Discussion #4: “THE NIGHT FLIER”

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cat in a bag

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2010
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wyoming
The last 10-15 pages are awesome. Getting there seems to take forever though! ;-D

Guess it had been a while since I read this one. I had a whole different scenario in my head about how the confrontation happens. Mayhap I got it mixed up with Popsy? We'll see, when I read it! I do remember always thinking The Night Flyer and Popsy were about the same vampire.
 
Mar 12, 2010
6,538
29,004
Texas
...the whole urinating blood thing is one of the greatest twists I’ve ever red, errr, read-bar none...

It's the only vampire at the urinal I've ever read about. ;-D

I should have waited until Tuesday to read Night Flyer. I totally forgot Dees was looking into the mirror above the sink when he heard the sound of someone unseen taking a piss and didnt see the blood until it hit the porcelain of the urinal. That was gruesomely imaginative... even for Stephen King lol.

I'm going to wait until Tuesday to read Popsy :)
 

fljoe0

Cantre Member
Apr 5, 2008
15,859
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120 miles S of the Pancake/Waffle line
I should have waited until Tuesday to read Night Flyer. I totally forgot Dees was looking into the mirror above the sink when he heard the sound of someone unseen taking a piss and didnt see the blood until it hit the porcelain of the urinal. That was gruesomely imaginative... even for Stephen King lol.

I'm going to wait until Tuesday to read Popsy :)

One thing that I did for Dolan's Cadillac is jot some notes down as I was reading it. On one hand, I really hate interrupting my reading to write something down but on the other hand, the notes were very helpful in remembering a couple of clever lines in the story that added to the discussion. I did not jot notes down for the other stories I read but I think I'm going to do it for the others. The funny thing is that when I take the time to jot down notes, I don't need to look at them later because the process of writing something down burns it into my brain but if I don't write something down, I forget it. ;-D
 
Mar 12, 2010
6,538
29,004
Texas
One thing that I did for Dolan's Cadillac is jot some notes down as I was reading it. On one hand, I really hate interrupting my reading to write something down but on the other hand, the notes were very helpful in remembering a couple of clever lines in the story that added to the discussion. I did not jot notes down for the other stories I read but I think I'm going to do it for the others. The funny thing is that when I take the time to jot down notes, I don't need to look at them later because the process of writing something down burns it into my brain but if I don't write something down, I forget it. ;-D

Thanks for the tip :) Taking discussion notes is a great idea :)
 

Marty Coslaw

Low-BDNF Gork
May 19, 2018
177
720
37
DC
Welcome. Tonight we will discuss “The Night Flier,” a sort of companion piece to the next story in the collection, “Popsy.”

This was my first time reading this story. It was cool seeing Richard Dees again, and his character (the way he thinks of his readers) made me chuckle a couple of times.

I thought this story was fine. I think it was in the introduction to Just After Sunset where King said he went through a period in the ‘80s and ‘90s when he struggled to write short fiction; everything wanted to be a novel. God, I can tell it with this one. Maybe it was just me, but this story felt endless at times. It’s written well.... just, long. And it lost a bit of its potential punch because of that.

What say you?
It's actually the intro for this book: "The leap of faith necessary to make the short stories happen has gotten particularly tough in the last few years; these days it seems that everything wants to be a novel, and every novel wants to be approximately four thousand pages long."

Did everybody feel like this one went too long? Lacked, I don't know, density? For some reason, I actually loved the build-up, where you're finding out how mercenary Dees can be, and what he lives for. I liked his descriptions of what happened at the little local airports. I was actually thinking the ending seemed rushed. I really wanted to savor his approach through the gore, and the dawning horror that he was in danger, and it just happened so fast--he's in the bathroom and then he's on the runway. Still a very satisfying story, but I wondered what happened with the police, too.
 

Marty Coslaw

Low-BDNF Gork
May 19, 2018
177
720
37
DC
Love this story. It’s always the first one I read when I read thru Nightmares and Dreamscapes.The whole story, start to finish, is just brilliant. It’s very hard to stop reading it once you start. I think it’s Mr. King hitting on all cylinders as as a short story writer and it still ranks as one of of my all time favorite short stories from our favorite author.
I'm very intrigued by your practice of jumping around and choosing where to begin. I've always gone start to finish with these, but I haven't re-read a collection yet. This story is so well-rounded and viscerally frightening I can see why it would be a good place to start for N&D.