Hey everyone, I am a bit under the weather today (a phrase coined by sailors forced below deck when falling ill and a term I learned after reading The Wager). So, given my weakened immune system, I am getting straight to the point here.
My last review for 2025 is for Stephen King’s The Langoliers. The writing is serviceable, yet far from King’s best, often lacking the charm, whimsy, and “out-there” quality King’s novels are famous for. Towards the last few chapters, however, King works his literary magic, and the descriptions become more vivid and deeply personal.
That being said, his ten or so main characters can be a bit confusing to keep track of, especially since he keeps switching between their perspectives mid-paragraph, something writers are told is a big no-no, though I suspect King made a conscious decision to do what worked best for his story, given its unusual premise, literary conventions be damned.
“Why, what happens to today when it becomes yesterday, what happens to the present when it becomes the past. It waits—dead and empty and deserted. It waits for them. It waits for the time-keepers of eternity, always running along behind, cleaning up the mess in the most efficient way possible … by eating it.”
Stephen King, The Langoliers
But what pushes The Langoliers into worthy-read territory is the brilliant and, dare I say, unique concept. Finding an original idea at your local Barnes & Noble these days is like finding a diamond in a coal mine, yet The Langoliers delivers that rare diamond. The story grips you from the start with its JJ Abrams-style “mystery box,” when hundreds of travelers suddenly vanish from a plane mid-flight, leaving behind their purses, teeth fillings, and metal implants. But unlike JJ Abrams, who (frustratingly) never bothers to answer any of the questions he raises, King offers conclusions more engaging than the mystery itself. Without spoiling too much, let me just say it involves “time travel,” but time travel in a sense you’ve never seen or heard of before.
How King keeps coming up with this stuff decade after decade is beyond me, and I am sometimes forced to wonder whether he’s holding the Muse of Creativity shackled in his basement like that author in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series. The guy can take a simple premise, like The Shining, and make it brilliant, or he can invent a brilliant premise, as he does here, that stands on its own merits.
If you’re a listener to the Story Matters Podcast—and if you’re not, why not?—I cap off the year by briefly going over the books I read in 2025.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
The Art of Storytelling 
And then the miniseries turned it into something silly. XD
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hate to admit watching the miniseries first, a long long time ago. I think it suffered from a lack of budget and the CGI of the time. Those monsters made me think of Pacman. But the concept always stuck with me.
LikeLike