Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible and Amazing..., May 1 2009
When Ned Wilcox loses his father Curtis, a former Pennsylvania Trooper, he begins to hang around the barracks of Pennsylvania Troop D where his father spent so much of his time. The people that worked with his father become a family of sorts; Shirley, Eddie, Sandy Dearborn; they all become a family to the lost Wilcox boy, perhaps out of pity, perhaps out of love. There are secrets hidden in every family's closet, however.
On a hot summer day, Ned is out behind the Barracks and looks inside shed B. Inside is the car of his dreams; an 8 cylinder Buick painted a dark blue with the signature silver front grill that looks like a smile, or a maniacal grin. There is something not quite right about the car, though. There is a feeling about the car. It is dark and slightly unsettling. The steering wheel is too large for the car; it's huge, too large for the interior of a Buick. The transmission is made out of glass. And, there is a weird humming sound that emanates from the car.
When Ned asks Sandy Dearborn why the car is in a garage and not out and about, he gets an answer that at first he is unwilling to believe: the car was left at the gas station up the road by a man dressed in a billowing black coat. He went to the restroom, never to return - leaving behind the Buick. Unable to drive it, it was towed into Troop D for further investigation. Ned's father Curtis quickly became an expert about Buicks and fell in love with the big, blue Buick 8.
There is something wrong with the car, though. Everyone in Troop D knows this; there is something just not right about the car. Sandy and the rest of Troop D settle down to tell Ned the story of the car and his father. Ned feels that this story, this history, is his birthright. Sandy and co. start to tell Ned about the car and the odd things that happen around it. The lightquakes, the flowers, the cockroaches, the humming sound that vibrates before the car is about to unleash something. They tell him about the vortex of the car's back trunk, the man that died. Before Ned can blink, he is taken on a voyage into the past; one that will affect his very own future...
King has created another masterpiece, perhaps one of his best. I gulped this book down like a cup of hot coffee; it is good. Really good. It grips you from the first page and then doesn't let you go. I sucked back this book in five days and I was sad when it was over. You actually feel like you know these characters, these people. I felt as if I could run into them at the local corner store. Kings characters are still as strong and well written as ever. Better, if possible.
One of the reasons I liked the book is that it lacked a villain. The car is a villain of sorts, but it is subtle. No explanations are given for the car or its actions. This makes that blue Buick one of the most frightening things King has created. It seriously creeped me out and in a few parts scared the crap out of me.
It also grossed me out a lot. King has given us an opus almost Lovecraftian in style; there are so many words in this novel, so much detail. I got so grossed out that I had to put the book down a few times, just to clear my head of the images that King was painting on the paper. Of course, I had to pick it up right away and find out what happened next.
This is a beautiful book written in the style of another King work, "The Green Mile." It is a slow story that speaks to the heart rather to the mind. It is a tale of sons and fathers, family and a big, blue, Buick 8 with too much power for anyone to handle. Read this one, folks. It's a great one!
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Why a car?, Jul 18 2004
I have read the book, and the story was not too bad, but like Hearts In Atlantis he (King) does not quite manage to bring the story anywhere, and this occures to you just after reading the first chapters. It is a bit "out there", and off course it is ment to be, but did it have to be a car?? Could it not instead have been some "alien"-thing found, something really NOT of this world? Something no one had ever seen before, like the "droppings" of the car, perhaps. I finnished the book, off course, because you get a little curious, and you want to know what this "car" turns out to be the gateway to -which, off course again, you do not. King gives you a hint, but nothing rememberable. So, if you are a King-fan, this one might disappoint you a little. Not that it is bad written, it is simply just missing the usual touch one expects from King, and I really got the impression he has done it a little too easy for himself this time. This book has an end that does not reveal much, if amything at all...
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4.0 out of 5 stars
...Satisfaction brought her back..., Jul 13 2004
From a Buick 8 finds Stephen King returning to the horror genre again. It was after the publication of this book that King announced his "retirement" - he feels that he's begun to copy himself, writing ANOTHER EVIL CAR story. Well, even so, From a Buick 8 is pretty good. It isn't so much an "evil car story" as it is about State Police Troopers and the lives they lead. One day, twenty years ago, someone (an alien) abandons what seems to be a Buick at a gas station in western Pennsylvania. The police confiscate it and soon discover that it isn't a car at all. The central conceit of the book is how the police (unforgivably, if you ask me) keep an alien machine to themselves, despite how dangerous it is. King has mellowed with age. His characters are older and more sedate. The story itself is fairly laid-back, although terrible things do happen. However, it doesn't have the kinetic energy of King's early work, and I think that is what the negative reviews are responding to. It is still a good, scary book however. King has not lost his touch for characterization or creating a richly detailed and researched world - you feel you know what it is like to be a State Trooper at the end of this. If you are a Stephen King fan, you will enjoy this novel.
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by Stephen King
by Stephen King
by Stephen King
by Stephen King
by Stephen King
