"I made these stories especially for you. Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth."
— Stephen King, in the foreword
The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is Stephen King's sixth collection of short stories, published in 2015. Many of the stories have previously been published in magazines, but it also contains unpublished stories. Many of these are acknowledged homages to other writers, such as Elmore Leonard, Robert Browning, and Raymond Carver.
Stories in ''The Bazaar of Bad Dreams':
- "Mile 81": At an abandoned rest stop, a man-eating, station wagon-shaped creature lures in helpful drivers one by one.
- "Premium Harmony": A bickering couple and their dog stop at a convenience store, and the wife enters to buy a birthday present. The husband thinks bitterly on his life - unaware of the tragedy going on inside. Set in King’s fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine.
- "Batman and Robin Have an Altercation": Sanderson, a man with an elderly and senile father, spends a typical day with him. Just as his father's memory seems to be returning, a minor traffic accident and the ensuing fight has deadly consequences.
- "The Dune": A very old judge calls his lawyer over to finalize his last will and testament, and tells him a story about a sand dune that seemingly predicts death.
- "Bad Little Kid": A prisoner on death row relates the tale of how he came to be there, and of the titular “bad little kid” that has followed him for most of his life.
- “A Death”: A sheriff in 1880s Dakota Territory
doubts the guilt of a Manchild convicted of murdering a 10-year-old girl. - “The Bone Church”: One of the last survivors of a doomed jungle expedition describes its horrors in exchange for drinks. A piece of lyrical poetry that King originally wrote in the 1960s.
- “Morality”: A previously sinless old minister asks his nurse to agree to a bargain: she commits a sin on his behalf, and he will give her $200,000.
- “Afterlife”: An investment banker is offered a difficult choice after he dies and proceeds to a Celestial Bureaucracy.
- “Ur”: Sent the wrong Kindle electronic reader by mistake, an English professor discovers a wealth of literature and information from countless Alternate Universes.
- “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive”: Two families, friends Brenda and Jasmine (and their seven children) and former lovers Phil and Pauline, briefly intersect at a rest area. The peace doesn’t last.
- “Under the Weather”: Brad’s wife Ellen comes down with a bout of bronchitis – or at least, that’s what he would like to believe.
- “Blockade Billy”: The story of a talented baseball player who fell into obscurity for a very good reason.
- “Mister Yummy”: A gay man recounts his history, including living through the AIDS epidemic and encountering a herald of death he calls “Mister Yummy.”
- “Tommy”: A narrative poem about a young hippie dying of leukemia, and the lives of those he left behind.
- “The Little Green God of Agony”: A rich man, wracked with disabling pain after a plane crash, is drawn in by the words of a preacher claiming he is possessed by the titular god – a god that only he can exorcise.
- “That Bus Is Another World”: Stuck in traffic in New York, a businessman sees something terrible in a bus in the next lane.
- “Obits”: A webzine writer realizes that when he writes an obituary of a living person, they will die soon afterward.
- “Drunken Fireworks”: A yearly fireworks competition between the new money McCauselands and the old money, “connected” Massimos turns into a disastrous game of one-upmanship.
- “Summer Thunder”: A chronicle of the daily life of Peter Robinson, one of the last survivors of a nuclear war.
Tropes in the short stories:
- After the End: "Summer Thunder” takes place after a nuclear war destroyed most of the United States, and the survivors are starting to feel the effects of radiation poisoning.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: The entire crux of the plot in "Drunken Fireworks," and a rare example of this trope being purely Played for Laughs in King's works, which typically have a much more serious commentary on alcoholism. The story asks a simple question: what would happen if one were to give high-grade explosives to two families of incredibly competitive drunks?
- Asshole Victim: The ex-con truck driver that attacks Sanderson in “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation,” when Sanderson’s father stabs him in the neck with a steak knife.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Leeches “the size of a hot house tomato” in “The Bone Church.”
- Bittersweet Ending: Several.
