I was thinking of a cute title for this post, and my first idea was that a Stephen King short story could be called a "little King." A collection of them should have a catchy collective name, and "murder" (as a "murder" of crows) was too good to pass up. Anyway, here's the review....
Not every story in 1985's Skeleton Crew is Stephen King's best, but since this collection contains my all-time favorite King story "The Jaunt" along with other classic King stories like The Mist, "The Monkey," "The Raft," and "Survivor Type," it's hard not to rate this one highly. Of the lesser-hyped stories, I also really loved "Gramma," "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut," "Beachworld," and "The Reach."
Others are also notable, like "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands" or "Nona" (even if the former is a little problematic in the ways its Lovecraftian inspiration is). Often in a short story collection I'll skip the stories that don't grab me, so it's a testament to King's skill that I felt like I had to read every story (at least those I haven't read before).
Selected individual stories....
I've read The Mist before, so I skipped it this time, but I'll read that again one of these days. See my review here.
I've probably read "The Jaunt" about four or five times, since I have students read it for my horror and philosophy course. One of King's most explicitly science fictional stories, this one takes place in the future where tele-transportation technology goes wrong, so very wrong. Have you ever been afraid to be alone with your own thoughts? Is this why philosophy is so scary? From the philosophy of horror to the horror of philosophy!
"The Monkey" is classic King, maybe even something of a warm up for Needful Things, but that image of the monkey (on the cover of my edition: see above) sure is creepy.
"The Raft" is another creepy one with light Lovecraftian tones and horny teens (adapted as one of the stories of Creepshow 2).
"Survivor Type" is one of King's more disturbing stories (and that's saying something) about a surgeon stranded on a desert island who turns to extreme measures to survive (very recently made into a great animated episode of the new Creepshow series on Shudder).
Of the lesser-hyped stories (those that are more rarely on people's lists of favorite King stories), I really loved "Gramma" as an exquisite exploration of the horrors of aging and death (from the perspective of a kid... check out King's Insomnia for the perspective of the elderly themselves).
"Nona" is a story I didn't think I would like, but King sucked me in, as he almost always does, to this gnarly tale of love and mass murder.
"The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands" takes place in a private club in Manhattan (maybe the same one from King's "The Breathing Method" in Different Seasons? I'd like to think so) and contains a lot of excellent Lovecraftian tropes: stodgy old white dudes encountering mysterious forces, a nested narrative, etc. Unfortunately it also contains some of Lovecraft's xenophobic racism in the depiction of India as a barbarous place of evil magic ... but maybe that fits with how white Americans of the era would think. I'm not sure, but for me it tainted what was otherwise a great story.
"Mrs. Todd's Shortcut" and "The Reach" are great examples of King being more whimsical rather than creepy. They're both the type of thing pretentious literature types would call "magical realism" (shortcuts through spacetime in Maine and ghosts and other strange happenings on an island off the coast of Maine). I can't be the only person to notice an odd resonance between "The Reach" and "Nona."
"Beachworld" is another explicitly science fiction story about a crew that lands on sandy planet where danger and delusions await. The idea of a beach with no water nicely dramatizes the existential absurdity of contemplating our place in a vast, confusing universe. Plus, there's a robot referred to as an "andy," which is sure to please my fellow Dark Tower fans. As any true Constant Reader knows, the wheel of ka connects all things Stephen King.
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