First Impressions: Nightmares and Dreamscapes

I've finished reading the first story of Steven King's: Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and it is safe to say that this novel can hook you in incredibly fast, without any warning on its part. Previous Steven King novels have deemed themselves rather uninteresting in my eyes. The incredible lengths of the books utterly overshadow any sort of intrigue I used to have, and the lack of any tense moments that could absorb me into the story are few and far. However, Nightmares and Dreamscapes is a book composed of short stories that prove themselves to be far more interesting. You see, the short lengths of the stories encourage them to be straight-forward and not draw out a ton of detail to keep the plot going. Instead, these stories are filled with interesting characters with enough of an stimulating premise to satisfy. Being halfway into the next story, it appears that this intrigue shows no intrest in dying down.

The first story opens right away with an ex-third grade school teacher stalking his wife's killer. The killer, in this case, lives like a king and is near impossible to touch. The plot develops through telling the struggles of this teacher as he attempts to trap the killer after months of learning his routine. It also becomes established that his teacher is clearly insane, as he keeps hearing the voices of his deceased wife guiding him. Eventually, he hears a second voice that puts his actions into doubt, and almost tears his humanity apart entirely. While the premise may be very simple, it is executed in a very compelling way. Despite the teacher being a mad man, you cant help but support his actions as he slowly reveals his story. The ending is powerful enough to satisfy, as the teacher realizes his actions and leaves satisfied with his work. Its truly interesting how much he takes pleasure in knowing his trap worked and the outcome was just to his liking. It is exactly how a psychopath would expect to act, like that of a bomb-maker, considering his invention to be a work of art. The plot, characters, and conclusion are all compelling and left me wanting more as continued through the novel. 

Nightmares and Dreamscapes, thus far, is quite an interesting venture. The story becomes very tense at times, but dosen't attempt to throw any loops. However, the suspense is what made the story come to life and the energy flowing in parallel with the teacher's actions. All in all, Nightmares and Dreamscapes surprised me with how engaged I became. I truly hope the Steven King sticks to his well-crafted short stories, as this one proved to be one of the most tense and suspenseful I have read.