At dawn
Im Dawn (Originally Skeleton Crew ) from 1985, published by Heyne , is the second short story collection by the American writer Stephen King after the night shift . It initially appeared in Germany as one of three volumes (the other two are called Der Gesang der Toten and Der Fornit ), which together comprise all the stories of Skeleton Crew . All stories are gathered in the entire volume Blood .
The stories
Dawn contains five horror stories. The order differs from the US original.
- The man who wouldn't shake hands ( The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands )
- After the novella Breathing Technique in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Death , the reader returns to the mysterious men's club, where the story of a curse is told: Henry Brower is cursed to kill everyone he shakes hands with. He ends up committing suicide by shaking hands with himself.
- Here Seyen Tiger (ger .: Here There Be Tygers )
- In the school toilet, Charles, rarely taken seriously by his classmates, notices a tiger. He warns a classmate and his tyrannical class teacher. They don't believe him and are eaten by the tiger.
- Omi (English: Gramma )
- Eleven-year-old George has to take care of his terminally ill grandma. But she's a witch and has been waiting for years to finally be alone with her grandson.
- Morning deliveries (ger .: Morning Deliveries Milkman · 1 )
- On his idyllic morning tour through the streets, a milkman delivers, among other things, poisonous milk.
- The fog (Engl .: The Mist )
- An unusual storm breaks out in western Maine , causing an eerie fog to sweep the country in the middle of July. With the fog come monsters - mutant giant insects, spiders, lobsters and even creatures that resemble dinosaurs and are believed to be the result of a failed military experiment. From a first-person perspective, David Drayton tells how he holed up in a supermarket with his son and dozens of other people. There they defend themselves against the animals and look for a way out. When they decide to go outside to seek help, the story ends openly.
particularities
- The character of Miss Bird from here Seyen Tiger is based on Kings teacher during his first school year in Stratford , Connecticut , which he described as pretty scary ( pretty scary referred).
- The story of Omi is based on a true story: King's grandmother died while he was about to take care of her in the absence of his family. The story was filmed in the series Twilight Zone (Season 1 of the 1985 reprint; episode 1 of episode 18).
- Morning Deliveries is the holdover from an abandoned novel called Milkman by King.
- The introductory story of the original edition, Der Nebel, is a short novel made into a film by Frank Darabont under the title Der Nebel . It is also available in English as an audio and computer game. The story was commissioned by King's agent at the time, Kirby McCauley, and King reports that for a long time he couldn't think of any contribution to the planned anthology of short stories. In a supermarket, King finally got a vivid picture: What if a giant pterosaur wanted to fly through the narrow aisles of that supermarket? The fog arose from the question . In 2017, a ten-part series based on the story was released .
- The complete Skeleton Crew edition was illustrated by an artist named JK Potter.
literature
- Stephen King: At dawn. Eerie Tales , Ullstein, 2006, ISBN 978-3548263762 .
- Stephen King: Skeleton Crew , Hodder, London 2007, ISBN 978-0340952054 .
- George Beahm: Stephen King from A to Z. An Encyclopedia of his Life and Work , Kansas City 1998.
Web link
- At dawn in KingWiki