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Flight or Fright Reviews
From The Baryon Review
Back when I worked for a living, I took quite a few airplane rides around this country. One night on a flight from Memphis to Chattanooga, Tennessee on Southern Airlines, we experienced quite a bit of turbulence because of a storm and upon landing I heard a boom and saw flames shooting out the front of an engine. I wasn't scared, but I was concerned.
The last flight I took was well before 9/11. Since then I haven't found anywhere I wanted to go that would make me undergo the hassles of airports and airline travel. Flight or Fright has given me seventeen other reasons to avoid airplanes - much more so than just the hassle.
Stephen King and Bev Vincent have assembled an unusual range of authors and an outstanding group of stories featuring some of the greatest names of the past one hundred years and their contributions to the terrors of the sky.
When you see a list that features Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury, you know the editors know what they are doing. The title, Flight or Fright tells you exactly what to expect. My favorites include Matheson and Bradbury but also Dan Simmons, E.C. Tubb, John Varley and Arthur Conan Doyle. These writers have given me untold reading adventures and pleasures for years.
This is a great anthology with a great theme and great editors. It is definitely worth the hassles to take these flights.
Comments
This entertaining anthology of horror, mystery, and literary tales about aircraft (most reprinted) will have the reader thinking twice about flying. The stories span the entire century of human flight, beginning with Arthur Conan Doyle’s riveting “The Horror of the Heights,” in which a pilot attempts to discover what lurks in the clouds. Most of the tales tend to skew toward horror. In E. Michael Lewis’s “Cargo,” the crew of a plane bringing bodies back from Jonestown start hearing noises coming from the cargo bay. In Cody Goodfellow’s “Diablitos,” an art smuggler gets more than he bargained for when he tries to bring a tribal mask to the U.S. Others take a different approach, such as Ray Bradbury’s “The Flying Machine,” which sees a Chinese emperor realizing the risk that flight poses to the Great Wall. Standouts include the two original stories: King’s “The Turbulence Expert,” a perfectly tense tale about a mysterious group that prevents aircraft crashes though unusual means, and Joe Hill’s “You Are Released,” made terrifying by its proximity to reality: it follows the crew and passengers on a 777 en route to Boston, who learn that North Korea has just nuked Guam and other countries are retaliating. This is a strong anthology full of satisfying tales. (Sept.)
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-58767-679-6
Each of the tales revolve around planes and/or air travel – and every fear which they conjure and expound. Usually any collection of short stories has a few which fail to hit the mark, but Flight Or Fright takes-off from E. Michael Lewis’ spine-tingling Cargo and it doesn’t let you disembark until James Dickey’s hypnotic Falling finally brings you back to earth (with a mighty thud).
If you’re going to play favourites with these stories, then it’s probably going to be Richard Matheson’s Nightmare At 20, 000 Feet, a stone-cold classic which was adapted into an episode of The Twilight Zone starring William Shatner and again by George Miller for Twilight Zone: The Movie. Other standouts include Joe Hill’s You Are Released, E.C. Tubb’s Lucifer! and Stephen King’s own, The Turbulence Expert.
The beauty of Flight Or Fright is the sheer craftsmanship of the tales. These are a masterclass in tension and fear, the perfect thing to read when you’re firmly on the ground – but you might want to leave this addictive page-turner behind if you’re about to take to the air for your holidays.
Even for people without flight phobia, commercial air travel can be unpleasant. But that is exactly what makes it the perfect frame for an anthology of horror stories, especially one coedited by King (The Outsider, 2018), who has a lifelong fear of flying. The terror often writes itself, a point that King and Vincent (The Road to the Dark Tower, 2004) prove with this expertly compiled collection of tales that entertain and scare. Besides brand-new stories by King and Joe Hill, the contents include 15 reprinted surprises, tales of horror in the air from famous authors like Arthur Conan Doyle, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and Dan Simmons as well as an 1899 story by the often overlooked Ambrose Bierce. Whether readers take it to the airport or read it with feet firmly planted on the ground, Flight or Fright delivers on its promised theme and will make the next plane ride a little more exciting. Pair it with themed horror anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow (Black Feathers, 2017) and John Joseph Adams (What the #@&;% Is That?, 2016). —Becky Spratford
But seriously, this is a great intro to horror collection. The mixture of classic authors with new masters and a common trope that is scary but not necessarily gory or based on a supernatural monster, will lure in readers, many of whom might not consider themselves horror readers.
