How do Stephen King’s short story collections rank from worst to best? A master of supernatural horror and fantasy, Stephen King has granted a special brand of realism to the horror genre, while narrativizing thrilling tales with rich characterization and thematic ingenuity. King is best known for his long-form novels, which have been widely adapted into various artistic mediums, such as in the case of Carrie, The Shining, and It, among others.

However, King has also penned over 200 short stories, which have been roughly compiled over a span of ten collections to date. King has always been a brilliant weaver of words, a quality that reaches its peak and truly shines forth in the short story form, especially in King’s groundbreaking "Jerusalem's Lot" and the sci-fi gem, "Jaunt".

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Just like his long-form novels, King’s short stories encapsulate multifaceted worlds, ranging from terror rooted in the mundane, such as “Herman Wouk is Still Alive” and “The Mangler” to the overtly bone-chilling, as exemplified in “The Mist” and “The Boogeyman". Here’s every Stephen King short story collection, ranked from worst to best.

10. Just After Sunset

A Cat From Hell features in Tales From The Dark Side

Released in 2008, Just After Sunset is the fifth collection of King’s short stories, with the Scribner hardcover featuring a holographic dust jacket. Just After Sunset comprises of thirteen stories of mixed variety, much like most horror collections do, in which “The Cat From Hell” and “Stationary Bike” are standouts from a narrative point of view. This collection is an amalgamation of truly visceral narrative landscapes, evoking a sense of unease, much like when one suspects a figure lurking in the shadows. While the collection possesses the qualities of King’s signature thrills and character depth, Just After Sunset fails to linger around the crevices of the human imagination, and some of the stories can also be deemed forgettable. However, this collection also includes one of King’s most ambitious works, namely the novella N., which was inspired by Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan, and is worth checking out.

9. Hearts in Atlantis

Ted carrying Carol in Hearts in Atlantis.

Published in 1999, Hearts in Atlantis features two novellas and three short stories that are interconnected via recurring characters and temporal synchronicities and revolves around King’s ideas about the Baby Boomer generation. Opening with an epigraph that quotes Easy Rider—a scorching “We blew it”—King explores the generation’s ideas, worldviews, and expectations while delving into the profound failures that are set in the 1960s, especially the Vietnam War. Among the five stories, "Why We're in Vietnam" is especially horrifying, as it weaves in the theme of trauma-induced hallucination and the heavy burden of guilt, which is a fathomless source of terror in itself. While Hearts in Atlantis is not scary in the traditional sense of the term, it captures a bleak, regret-filled wasteland of missed opportunities and unfortunate mishaps, with a slight tinge of the supernatural. All in all, Hearts in Atlantis is an uneven reading experience, wherein some hit readers with paranoia-tinged nostalgia while others seem disjointed and tonally out-of-place.

8. Four Past Midnight

Johnny Depp in The Secret Window wearing a robe and glasses and looking off to the side.

Four Past Midnight is not technically a short story collection, but rather four novellas stringed together, namely “The Langoliers”, “Secret Window, Secret Garden”, “The Library Policeman”, and “The Sun Dog.” It is interesting to witness King incorporate elements of psychological and cosmic horror in a compelling manner, especially in a story format of fragmented time periods between a stretch of two days. With time, reality fragments as well, ushering in characters that cling desperately to their sense of sanity, and ultimately failing to restore any semblance to normality per se. “Secret Window, Secret Garden” is a thrilling tale, in which a writer is plagued with accusations of plagiarism while being embroiled in a murky dynamic with a mysterious, obsessive man. While the story’s twist ending is not unpredictable by any means, King’s dramatization is pretty compelling, and it warranted a 2004 film adaptation, Secret Window, starring Johnny Depp. However, for those seeking taut pacing in horror narratives, Four Past Midnight can come off as overly-lengthy or non-cohesive as a collection in itself.

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7. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Mile 81 in The Bazaar of Dreams

Published in 2015, King’s The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is a collection of 20 short stories that delve into the themes of death, morality, guilt, and regret, twined with enthralling instances of second-person narrative inserts. This collection is viewed as one of King’s more polished works, at least in comparison to the pulpy undertones of his earlier works, such as Night Shift. The artistic merit of The Bazaar of Bad Dreams lies in its variety, among which, longer pieces such as “Ur” and “Obits” emit depth and drama, and settings that are carefully-fleshed out and otherworldly. “Obits” chronicles the tale of a journalist, Michael Anderson, who accidentally wields the strange ability to cause actual deaths based on the obituaries he writes for the webzine, Neon Circus. Other notable titles include “Afterlife” and “Mister Yummy”, while most of the other entries are either lost in the sea of standout stories or are lackluster enough to be half-forgotten.

