Stephen King

Mist

A group of neighbors trapped in a grocery store by a supernatural mist--which may have been unintentionally unleashed by a nearby military base--must fight the horrific monsters that live within it.

The Mist

Not that it’s a high bar but this might be the scariest book I’ve ready yet 

Zachary Roberts

John Lopiano Jr.

I’m so used to reading 400+ pages of King, so being able to read such a well-executed piece of horror in under 170 pages was refreshing. This is classic King. It’s one of the ones where the type of horror is really about how often you think about what you would do had you been put into a similar situation. The ending is satisfying enough to close the story but ambiguous enough to invite theories. It also lends itself to a potential sequel or follow up should King feel like the timing is right.

Dimitris Papastergiou

One of my favorite horror/mystery books, and even though I liked the ending better on the movie version (thank Gods for that) because the book's ending was not a good-written one. And even then, I still love this story!

Sebastian Bejarano

Incredible. I like both movie and novel. In this case, I feel that you need to know both of them to have a better experience with this story.

Morgan Thomas

For a story with such an interesting premise, the writing felt dull and lackluster for the most part. I think of 165 pages, ten really felt riveting? To me it lacked a compelling momentum that kept me wanting to read. I worry that with King I had such an unpleasant two occasions trying to read 11/22/63 I don't expect much of a good time.

Adam Goehrig-Bawany

In the wake of a summer storm, terror descends... #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King suspends a small town in a haze of terror—as humanity makes its last stand against unholy destruction…

Janice Hopper

After I watched the series The Mist on Netflix (not really recommended unless you like gory and dark and hopeless stories about horrible people), I was curious about what was in the original story. I've seen most of the earlier movie.

It's more like the earlier movie than the series. Big surprise, eh? And it's fairly hopeless and dark too. 

I haven't read a lot of Stephen King's earlier short works. This one wasn't too bad.

The No. 1 bestselling author Stephen King's terrifying novella about a town engulfed in a dense, mysterious mist - originally published in the acclaimed short story collection Skeleton Crew and made into a feature film by Frank Darabont - is now available as a stand-alone publication. A man staggered into the market . . . 'Something in the fog!' he screamed Following a freak summer storm, David Drayton, his son Billy, and their neighbour Brent Norton join dozens of others and head to the local grocery store to replenish supplies. Once there, they become trapped by a strange mist that has enveloped the town. Violent forces concealed in the mist are starting to emerge. And there is another shocking threat from within - one group of survivors, led by a religious zealot, is calling for a sacrifice. Now David and his son must try to escape. But what's outside may be even more dangerous. This exhilarating novella explores the horror in both the enemy you know - and the one you can only imagine.

kate humphreys 

okay this was really short so i listened to it in a day but i think i really need to be picky about audiobooks because i was zoned out for so much of this and i’m not the biggest fan of his writing so i didn’t like it all that much. the concept is really cool and maybe i would be saying something else if i had stuck with reading the physical version. the narrator stressed me out, he had three different voices for the same character and one of them sounded like trump and i can’t stop thinking ab that so that’s fun.

Dee B. 

4

I despised the cheating arc (it was unnecessary - did absolutely nothing for the story at all!) otherwise it would have been a full five. As is classic Stephen King, we're left off with a bittersweet conclusion.

This one had a lot of waiting around, with nothing happening, and I kept hoping that there would be more. Maybe, seeing the movie first spoiled it for me, because I knew what was coming and so was too impatient to see the buildup for what it should have been. 

Can't wait for my next King read.

Catarina Silva

3 stars
It was ok, nothing special. A good audiobook to pass time

Sian Wadey

This was part of a short story collection. I purchased the book specifically after I'd seen the film so I did have some preconceptions, but overall I enjoyed it. I liked the characters and I think King flourishes in 'end of the world' situations, especially when it comes to human behaviour. My only complaint was the end of the book. King is famous for leaving his stories with no definite ending which can be quite frustating when you've spent a lot of time on a book.

Celeste Richardson

You can find this review and more at Novel Notions. 

The Mist is another of King’s works that, like Carrie, has become such an integral part of society’s collective consciousness regarding fear that it’s become almost cliche. And, as with Carrie, my visit to the Mist completely altered my perception of a story I thought I knew. In my opinion, it went a long towards explaining why King chooses to end stories the way he does, which I’ll get into later. All that being said, The Mist is a quick little journey into the frightened mind, a dissection of mob mentality and the way fear plays itself out within a group of strangers who are thrown together by sudden and unexplained danger. It’s disturbing and thoughtful and does a fantastic job of putting readers in the shoes of its characters.

One thing that King excels at in my opinion is developing believable characters who make believable if unfortunate decisions based on their fear. Our main protagonist and his son find themselves trapped in a supermarket with a bunch of other bystanders, ranging from strangers on holiday to year-round neighbors. In the aftermath of a terrible storm, a strange mist rolls into town. Unfortunately, the mist is much more than the dense fog it appears to be; hidden within the mist are horrid, unearthly creatures that want nothing more than to feed, and humans are evidently pleasing to their palates. Unable to leave the market for fear of being eaten, this motley crew of strangers and neighbors must decide what to do in order to survive.

I found it absolutely fascinating to see how group dynamics were fostered and altered by such a large group being trapped together. Little tribes were formed, and leaders of those tribes battled for dominance and greater numbers. We witness a cult develop, led by one of the creepiest human antagonists I’ve witnessed thus far in King’s fiction. We see inhibitions lowered, animal instincts rear their ugly heads, and heroism revealed in the unlikeliest of candidates. We see bravery and cowardice, greed and selflessness, adaptation and blatant closed-mindedness, all writ small within a glass menagerie of a microcosm. I found seeing these big ideas played out on such a small stage incredibly telling of the mixed bag that is humanity. We are capable of such brilliant good, and such mind boggling evil. And all that separates one from the other is the path we choose to follow. Everything always comes back to free will with King’s stories, which rings very true for me.

