Mile 81 | |
---|---|
Author | Stephen King |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Horror, science fiction |
Publication type | E-book |
Publisher | Simon & Schuster Digital |
Pages | 80 |
Publication date | September 1, 2011 |
Mile 81 is a novella by Stephen King, originally published as an e-book on September 1, 2011. The publication also includes an excerpt from King's novel 11/22/63 , published two months later. It has also been collected in the 2015 short story collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams .
At Mile 81 on the Maine Turnpike is a boarded-up rest stop, a place where teens drink and get into trouble. Pete Simmons sneaks away from his older brother and arrives there, where he finds a bottle of vodka and magazines. He drinks enough to pass out.
A mud-covered station wagon (when there had not been any rain in New England for over a week) veers into the Mile 81 rest area, ignoring the sign that says "closed, no services". The driver's door opens but nobody gets out.
It is eventually revealed that the "station wagon" is not a station wagon at all, but a sentient, extraterrestrial entity that only assumed the form of an earthly vehicle in order to lure in unsuspecting victims.
In the version in The Bazaar of Bad Dreams , several more characters are eaten by the station wagon, including a horse owner, an insurance man, the parents of two young children, and a police trooper.
The story received a starred review from Library Journal with Mike Rogers calling it a no-brainer to purchase. [1] Publishers Weekly called the story unnerving. [2]
In February 2019, it was announced that a film adaptation is in development, with Alastair Lagrand set to direct. [3]
Dan Simmons is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos cycles, among other works that span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes within a single novel. Simmons's genre-intermingling Song of Kali (1985) won the World Fantasy Award. He also writes mysteries and thrillers, some of which feature the continuing character Joe Kurtz.
Stephen Edwin King is an American author. Widely known for his horror novels, he has been crowned the "King of Horror". He has also explored other genres, among them suspense, crime, science-fiction, fantasy and mystery. Though known primarily for his novels, he has written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in collections.
This is a list of short fiction works by Stephen King. This includes short stories, novelettes, and novellas, as well as poems. It is arranged chronologically by first publication. Major revisions of previously published pieces are also noted. Stephen King is sometimes credited with "nearly 400 short stories". However, all the known published pieces of short fiction are tabulated below. In all, 218 works are listed. Most of these pieces have been collected in King's seven short story collections: Night Shift (1978), Skeleton Crew (1985), Nightmares & Dreamscapes (1993), Everything's Eventual (2002), Just After Sunset (2008), The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (2015), and You Like It Darker (2024); in King's five novella collections: Different Seasons (1982), Four Past Midnight (1990), Hearts in Atlantis (1999), Full Dark, No Stars (2010), and If It Bleeds (2020); and in the compilation Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing (2000). Some of these pieces, however, remain uncollected.
Carrie is a 1974 horror novel, the first by American author Stephen King. Set in Chamberlain, Maine, the plot revolves around Carrie White, a friendless, bullied high-school girl from an abusive religious household who discovers she has telekinetic powers. Remorseful for picking on Carrie, Sue Snell insists that she go to prom with Sue's boyfriend Tommy Ross, though a revenge prank pulled by one of Carrie's bullies on prom night humiliates Carrie, leading her to destroy the town with her powers out of revenge. An eponymous epistolary novel, Carrie deals with themes of ostracization and revenge, with the opening shower scene and the destruction of Chamberlain being pivotal scenes.
Richard Thomas Chizmar is an American writer, the publisher and editor of Cemetery Dance magazine, and the owner of Cemetery Dance Publications. He also edits anthologies, produces films, writes screenplays, and teaches writing.
Cemetery Dance Publications is an American specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense. Cemetery Dance was founded by Richard Chizmar, a horror author, while he was in college. It is associated with Cemetery Dance magazine, which was founded in 1988. They began to publish books in 1992. They later expanded to encompass a magazine and website featuring news, interviews, and reviews related to horror literature.
Joseph Hillström King, better known by the pen name Joe Hill, is an American writer. His work includes the novels Heart-Shaped Box (2007), Horns (2010), NOS4A2 (2013), and The Fireman (2016); the short story collections 20th Century Ghosts (2005) and Strange Weather (2017); and the comic book series Locke & Key (2008–2013). He has won awards including Bram Stoker Awards, British Fantasy Awards, and an Eisner Award.