Air travel used to be one of those things that scared me, but not for any reason I was ever able to pin down totally. Eventually, I was advised to accept that I was going to die, and then I’d relax and enjoy the journey – and ever since, it’s not been an issue. Even writing an 180,000 word book on Air Disasters in just two months a few years back didn’t bring the fear back – in fact, if anything the research for that reinforced just how much safer air travel is now (particularly after talks with cabin and cockpit crew who passed on certain things that aren’t generally known).
That might change after reading this collection of stories curated by Messrs King and Vincent, both of whom provide a tale (although the idea that there are turbulence experts out there is rather comforting). It’s a mix of the well-known (such as Richard Matheson’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet), the classic (including a spooky story from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle whose imagery will haunt you – and make you look out the window next time the aircraft you’re on breaks through the cloud cover), and the new – especially one of the most frightening stories that Joe Hill has yet committed to print. All eras of flight are covered – perhaps not going back to Daedalus and Icarus, but not too far removed in a Ray Bradbury vignette – and while we might find some of the science a step too far removed from what we know now, there’s a power in some of the older tales that still grips.
Even if the authors’ names are familiar to you, you may well not know the particular stories: there’s a piece of Roald Dahl writing I’d not encountered before, as well as a particularly nasty character created by E.C. Tubb for his tale whose adventures I’m surprised we’ve not seen on the large or small screen. Each story gets a brief introduction from Stephen King, and both editors contribute a short essay – King’s explaining how we could easily have lost him well over a decade before his car incident.
Verdict: With graphic descriptions of everything from aerial combat to descent to Earth without benefit of parachute, this definitely leans toward the second word in its title. Recommended. 9/10
There is splendid reading awaiting, some tales thrilling and have you hooked in with great anticipation of what will happen next.
Holidays over for most, all flying one needs to do could be over, good timing for reading these tales before the next flight out and months away from any newly founded anxieties left, due to some tales staying with the reader long after shelving this book.
This anthology is a great opportunity to read two great classic chilling tales, one many had never read, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Richard Matheson. Within, there are plenty new authors to read of and enjoy, seek out and take further and have under your reading radar and there is new material to submerge oneself in from two well seasoned short story writers, Stephen King and Joe Hill.
To my shame, I’d never actually read Matheson’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” only knew it through Twilight Zone and cultural osmosis; turns out, the story itself is packed with legit anxiety-inducing tension and chills.
Speaking of chills, “Cargo” by E. Michael Lewis opens the book with a plane laden with coffins, transporting the tragic remains of an infamous cult massacre; if ever a flight were haunted, it must’ve been that one.
Dan Simmons pokes an icy finger right into acrophobia’s nerve endings with “Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds;” it’s not so much the fear of heights or the inevitable landing, but that terrifying span of just (shiver) falling and falling.
“Warbirds,” by the ever-awesome David J. Schow, particularly resonated with me because my grandfather was a navigator during WWII … this glimpse of what it could’ve been like made me miss him all over again.
In E.C. Tubb’s “Lucifer,” an item of incredible power turns out to be as much curse as blessing in the end, and you might even find yourself feeling sorry for a not-so-nice character.
With a lineup also including heavy hitters like John Varley, Cody Goodfellow, Joe Hill and King himself, it’s hard to go wrong!
But until now I have never received what we used to call on aeroplanes, a sick-bag! An unused one, I hasten to add, and personalised to promote a collection of stories designed to make those frightened of flying even more scared: Flight or Fright edited by Stephen King and Bev Vincent and published this month by Hodder.
I simply cannot resist suggesting that for some of the books I have been sent to review, a sick-bag would have been most welcome, but not this one as it contains some classic tales by some big names in the horror and science fiction genres. There’s Stephen King, of course, but also Conan Doyle, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl and Dan Simmons. Particular treats come in the form of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by the awesome Richard Matheson which made a famous Twilight Zone episode (starring William Shatner); a prose poem by James Dickey, author of Deliverance and the underrated thriller To The White Sea; and even a locked-room mystery set on an aeroplane by Peter Tremayne – better known for his Celtic mysteries – which has a lovely Latin tag-line clue.
The anthology is dedicated ‘to all the pilots…(who) ...brought their passengers home safely. The list includes Wilbur Wright and Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger and, delightfully, Ted Striker.
