The Langoliers: 03/08/07

Four Past Midnight contains four novellas by Stephen King. For the purpose of my book count, I'm counting each novella as a separate "book" and I'll be posting a separate review for each one.

The first novella is "The Langoliers" which I have to admit I was reluctant to read from the few minutes of the made for tv movie I've seen a few times on late night TV. My whole preconception of the story was of a group of people stuck on an airplane while angry hair balls barked at them from the tarmac. Thankfully there is more to the story than that!

"The Langoliers" is an homage to the Twilight Zone and that mixes in with it the classic Stephen King theme of childhood fear come to life. As with most King stories, the bulk of the plot is set in Maine. It's a surreal tale full of pop culture references that are flavored with foreboding. What is the noise? What are the langoliers? What has happened to flight 29?

Save for a brief description of the langoliers near the end of the story, King leaves most of their purpose and features up to the readers' imaginations. Even having seen the made for TV movie, I found myself scared at points in the story, something that wouldn't have been accomplished if the langoliers had been more thoroughly described.

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