Owen Philip King is an American author of novels and graphic novels, and a television film producer. He published his first book, We're All in This Together, in 2005 to generally positive reviews, but his first full-length novel, Double Feature, had a less enthusiastic reception. King collaborated with his father, writer Stephen King, in the writing of the women's prison novel, Sleeping Beauties and the graphic novel of the same name.
Ur is a science fantasy novella by Stephen King. It is one of King's few short stories that isn't horror. It was written exclusively for the Amazon Kindle platform, and became available for download on February 12, 2009. An audiobook edition was released on February 16, 2010 by Simon & Schuster Audio, read by Holter Graham. Ur was collected in King's 2015 collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, heavily revised.
Morality is a novella by American writer Stephen King published in the July 2009 issue of Esquire. It was then included as a bonus story in Blockade Billy, a novella published on May 25, 2010, and later collected and re-introduced in the November 3, 2015 anthology The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. In the latter publication, King revealed that the story was inspired by issues of moral philosophy in his own life, back when he was a struggling student and would occasionally shoplift or write other students' essays to make ends meet. Morality received the 2009 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novelette.
Full Dark, No Stars, published in November 2010, is a collection of four novellas by American author Stephen King, all dealing with the theme of retribution. One of the novellas, 1922, is set in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, which is the home of Mother Abagail from King's epic novel The Stand (1978), the town the adult Ben Hanscom moves to in It (1986), where Alice and Billy stop for a while towards the end of the book Billy Summers, and the setting of the short story "The Last Rung on the Ladder" (1978). The collection won the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Best Collection, and the 2011 British Fantasy Award for Best Collection. Also, 1922 was nominated for the 2011 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella.
Blockade Billy is a 2010 novella by Stephen King. It tells the story of William "Blockade Billy" Blakely, a fictional baseball catcher who briefly played for the New Jersey Titans during the 1957 season.
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline is a book of short stories and a novella by the American writer George Saunders. Published in 1996, it was Saunders's first book. Many of the stories initially appeared in different forms in various magazines, including Kenyon Review, Harper's, The New Yorker and Quarterly West. The collection was listed as a Notable Book of 1996 by The New York Times, as well as a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Hemingway Award.
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is a short fiction collection by Stephen King, published on November 3, 2015. This is King's sixth collection of short stories and his tenth collection overall. One of the stories, "Obits", won the 2016 Edgar Award for best short story, and the collection itself won the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for best collection. The paperback edition, released on October 18, 2016, includes a bonus short story, "Cookie Jar", which was published in 2016 in VQR.
"That Bus Is Another World" is a horror short story written by Stephen King and first published in the August 2014 edition of Esquire. It was subsequently collected in his 2015 short story collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. Stephen King's experience in traffic in Paris inspired the story.
"Batman and Robin Have an Altercation" is a short story by the American author Stephen King. It was originally published in the September 2012 issue of Harper's Magazine, and later collected in King's short fiction collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams in 2015.
Elevation is a suspense novel by American author Stephen King, published on October 30, 2018, by Scribner. The book contains chapter-heading illustrations by Mark Edward Geyer, who previously illustrated King's first editions of Rose Madder and The Green Mile.
If It Bleeds is a collection of four previously unpublished novellas by American writer Stephen King. The stories in the collection are titled "Mr. Harrigan's Phone", "The Life of Chuck", "If It Bleeds", and "Rat". It was released on April 28, 2020.
Drunken Fireworks is an audiobook novella written by Stephen King and read by Tim Sample released in June 2015. It is a humorous story that predominantly takes the form of a police statement given by the protagonist, Alden McCausland, to the Castle County police chief Andy Clutterbuck, followed by a closing conversation between Alden and the officers present. The story follows the McCauslands coming into "new money" and a developing yearly competition of one-upmanship dubbed the "Fourth of July arms race" with their old money neighbors across the lake, the Massimos, who may or may not be "connected". What starts as a friendly, competitive fireworks display competition escalates each year until it ends in disaster.
"The Little Green God of Agony" is a short story by Stephen King. It was originally published in 2011 as part of the anthology A Book of Horrors.