- In “Mile 81,” most of the drivers that stopped are dead, but the two Lussier children are alive and the station wagon-thing has been driven away for the moment.
- In “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation,” Sanderson’s father murders the ex-con out of defense of his son, but he’s unlikely to be prosecuted or jailed based on his age and dementia. Other than that, the day has been better for father and son than it has been in a long time.
- Blob Monster: Implied to be the station wagon’s true form in “Mile 81.”
- Body Horror: Many of the characters in “Mile 81” get to see what their own bones look like after the station wagon-shaped “thing” latches onto them.
- One of the expeditioners loses a nose “like a rotten peach” in “The Bone Church.”
- Bolivian Army Ending: “The Little Green God of Agony” ends with the titular god crawling onto Kat’s hand in the pitch blackness of a power outage.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Several times: little boy Blakey in “Mile 81”, Jim in “A Death” as he is hanged, and Sanderson’s father in “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation.”
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Reverend Rideout manages to get the demon God out of Newsome, but dies of a heart attack in the process in “The Little Green God of Agony.” Unfortunately for everyone else, that means he’s now unable to stop it from latching on to anyone else.
- Bystander Syndrome: A variation in “That Bus is Another World.” Even after witnessing a murder, the narrator doesn’t even call the police.
- Creepy Child: The titular “Bad Little Kid.” If he even really is a child.
- Cruel Twist Ending: In “The Dune,” Harvey Beecher’s name isn’t written on the death-predicting dune. It’s his lawyer’s, Wayland.
- In “Bad Little Kid,” it’s revealed in the last few sentences that the kid is very much alive and intends to go after the previously unconnected Bradley.
- Curiosity Killed the Cast: In “Mile 81,” it’s a mix of this and an instinct to help stranded motorists that results in the deaths of the majority of the cast.
- Thoroughly averted in “That Bus Is Another World.”
- Deal with the Devil: Winnie most certainly isn’t a devil, he’s an old minister. The offer he makes Nora has all the trappings of this, including a hugely negative effect on her life afterwards and an implied loss of her “soul.”
- Downer Ending: Those that don’t have a Bittersweet Ending– as is per usual for King.
- “Bad Little Kid”: Hallas, despite all of his efforts and ending up on death row for it, fails to kill the bad little kid and avenge his loved ones – and the kid has already chosen a new target.
- “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive”: Brenda, Jasmine, and their seven children all die in a deliberate car accident, as Brenda and Jasmine have been thoroughly Driven to Suicide by their depressing lives.
- “The Little Green God of Agony” – the god is loose in a dark room full of people and ready to possess our protagonist, and the only person who could have stopped it is dead.
- Driven to Suicide: Brenda and Jasmine in “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive,” both Timlin, by gunshot, and the narrator, by deliberate motorcycle crash in “Summer Thunder.”
- Briefly discussed in “Morality,” although Nora argues that Winnie’s apparent suicide could have just been overdose via elderly confusion.
- Esoteric Happy Ending: In-universe in “Premium Harmony” – sure, Ray’s wife and dog are dead, but now he can smoke as much as he wants. And that’s all he really wants.
- Evil Redhead: The titular “Bad Little Kid.”
- Fat Idiot: Thoroughly averted with the massive former mudwrestler in “Mile 81.” She’s an intelligent and kind woman whose only flaw was insisting on helping what she thinks is a driver in trouble.
- Forced to Watch: Blakey and Rachel are Forced to Watch several people, including their own parents, eaten by the station wagon in “Mile 81.”
- For the Evulz:
- The minister in "Morality" wants to commit a serious sin because he has never done so, and wants to know what it is like.
- This also appears to be the sole motive of the “Bad Little Kid.”
- From Bad to Worse: “The Little Green God of Agony” is driven out of Newsome and into the room, where it can seek out a new host to torment.
- Haunted Technology: The Kindle in “Ur” may not be necessarily ‘’haunted,’’ but it’s definitely otherworldly.
- Humanoid Abomination: Whatever the titular “Bad Little Kid” is, he doesn’t seem to age and can survive being shot half a dozen times.
