratulated him. Brower screamed and ran out, not taking the pot. After Brower left (even with the teller asking him if he wanted the money), Brower shook the paw of a rag dog on the street. The dog, when the teller came back out with the money and finding Brower gone, was found dead. The next morning, the man who grasped Brower's hand was found dead. They searched for Brower and found him dead in an apartment. Turns out that Brower had been cursed - whomever touches his hand would die; so Brower had his own hands touching.
A good tale.
3.5/5.

"Beachworld"
A ship crashes on a desert planet. One of the survivors stands staring at the sand, saying it is alive. The other finds a way to fix their signal. A rescue ship comes to rescue them but the one survivor refuses to leave. The sand becomes alive and nearly destroys the rescue ship. They get away with the other survivor and the remaining survivor on the planet stares at the sand more, eating it. Psychotic much?
3.5/5.

"The Reaper's Image"
A mirror, only a few made by a certain maker, every so often shows an image of a Grim Reaper in the corner. Those that view it disappear, never to be seen again. One person, very skeptical of this story, goes to acquire the mirror. He sees an image in the mirror, still not believing it, but isn't heard of again.
This could have used more length but was decent.
3.5/5.

"Nona"
A man tells his tale of being an orphan, flunking out of school, and running away. On the way, he meets a girl, beats up a trucker, kills a man in his car, kills another man in his truck, steals the truck, assaults a police officer, dumps the cop's body over a bridge, steals the police car, and breaks into a crypt. All of it happened with the girl named Nona, though people say that she never existed nor was there evidence of her being at the scene of any of the crimes. "Do you love?" she asks in the dreams and he says that yes, she was there. "I'm not crazy. ... She was with me, she was real. I love her."
Good story, though the mental capability of the man is questionable.
3/5.

"Survivor Type"
A doctor gets stranded on an island after a cruise ship crashed. He is the only survivor and there are very few rations, excluding 2 kilos of heroin he was smuggling back in to the country. How can one survive? After he breaks his ankle and it getting infected, he decides to amputate (with help of the heroin). And waste not, want not, he decides to eat the amputated foot. After a bit, he decides to amputate the other foot off, so he can survive. It continues on, further up the legs. How much can he amputate off and still survive? "How much shock-trauma can the patient stand? ... How badly does the patient want to survive?"
3/5.

"Uncle Otto's Truck"
Uncle Otto swears that the truck (that killed his business partner by sliding off of the blocks it was on) is coming to kill him. Even when the teller was younger, the crashed, broken down red Cresswell truck was scary and intimidating.
'It inches closer daily from across the field.' When Uncle Otto finally dies, the nephew finds a spark plug [modelled for the truck that sits across the field ominously] and engine oil in his uncle's mouth. Maybe the truck did kill him? "...they found more than three quarts of oil in him...and not just in his stomach, either. It had suffused his whole system. What everyone in town wanted to know was: what had he done with the plastic jug? For none was ever found."
A VERY good evil-vehicle story. Not as good as "Christine" but ranking up there with "The Car". Scary to think a vehicle could have it in for you. Not a 5/5 due to the slowness of the start of the story but highly recommended!
4/5.

"Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)"
Milkman doing his daily duties as the customers request, per a slip of paper - juice, chocolate milk, no milk, multiple milk jugs. Stops at a house that put a "Cancel" note out. He goes inside and finds all furniture and personal belongings are gone.
This is where is REALLY bugs me: "A huge splotch of drying blood covered part of one wall. ... In the center of it a crater had been gouged deeply into the plaster. There was a matted clump of hair in this crater, and a few splinters of bone. The milkman nodded, went back out, and stood on the porch for a moment. It would be a fine day." Seriously, it says that. After seeing what seems to be evidence of a brutal murder, he just goes outside and thinks that it would be a good day and goes back to business. WTF?! For that, the rating is knocked down.
2.5/5.

"Big Wheels: A Tale of The Laundry Game (Milkman #2)"
A laundry man named Rocky, now a sour acquaintance of the milkman in Milkman #1, has to get his car registered. Completely drunk, he smashes the car into an old friend's garage shop. They booze for a while, with a coworker of Rocky's from the laundry place, talk about the "old times", get the car inspected and registered. Afterwards, the garage owner strangles his wife and burns the place to the ground; Rocky thinks he sees the milkman chasing him and, speeding, gets into a head-on collision that burns in the middle of the road.
Sour taste to this tale. Shows the bad size of booze.
2/5.

"Gramma"
An old woman, blind and well overweight, is bedridden. Her fate has been left to her daughter Ruth, a widow and mother of two sons: Buddy and George. When Buddy has been taken to the hospital for a broken leg, George (11 years old) has to take care of the house and his grandmother. Memories rise to George's mind and he realises that his grandmother must be a witch. A strange sound (death rattle?) comes from Gramma's room and he investigates. She's dead. He covers her face up and leaves her alone. Another strange sound comes from Gramma's room and he realizes that the dead woman is now up out of bed and coming for him, 'just want a hug'. If she's a witch and dead, then the hug will mean.... Of course, a transfer of witchcraft power. Maybe she'll take over his body and live as George?
3/5.

"The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet"
A tale told by an editor to a group of a writer, the writer's wife, an agent, and the agent's wife about a writer from years ago and how madness is a flexible bullet. You never know how it is going to hit or how it will affect you.
The published writer had become paranoid of "they" and had thought of a creature that lived within his typewriter - a Formit. The Formit would give good-luck dust ("formus") and help the writer write. The editor humored him, talking about how electricity interupted the brainwaves and how his Formit liked sausage. Much later, the editor lost his job and delved deeply into a drunken stupor, though still approving of the writer's paranoia. It had seemed to abate, but can madness really leave? When the editor was starting to believe the paranoias of the writer, he found that he had a Formit himself. His Formit told him a boy was killing the writer's Formit. A telegraph told the writer [editor found himself plunged into the river from madness and booze] and the writer found the hired help's son using a plastic space blaster against the Formit, which actually killed it. The writer almost killed the boy and the hired help, pushing his wife out of the way. When the three were out of the way, he committed suicide over his typewriter. Had the Formit been real or just paranoia? What was madness and what was real?
This is a great story, even with the problem with mental stability. Wonderful! Highly recommended.
4.5/5.

"The Reach"
An elderly woman, 95 years of age, had never left a small island community. It was separated from the mainland by a 'reach' - a body of water. Friends and family had visited the mainland tons of times and some had even died by falling through the frozen Reach when it hadn't fully frozen. The tale tells of her life, her experiences, and how she started seeing ghosts (her husband and friends). One winter day during a winter that had frozen the Reach thoroughly, after throwing up blood, she decided to cross the Reach to see her husband. She meets him, and many friends that had lived on the island, while on the Reach. They grasp hands together and sing, loving the living ['do you love']. Turns out that she had cancer that was far extending and that she had made it to the mainland, dying peacefully sitting on a bench outside of the city limits.
Really good story. The ending made me cry.
4/5.





So, out of the whole book, it was a good collection. 4/5 for the collection.

The Best Stories were:
"Mrs. Todd's Shortcut" 4.5/5
"The Jaunt" 4.5/5
"Word Processor of the Gods" 4.5/5
"The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" 4.5/5



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