Stephen King: Skeleton Crew

The Jaunt would be a worthy winner but honestly the quiet cosmic horror of The Raft and the complete hopelessness of it might win it for me. The colour voice or whatever of the lake monster is a bit cheesy but it’s gruesome.

I'm only up to "Beachworld" in my re-read (generally doing one a day in between reading other things for teaching and research), but yeah, "The Jaunt" is gonna be hard to beat, it's unknowable existential terror more chilling to me than any of the (already plenty scary) creepy-crawlies of "The Mist" or "The Raft."

I didn't realize until this re-read that "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands" is, if not a sequel to, than at least something that functions as a new "episode" of "The Breathing Method" from Different Seasons.

I re-read Here There Be Tygers, The Monkey, Cain Rose Up, and Mrs. Todd's Shortcut about a month ago. The Monkey was heartbreaking, Mrs. Todd's Shortcut was exhilarating and creepy if not actually scary, and Tygers was a cute trifle.

Cain is just utterly depressing, given the mountain of bodies that have piled up from mass shootings since then. Back in 1968, King was still trying to grapple with Charles Whitman from two years before. Now, it's just Tuesday.

Of the others, I know the Mist, the Jaunt, and the Raft well. I assume that the Jaunt will win? I'll try to reacquaint myself with the rest of them over the next couple weeks though.

Am I remembering right that there's a bit in the Mist that talks about seeing legs going up into the clouds or something? That kind of blew my mind as a kid. Maybe my first brush with Weird Unfathomable Horror?

One of king’s worst habits is trying to make fetch happen and particularly the idea that you can make the first piece of nonsense that pops into your head terrifying through blunt force repetition; entire novels derailed by the belief that the word “gorg” will make your blood run cold

But I do honestly love the thing in this collection where in separate stories characters start saying “do you love?” like a mantra

Am I remembering right that there's a bit in the Mist that talks about seeing legs going up into the clouds or something? That kind of blew my mind as a kid. Maybe my first brush with Weird Unfathomable Horror?

i can't remember these by title alone anymore 😔

Troll vote for the poems

The monsters in "The Mist" are mainly defined by their unfathomable quality: they are tentacles that reach out of a thick fog, connected to nothing tangible, or a something stomping around the Earth that is so large that it can't be fully comprehended by the narrator's literal p.o.v, (the story's eco-disaster theme is particularly potent here: just because we can't always see it...). I know some people quite like the film, but it's one of those I've never bothered to watch specifically because I can't imagine the monsters living up to the words on the page.

Nostalgia vote for Survivor Type

Skeleton Crew was the first Stephen King I ever read. My first day of high school, wide-eyed at how much cooler the library was than in primary school. I remember browsing the fiction section & seeing that SKELETON CREW spine with red (?) lettering

Imagine being TWELVE and reading a story likr ‘Survivor Type’ for the first time lmao. I barely knew what ANY drugs were!

I also remember having an insanely vivid dream about ‘The Mist’ set mostly in my hometown supermarket

Loved “Here There Be Tygers” “Cain Rose Up” and “The Monkey”

lots to vote for but Survivor Type is still maybe the craziest cuckoo bananas story he’s done, and imo he kind of pulls it off anyway?… it’s so vivid

also this collection secured my fandom

… and many years of being on endless hold lists waiting for the next King book to go back on the shelf because all the novels were super popular (except Eyes of the Dragon which was always available, lol)

The uk pb cover wasn’t up to much I don’t think

Here’s is my chance to complain about the twist ending of The Mist movie which still aggravates me to no end.

lol I love it 😈

btw, a salute to Michael J. Fox and the American Library Association for this poster, which had a creepy hold on me for quite some time before I eventually mustered up the courage to wander over to the adult non-fiction section to see what that was all about.

https://i.imgur.com/xMckprO.png

The creepshow 2 raft segment is such a miss, making the weird sex scene into an assault but doing nothing with that

pvmic but there could be a v good adaptation that actually emphasises the sexual dynamic (the guys are hot for each other and also the girls and are weirdos about it) and the blob thing turning the sexuality violent could be v scary

not gonna vote in this since i haven't read most of these stories in 30+ years but "the jaunt" is easily the king that has stuck with me the most through my life

The creepshow 2 raft segment is such a miss, making the weird sex scene into an assault but doing nothing with that

pvmic but there could be a v good adaptation that actually emphasises the sexual dynamic (the guys are hot for each other and also the girls and are weirdos about it) and the blob thing turning the sexuality violent could be v scary

― fact checking suz (wins), Thursday, October 16, 2025 3:10 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes to all of this, to which I will only add that the blob looks like a floating garbage bag in the film.

I found my copy of this recently, up in my parents' loft.

For all the The Mist is perfect, part of me would like there to be a 'demos' version of this book, with a full novel version of it.

Like others, Survivor Type messed me up as a kid. I think about it fairly often.

I don't remember The Jaunt at *all* and now I want to re-read.

Survivor Type was probably my favorite as a kid, I loved how the writing got increasingly incomprehensible as it went on.

I'd forgotten about The Jaunt but rereading the synopsis on wiki brought it right back and creeped me right tf out again 30 years later.

Ranked, Soto-style (the poems are exempt):

The Hague
Cain Rose Up
The Reach

Meh
Nona
Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman #2)
Beachworld

Sound, Solid
Survivor Type
Mrs. Todd's Shortcut
The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet
The Monkey
Uncle Otto's Truck
Here There Be Tygers
The Wedding Gig
The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands
The Reaper's Image

Good to Great
The Jaunt
The Raft
The Mist
Gramma
Word Processor of the Gods
Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1)

This is The Jaunt. I can't remember a single moment of the rest of this collection, but The Jaunt has stayed with me for 33 years.

Going with Survivor Type cause it’s the one that has haunts me the most and which I was most unprepared for as a middle schooler.

Going with Survivor Type cause it’s the one that has haunts me the most and which I was most unprepared for as a middle schooler.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.