This “fear” is exactly what editors Stephen King and Bev Vincent explore in their anthology, Flight or Fright, and the authors push every conceivable notion of aeronautical terror to their limit. In his introduction to the anthology King himself admits to not being a fan of flying, and presents one of his own experiences to set up the tone for the fiction that follows.
Flight or Fright offers up an interesting mix of classic and new stories with the majority consisting of reprints and two new stories, one by King and the other by his son, Joe Hill.
As a whole, the anthology presents a wide array of scares, ramping up the latent fears air travel can present; the claustrophobia, the sounds the plane’s mechanics makes, the sheer powerlessness that passengers feel when something does go wrong. There are tales of paranoia (Richard Matheson’s “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”), cosmic terror (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Horror of the Heights”), time travel (E.C. Tubb’s “Lucifer!”), and even a locked room murder in an airplane lavatory (Peter Tremayne’s “Murder in the Air”).
There are several real standouts, including the opening story, E. Michael Lewis’ “Cargo.” The tale offers a nightmarish insight into the aftermath of the Jonestown Massacre from inside the cargo hold of a C-141 troop carrier. The blend of history with the supernatural makes it one of the most memorable stories.
Other memorable entries include “Diablitos” by Cody Goodfellow; the author mixes native Columbian mythology with airborne disease and spins a nasty little apocalyptic tale that will definitely leave a bad taste in the mouth. The one story that manages to not only be entertaining, but poignant, is Joe Hill’s “You Are Released.” This passenger-hopping tale about an airliner hurtling through the outbreak of World War III is pure nightmare fuel. It’s a vivid exploration of real people, flaws and all, as they contemplate catastrophe.
King’s story, “The Turbulence Expert” proposes that there are special people tasked to help planes survive the phenomenon of “clear air turbulence” using their fear alone. Like many of King’s short stories, it leaves you guessing—and wanting more.
The volume ends with a long poem by James Dickey, called “Falling.” Supposedly inspired by the real-life account of a stewardess falling out of a plane, Dickey paints a beautifully haunting picture of what would no doubt be a horrifying demise.
One observation that some readers may find curious is that there are no stories by female authors in the anthology. This certainly isn’t a deal-breaker, but it would have been interesting to have had some tales from a female perspective to add some additional diversity. Having said that, it’s possible that there may have been few stories of this nature written by women for the editors to select from?
According to Bev Vincent’s Afterword, the idea for Fright or Flight was apparently conceived by King on a whim, but it’s clear that each story has been carefully selected. The pair have scoured the globe and found some of the most intriguing tales of high-flying horror, mystery and adventure. Here’s hoping King and Vincent decide to compile a second volume with some fresh content. With such a terrifying theme, the sky’s the limit.
Trust me you will never board a plane again without thinking about one of these stories.
“Our lives always hang by a thread,” Stephen King writes in his introduction to “Flight or Fright,” an anthology of weird tales that unfold aboard airplanes, “but that is never more clear than when descending into LaGuardia [Airport in New York] through thick clouds and heavy rain.”
Clouds and rain are the least of the worries of the passengers and crew in the collection’s 16 stories and one poem. There are no snakes on these planes, but Bev Vincent, who edited the anthology together with King, contributes a story called “Zombies on a Plane.” Other tales feature murderers, ghosts, gremlins, revenge-seekers and several varieties of time travelers.
Only two of the pieces are brand new — one each by King and his son, the novelist Joe Hill — but about half were originally published since 2000. The older ones date back as far as 1899, the year of a three-paragraph gag by Ambrose Bierce about credulous investors sinking their money into a “flying machine” that they don’t understand.
The second-oldest story is one of the best. “The Horror of the Heights,” by Arthur Conan Doyle, came out in 1913 — only 10 years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight — but it is set in an imagined future in which pilots reach such extreme altitudes that they discover a whole new ecosystem. It’s based on a wispy, plankton-like mist on which peaceful creatures resembling translucent gas-filled jellyfish feed. Further up the food chain, there are monsters no pilot would want to meet. The story’s final, vivid image leaves a lasting impression.
Moving toward modern times, there are stories by Roald Dahl, drawing on his Royal Air Force experience in World War II; Ray Bradbury, imagining the mystery of flight being solved in ancient China; and Richard Matheson, whose story “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” became a famous “Twilight Zone” episode. From U.S. Air Force veteran James Dickey, best remembered as the author of “Deliverance,” there is a poem imagining an airline stewardess making the long fall to earth after being blown out of a defective door.
