Campfire Short Scares from Stephen King: Riding the Bullet & Stationary Bike

5 Nov

It’s the season of sitting by the fire on dark nights, with the cold flowing around. What lies beyond the darkness, and what could appear in a passing car light. I found companions for these nights: Stephen King’s Riding the Bullet and Stationary Bike audiobooks on Hoopla. Each is 1 hour 30 minutes.

Riding the Bullet

Book cover for Stephen King's "Riding the Bullet," featuring a hitchhiking hand giving a thumbs-up over a dark road, a misty graveyard, and a large full moon.

This was a very solid ghost story, and I genuinely found myself trapped in this horror’s slow burn. In classic King style, we’re brought into the main character’s doubt as he navigates a “what if” situation.

Alan races to a Maine hospital to visit his Mom after a stroke. ‘What if I don’t get to her in time before she dies?’ So the only way to get there is to hitchhike. He meets both the good and the bad, escapes, but with miles still to go, he must get one last ride.  

The ghost does not hide its marks on its neck or its hands, but the car is dark, so Alan can only deduce, but every deduction leads to the realization that this may be his last ride. The ultimatum becomes life or death, but is it for him?

The dread isn’t that Alan is in a car with a ghost, but that the ghost makes him question his morals and humanity. For me, Alan’s debate is about his childhood memories and how they’ve circled back to him through the paranormal encounter.

You can find the audiobook on Hoopla here.

You can reserve the adapted movie in the BCCLS catalog here.

Stationary Bike

Book cover for Stephen King's Stationary Bike. The cover includes an indoor room featuring a dark room with a checkered floor, a dark brick wall, and a black stationary bike facing away. On the wall behind the stationary bike, there is a large framed picture of workers on a path.

It’s a mid-life crisis manipulated to the question of ‘what if I don’t do what the doctor tells me? Will I make it?’

Richard’s cholesterol is sky-high, and in the doctor’s words, inside Richard is a crew of workmen fighting the grime and sludge of fast food he’s putting into his body. They’re angry for what he’s doing to himself. Exercise. Exercise. Exercises.

That’s the medicine, so Richard buys a stationary bike for his basement. Richard paints a rustic country-road mural on the wall to pretend he’s biking through it.

Then, the hallucinations begin. The crew shows up, and they’re angry.

The drive to be better and healthier, mixed with the power of a metaphor, drives the horror of Stationary Bike.

You can find the audiobook on Hoopla here.

Stationary Bike is in Just After Sunset, a collection of King’s short stories, in the BCCLS catalog here.

Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

Funny New Fantasies: Monsters of Ohio and Saved by the Spell

3 Nov
Cover of Saved by the Spell by Tanya Huff, author of Direct Descendant. Features a classroom with desks and chairs facing an ominous eye on the black board with rays spiral fourth from it.

I often enjoy romantasies, but sometimes you want a fantasy with less romance and more humor, here are two great new picks for those looking for laughs.

Monsters of Ohio
by John Scalzi
I have enjoyed several of Scalzi’s previous novels some of which we read as part of the library’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Discussion Group. Scalzi pokes some loving fun at his home state with Monsters of Ohio, a tale of contemporary fantasy, about a man returning to his hometown and along with the fellow townspeople being forced to confront Lovecraftian inspired horror along with the problems of modern blue collar suburbia. The story shows though that sometimes the true monsters are the ones that might look the most normal on the outside. It does a great job of satirizing modern American life and having known people who had to deal with factory and other layoffs, this story resonated. There is also something hopeful in the books tagline “People Change.” If you enjoyed Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country or Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain, then be sure to check this one out.

Saved by the Spell
Tanya Huff
Saved by the Spell is the funny new fantasy from Tanya Huff. Imagine Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the teacher’s perspective. At a magical arts boarding school in Canada, Abigail has a new class of incoming 9th graders and on top of the usual drama one of the students in her homeroom shows the signs of being a hero, but when disasters start happening around the potential hero, it also becomes clear there is also a budding villain. Much of the humor comes from sly meta-fiction references to other dark academic works as well as seeing normal teenage school issues with the addition of magic; acne breakouts seem a lot less stressful compared with turning into an elephant. Since I have several friends and relatives who are teachers and worked for a bit as a substitute and teacher’s assistant myself, I felt the depiction of teaching was very accurate (with an addition of a little magic). Added to this is the mystery of who the villain is and Huff has plenty of red herrings that kept me guessing till the end. If you enjoyed her previous novel, Direct Descendant, then this story should be a delight. Huff is always one of my favorites!

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

Tags: , ,

← Older Entries