- Here We Go Again!: At the end of "Bad Little Kid”, the kid leaves a message for Bradley, letting him know to expect him – and all the dead loved ones that entails.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Brenda and Jasmine in “Herman Wouk is Still Alive” have been friends for ages, and go on a road trip together with their children after winning the lottery.
- Homage: Many of the stories are dedicated to certain authors from whom they borrow a style.
- Hungry Jungle: In “The Bone Church.”
- Kill and Replace: The person calling himself “Billy” in “Blockade Billy” did this to the real Billy. Good thing he’s just as good at baseball.
- Kill It with Fire: Pete manages to temporarily defeat the station-wagon-thing by using a magnifying glass to set it alight in “Mile 81.”
- Life-or-Limb Decision: Briefly discussed in “Mile 81.” Too bad it’s too late.
- My God, What Have I Done?: More like “My God, what has my father done” at the very end of “Batman and Robin Have an Altercation.”
- The Mafia: One side of the feud in “Drunken Fireworks.”
- Mercy Kill: Implied to be the function of “Mister Yummy.”
- Also, Gandalf the dog, already dying of radiation sickness, in "Summer Thunder".
- Mummies at the Dinner Table: A variation in “Under the Weather.
- Necessary Fail: Invoked as a possible consequence by the two time-enforcers in “Ur” after the protagonist alters history and prevents a horrible car accident. But they aren't sure, so they let him off.
- Not Hyperbole: Blockade Billy finally reveals what kind of man he is to the entire town when he takes the crowd's screams of "kill the umpire!" too literally and slices the man's throat with the shaving blade he has concealed in his bandaged middle finger.
- Propeller Hat of Whimsy: The "Bad Little Kid" is a porky young redhead who wears a propeller cap and looks like a stereotypical brat. Subverted in that his actions are pure evil instead of naughty, and he turns out to be something DEFINITELY not human.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Jim definitely seems like one in “A Death,” which is part of the reason that the sheriff doubts his guilt in the murder of a young girl.
- ‘Billy’ himself in “Blockade Billy” – he’s still rather young, but old enough to count as this and not Enfant Terrible or Teens Are Monsters.
- Shout-Out: Several meta ones in “Mile 81”:
- Pete Simmons has the latest issue of Locke & Key, which is written by Stephen King's son Joe Hill, in his saddlebag.
- Trooper Golding watched Christine when he was a kid.
- The '70s: “Tommy.”
- Spanner in the Works: In “Mile 81”, the "car's" feeding spree is disrupted because a young boy decides on a whim to explore the abandoned rest area where it has stationed itself.
- Sinister Car: The station wagon in “Mile 81” – although that probably isn’t its true form.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: 'The Kindle in “Ur” serves as one.
- Tragic Villain: In "Blockade Billy", "Billy" himself, real name Eugene Katsanis. He was abandoned as a baby and raised in an Orphanage of Fear, he was turned into an Enfant Terrible followed by Psychopathic Manchild either through mental disability or being mercilessly bullied (and taught to defend himself with the concealed razor blade he would eventually use to great infamy), and he was eventually adopted by a wealthy farm family who turned him into an indentured servant/trainer for their son (the actual Billy Blakely) whom they were hoping to build up into a baseball superstar. Eventually he killed the Blakely family and their cows with his blade, perhaps after being yelled at too many times over farm chores, or perhaps after the family pulled strings to keep him off their local baseball team in favor of their son, and assumed Billy's identity. Then, despite seeming to find his true calling in life as an excellent baseball catcher, his violent impulses got the better of him after being egged on by the Hot-Blooded pitcher and an infuriated manager, and his phenomenal abilities on the diamond were stricken from the record, while "Billy" killed himself in jail afterwards.
- Unperson: In "Blockade Billy", the town as tried their absolute damnedest to remove his name from history, even demolishing their baseball stadium and denying they ever had a team. Makes sense they'd like to pretend they never had a Serial Killer in town.
