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This is another enjoyably unpleasant story, and a darkly fun twist on the deal-with-the-devil morality tale. Fair Extension (from Full Dark, No Stars)Ī terminally ill man makes a dark bargain with a stranger to get an extension on his life. There's no doubt that it's a great story, but for me - possibly because I didn't connect with the 1920s setting quite as much - it was overshadowed by the other tales it's been grouped alongside.

Like the other three tales in Full Dark, No Stars, it's a nasty, fast-paced read about the darker side of the human condition. Like the majority of the stories on this list, 1922 is part of a collection of four novellas. 1922 (from Full Dark, No Stars)Ī farmer plans to murder his wife with the help of their teenage son. Perhaps because I knew what was coming when I read it - and I had such a clear picture of the movie in my mind - the novella was slightly overshadowed. The thing is, though, I saw the film first. Don't get me wrong, it's a great story: the characters are brilliant, and it's not hard to see why it made such a captivating film. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (from Different Seasons)Ī man imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit plots to escape.įor a novella that inspired what's often thought of as one of the greatest films of all time, you might be wondering why this one isn't higher up. This collection contains both my least favourite, and my second most favourite of King's novellas. One day I'll go back and give it another go, but in the meantime it's a victim of its two companions. I loved both of those stories very much (you can read my excitable wafflings about them both further down this list), and perhaps because of that Roadwork didn't suck me in quite as quickly. When I read Roadwork, it was just after having finished the two stories it sits alongside: The Long Walk and The Running Man. Roadwork (from The Bachman Books)Ī man makes a violent stand against the construction company planning to demolish his home.Īgain, this is going to be a very subjective one. But for a clueless Brit like myself it just didn't have the same impact. The story is still fun, the character of "Blockade Billy" is creepy, and I imagine this one would be higher up the list of someone who's a fan of the sport. The main problem here is I know literally nothing about baseball. Blockade Billy (from The Bazaar of Bad Dreams)Ī former baseball player recounts the story of a 1950s season when his team hired a mysterious player called William Blakely. I remember liking the idea of a story-telling club in a weird, possibly multi-dimensional house, but the main bulk of the story - the tale within the tale - just wasn't memorable enough for me.

I'm putting this one at the bottom of the list purely because it hasn't stuck with me it's one of the few Stephen King novellas that didn't really leave a mark. The Breathing Method (from Different Seasons)Ī man in a strange story-telling club tells the grim tale of a woman learning a new technique for giving birth. Some of the stories towards the end of this list are among my all-time favourites of his.įrom time-swallowing monster to nightmarish, life-or-death competitions, here are all of King's novellas - ranked from worst to best (or, in other words, from good to ridiculously good). I sometimes think King's at his best when he's writing either very short, or very long novels. Sprinkled throughout the horror master's glorious 50-year career, nestled alongside his series, short story roundups and 400,000+ word epics, King has published a number of successful four-story novella collections.Īnd as a troublingly obsessed Stephen King fan, let me tell you this: they're well worth checking out. 13 of the best Stephen King short stories you've never read