6. Full Dark, No Stars

Stephen King's 1922

Highlight the theme of retribution, Full Dark, No Stars features a collection of four novellas, namely “1922”, “Big Driver”, “Fair Extension”, and “A Good Marriage.” Full Dark, No Stars is a disturbing, fascinating collection, with slow-burn narratives that are akin to a mad dance at the brink of chaos. "1922" is undoubtedly a stellar entry in this collection; it deals with the twisted tale of a farmer named Wilfred James, who claims to be haunted by his wife’s rat-infested corpse after he kills her. King positions Wilfred as an unreliable narrator, as it is unclear whether his accounts are real or hallucinatory. However, the indelible impact of this haunting, whether grounded in reality or not, is present throughout "1922", as it brands its characters with a twisted sense of doom. Although Full Dark, No Stars is a solid collection, some readers might find it overtly grim, which does not necessarily reflect negatively on the merit of the collection or King’s gift of storytelling.

5. Nightmares & Dreamscapes

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

King’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes is a thrilling joyride, as this collection encapsulates multifaceted shades of horror, along with tropes that are both rooted in tradition and the absurdly surreal. Nightmares & Dreamscapes consists of a wide gamut of 24 stories, including “Dolan’s Cadillac”, which is a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, and “It Grows On You”, which delves deep into the dark tendrils of the Cthulhu mythos. Apart from featuring a kaleidoscope of horror narratives, Nightmares & Dreamscapes bursts forth with King’s authorial quirks, which include pastiches of his favorite authors, stories fused with teleplay, and the theatre of the absurd, as exemplified in “Chattery Teeth.” While this collection is a must-read for those who wish to experience King in all his authorial flourish, the constant tonal shifts and overarching unevenness can be exhausting for some readers, no matter how delightful or interesting the individual stories might be.

4. Different Seasons

The Shawshank Redemption

The four novellas that bind together Different Seasons relate to each of the four seasons. It's more dramatic in tone and subject matter than delving strictly into horror. This collection is notable for having nearly all of its novellas being turned into Hollywood adaptations, among which is 1994's The Shawshank Redemption, based on "Rita Hayward and The Shawshank Redemption." Other entries include “Apt Pupil: Summer of Corruption”, “The Body: Fall From Innocence”, and “The Breathing Method: A Winter's Tale.” Among these four stories, “Apt Pupil” is probably the most disturbing, as it details the obsessions of teenager Todd Bowden, who develops a fascination with the Holocaust and is addicted to the thrill of committing murder. “Apt Pupil” feels like a neverending nightmare with no respite, as it exposes the dark underbelly of human consciousness and the extremities that one can go to when driven by hate and a lust to kill.

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3. Everything’s Eventual

A hitchhiker in Riding The Bullet.

Published in 2002, Everything’s Eventual is a testimony of King’s ability to evoke a lingering sense of unease among readers without having to resort to graphic violence or intense terror. Everything’s Eventual consists of a total of 14 stories, including the popular “1408”, “Riding the Bullet”, and “The Man in the Black Suit”, among others. “The Man in the Black Suit” is intensely atmospheric, delving into the tale of Gary, a nine-year-old boy, who encounters the Devil in the backwoods of Maine. A homage to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, “The Man in the Black Suit” is a look into traumatizing instances of near-death, or worse, perpetual torment, and how these experiences come back to haunt, years later. Everything's Eventual also has some solid entries in the form of “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away” and “Autopsy Room Four.”

2. Skeleton Crew

the Mist

Published in 1985, Skeleton Crew is undoubtedly the most heavy-hitting among all of King’s short story collections, and it features a vast body of work, a total of 24, which consist of two poems and a novella. While strictly supernatural settings hold the ability to unnerve, it is the idea of something sinister springing forth from the mundane that holds more power and realism. Skeleton Crew is King’s best atmospheric collection and includes the tentacled madness of “The Mist”, the cosmic dark humor of “The Jaunt”, and the palpable gruesomeness of “The Raft”, among others. Interestingly, the collection also features deeply personal works, including the poem, “For Owen” and “Gramma”, a terrifying tale that seems to mirror King’s own fears as a child. The reason why Skeleton Crew warrants a thoroughly fulfilling read is the consistent quality of the tales, which embrace King’s love of pulp in all its glory, with no holds barred whatsoever.

1. Night Shift

Children of the Corn

Night Shift was Stephen King’s first-ever collection of short stories, published in 1978 when he was on the brink of entering the realm of fictional horror. While some might argue that Night Shift lacks the maturity and finesse of King’s later works, it is a phenomenal collection of genuine scares that seem to belong to the world of nightmares. Night Shift is a delightful blend of gothic horror, pulp, and suburban fiction, and manages to evoke genuine investment in its characters, through a string of tales that include “The Boogeyman”, “Graveyard Shift”, “Jerusalem’s Lot”, and “Children of the Corn”, among others. “Jerusalem’s Lot” is chilling, to say the least, imbued as it is with elements of shadowy entities, the undead, and a murky family history, which contribute to the aura of foreboding that permeates throughout the tale. Other entries include the now-eerie post-apocalyptic “Night Surf”, which opens in the wake of a global pandemic, and the darkly humorous “Quitters, Inc.”

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