Something I really appreciate about King is his ability to convey belief in something as right and true even in the midst painting religion as horrid and garish. I’ve read around twenty King books, and probably at least a half-dozen of those have featured religious fervor in a negative light. And yet King does a brilliant job of not portraying religious belief itself as evil. Instead, he shows these villains to be fanatics who have twisted religion in some way to suit them. So far, this has always been some twisted form of Christianity, and yet I have never once felt that King was poking fun at Christians. He is instead showing the evil that can be wrought in the name of religion, and how Christianity can become a horribly twisted and dangerous entity when approached from a desire to judge and appear superior instead of a desire for forgiveness and acceptance and love. I have seen my faith twisted in such ways in real life, and it always both saddens and infuriates me. I sense a bit of that in King’s work and it really resonates with me.

One thing I particularly appreciated about this book in particular was a nugget near the end of the story that in my opinion explained King’s approach to endings, regarding which he is kind of infamous as they are often ambiguous. “This is what happened. Or, nearly all-there is one final thing I’ll get to in a moment. But you mustn’t expect some neat conclusion…It is, I suppose, what my father always frowningly called “an Alfred Hitchcock ending,” by which he meant a conclusion in ambiguity that allowed the reader or viewer to make up his own mind about how things ended. My father had nothing but contempt for such stories, saying they were ‘cheap shots.’” I really believe this is both an apology and a defense, in a way. King gravitates towards ambiguous endings because they leave things in the hands of readers, but he realizes that this trend of his isn’t always popular. I honestly kind of like ambiguous endings for the very reason King gives us here from the lips of his protagonist. Without a blatant end, readers are free to imagine up their own conclusions, and such stories often live on in our mind longer than their neatly tied counterparts. This is why I think King excels at short stories, because ambiguous endings are for some reason more acceptable when delivered in that format.

The Mist is, like most of the books I’ve read from King, not perfect. I can see the flaws, but I was in no way deterred by them. This novella as engrossing as a story set predominantly in a grocery store can hope to be. I just so happened to read the majority of this book on an unusually foggy day, which definitely added on odd ambiance to my reading experience. I also can’t help feeling that novels like Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer might never have been written if not for this little book. The Mist is definitely worth reading, and it a good way of dipping your proverbial toes into King’s scarier stuff.

Franzi

This was the first book by Stephen King I've read, and I am rather disappointed. I didn't get along well with the writing style but that's just a personal opinion. The ending - WHAT was that? I won't write down any spoilers but it didn't satisfy my need for answers AT ALL. This book left a huge question mark inside of me, and that's the reason I can't give a higher rating than 2 stars. Usually I like endings like that but not in a horror book.

Една от най-запомнящите се творби на Краля, която ще ви заведе в дебрите на мрака, дебнещ в човешката душа! След гръмотевична буря, която прекъсва електричеството, идва мъглата.

Спуска се над езерото като обещание и напредва безмилостно към малко градче, където нищо неподозиращи хора бързат да се запасят с провизии. Мъглата идва за тях, за да скрие външния свят в бялата си мекота.

А в нея има нещо. Нещо, което взима всеки, осмелил се да напусне убежището си. Нещо, което убива.

Стивън Кинг се завръща с една от най-култовите си книги. В ново издание и нов превод под логото на издателство Сиела излиза "Мългата" - новелата, вдъхновила едноименния филм на Франк Дарабонт и сериала на Spike.

Мъглата

a.k.a. "за супермаркетите и хората"

Milo Jean

I told myself I wouldn’t DNF this one so it wouldn’t become the second King book I didn’t finish this year (the first one being “The Institute”) Plus this one was so short and I was listening to it on audiobook so I felt I could push through. 

I didn’t really care for it. The main character annoyed me from beginning to end... your facing an unknown dangerous end of the world scenario and all you can think about is sleeping with another woman trapped with you? While your wife is in who know’s what danger herself? 

Beyond that the writing style of this book is very detailed in what the character is thinking in every moment but also barely fleshed out in story. I think that’s supposed to add to the horror of it, and leave it up to your own imagination, but it’s just not my style. 

I do think the actual creatures were pretty neat and the action bits when they attacked were pretty nerve-wracking. During those times of the book I felt really invested but everything around it I had to fight with myself to listen and not zone out. I also didn’t mind the ambiguous ending honestly. This one just wasn’t for me... and it’s been a while since I read a book by King that I liked, and I can think of quite a few I have DNF’d over the years so it’s possible he’s just not for me... (is that a sin?)

Karla 

reseña en el canal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zES3o...

Sophia De La Garza

My first King of the year, this wasn't my favorite of his works but I did enjoy it. I will say that I saw the movie years ago and I think I enjoyed it a bit more than this as I got more visuals for the creatures in the Mist. 

Overall, 3.5 stars. Not a bad King book to start with for this year's King tbr.

Jana Pashovska

Horror in the truest sense of the word—a slowly approaching dread that turns into a full-blown massacre with seemingly no way out of the hopelessness. Religious mania intertwined with the Lovecraftain sense of primordial evil— it creates such an effect upon the mind both of the characters and the reader that you cannot but feel eerily disturbed. This is why I love Stephen King. He knows how to make my skin crawl and to get my little gray cells working.

Mist

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