Back in the present day — or perhaps next week — Hill’s black comedy “You Are Released” is another of the best, weaving together nine characters’ points of view as their flight is rerouted for reasons that include the message: “Sorry about this, ladies and gents. Uncle Sam needs the sky this afternoon for an unscheduled world war.”
As for King himself, his story “The Turbulence Expert” includes the line, “The plane seemed to run into a brick wall.” Nearly these exact words also appear in his introduction to the book, when he recounts an incident in the 1980s when a small plane he was in had a near-miss with a 747. It was “caught in its exhaust, and tossed like a paper airplane in a gale.” King says the episode cured him of his fear of flying, as it showed the extreme abuse a plane can take and keep on going.
In a book that’s meant to be scary, that anecdote is oddly reassuring.
Where to read
At the airport, if you’re feeling bold. Leave it for a traveler to find, if you’re feeling wicked.
First, let me be honest: I am not a good flier. I flew to Florida for spring break a few months after 9/11, and there were armed guardsman all over our tiny airport. Ever since then, I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach starting the night before we leave that doesn’t abate until after we land. Yes, I know it’s safer than driving. Yes, I know that there is an infinitesimal chance of something going wrong. None of those things matter to me in the least. There is not a part of me that’s unhappy that I haven’t been on a plane in over 3 years.
Needless to say, these stories appealed to all my flying insecurities. This is one of the best anthologies I have read in a long time. Co-edited by Stephen King and Bev Vincent (both of whom have stories included), we take a trip through the not-so-friendly skies and are reminded just how vulnerable we are riding in a tin can at 20,000+ feet. The book includes murders, gremlins, zombies, dead bodies and missiles, all of which are in the air with you, whether you are flying in a new jumbo jet, or a World War II era prop plane. Recline your seats and hold on, this ride is about to get bumpy!
I was stoked to see Richard Matheson’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet in the table of contents. I don’t think a book about the horrors of flying would be complete without it. Imagine seeing a creature on the wing of your plane attempting to tamper with the engines while in flight. (If you’ve only seen the Twilight Zone episode, you are missing out!) While I don’t recall reading anything by E.C. Tubb before, I thought that Lucifer! was a great tale about both time travel and the horrors of flying. Zombies on a Plane by Bev Vincent is a rather cautionary tale about the desperate fight for survival and running away from your problems, even when running seems like the best possible idea. And even though Murder in the Air by Peter Tremayne was more mystery than horror (although having to solve a mysterious death in the air is a horror in itself), it was quite clever.
Coincidentally, my last flight was to see Stephen King in Toronto, so perhaps there is some bias, but I really enjoyed his new story included in this collection. The Turbulence Expert has a truly unique premise – imagine if there was someone on the plane to help keep the flight safe that wasn’t an Air Marshal…
The other previously unpublished tale included in the collection was Joe Hill’s You Are Released. I had the opportunity to go to a book festival featuring Joe Hill a few months ago (no flight necessary) and heard him read an abridged version so I already knew it was great. A terrifyingly plausible story of what if, made more frightening because it occurs to the passengers while en route across the country. It did absolutely nothing for my flying jitters!
Anthologies are always a mixed bag – some stories you love, some you don’t. This is a truly unique collection that touches the many horrors of air travel. All in all, this is a wonderful assortment of great authors and remarkable stories.
Quite a bit, actually. For starters, Stephen King writes about the best book/story introductions ever. He manages to craft the anthology’s origins around some wonderful personal narratives while also making all 17 stories sound like they might possibly be the best pieces of horror literature you’ll ever read.
Things start incredibly well with Cargo by E. Michael Lewis. The Jonestown Massacre was already a chilling enough event on its own, but Lewis examines its aftermath through an incredibly tragic lens that will also make you shudder and turn on a nearby light.
A few chapters later, we’re treated to the classic Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson. You remember that one, right? Gremlin on the wing of the plane that causes William Shatner and/or John Lithgow to have a complete nervous breakdown? Well, it’s even better (and exponentially more riveting) in Matheson’s written word.
Lucifer! by E.C. Tubb is the sort of science fiction horror tale that sneaks up on you with how good it is. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a slow burn, but it methodically builds a narrative trap that springs on the last page with a gut punch of a conclusion.
The real gem of the anthology is found in the middle with Joe Hill’s You Are Released. Instead of a supernatural source, the horror is derived from something that could very well happen any day now, all observed by people trapped at 20,000 feet in air. The character work is astoundingly good. I’ve read entire book series where I didn’t love and care about the characters this much.
I was prepared to hate Zombies on a Plane, mostly because I’m absolutely sick of the shambling undead genre (thanks, Walking Dead). To author Bev Vincent’s credit, he crafts a thrilling tale that made me remember just how much I used to enjoy zombie stories when the genre (and the corpses) were still somewhat fresh.
This collection of flight-related scary tales is designed to have you clutching the armrest in terror and comes with the cheery smile of Stephen King who edited and compiled the collection of short stories with Bev Vincent.
Air travel is ripe material for horror. I've always felt that plane passengers are necessarily on an uneven psychological setting. All stacked together in a fragile tomb-like tube blasting through the stratosphere, we sit side by side with complete strangers in a weird communal space trying to observe our private niceties. We fly for hours together, falling asleep leaning on each other, passing one another food, moving to the side so our fellows can go to the toilet — yet we avoid eye contact.
Pretty weird, huh?
King contributes a new story to the anthology, but there are plenty of other big names to dive into. Ray Bradbury is there, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle too, and Roald Dahl's They Shall Not Grow Old stands out. Vincent's Zombies on a Plane — which is about, well, have a guess — is a knockabout piece of fun.
Two Minutes Forty-five Seconds, by Dan Simmons, is a genuine downer about an engineer on a murder-suicide one-way trip, all layered with subtle references to Nasa's Challenger disaster.
The Fifth Category also has real-world connections. Sniffing around the edges of America's post-9/11, Guantanamo Bay exploits, the author, Tom Bissel, explores the damage done to the soul of a person who would commission torture of other people and later justify to themselves and others the use of of torture. Now that's real horror.
John Varley's Air Raid is an at-times hilarious tale of time travellers snatching people from a plane doomed to crash. It's pacey and good fun.
My own aviation horror stories generally relate to times in which I was banking on getting a Business Class upgrade but found myself instead seated way back in — gulp — Economy Class. I still break out into cold sweats, dear reader.
I'm not generally a fan of horror books or films (for the quite logical reason that I don't enjoy have the bejesus scared out of me) but I've always been fascinated by Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson.
It was adapted to the small screen for an episode of The Twilight Zone, starring a dashing you William Shatner as a nervous airline passenger who notices a flying, humanoid creature walking on the wing of the plane and tearing pieces of metal out of the engine.
Cheerful stuff. Later, this story was worked into the The Twilight Zone film of 1983, with John Lithgow occupying the seat formerly filled by Shatner (that's the version I first encountered).
When I fly these days (and, yep, I fly a lot), I don't particularly like to have a window seat, partly because I find the sight of the wings to be a little unsettling — those metallic probes jutting out, hopefully, into nothingness as a reminder that we funny little mammals are not meant to be flying. I've always wondered whether, somewhere in my subconsciousness, it was seeing that Twilight Zone movie as a kid that planted a nervous little seed, which blossomed into a full-grown adult who doesn't like looking out the window.
A nifty stocking filler for a non-nervous flier.
Co-editor Stephen King supplies the introduction, which addresses general fears of flight as well as King's own more personal ones. As is almost always the case with his introductions, King is very engaging here. He also supplies brief introductions to each of the following short stories, which is a nice bonus.
"Cargo" (E. Michael Lewis, 2008)
I'm not sure there's an actual story here, but this is a good intersection of what-if with real life; the atmosphere is strong, and good creeps are dispensed.
"The Horror of the Heights" (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1913)
I think this was the first thing I've ever read by Doyle. I found it to be solid and imaginative. It didn't blow me away, but I give it a definite thumbs-up.
"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (Richard Matheson, 1961)
An obvious classic, but (to my discredit) not one I'd ever actually read. For that matter, I've never even seen the original Twilight Zone episode; the remake in the movie, yes, but not the original.
I know, right?!?
Anyways, the original story, in which a man sees a menacing figure on the wing of a commercial flight mid-air, is an excellent depiction of madness.
Or is it?
Either way, who could refuse to take action in such a situation should the need and opportunity to do so arise? And if it the narrator IS crazy ... boy, that relatability of the need for action makes everything even scarier than it already was.
"The Flying Machine" (Ambrose Bierce, 1899)
I didn't get it.
I'm sure I'm missing something; I'm less sure I care.
I'm not going to say anything else about it, other than to say that I found this one to be great. It's a science-fiction story first and foremost, I think (and not the only one in this anthology); but the horror, when it arrives, packs a serious punch.
This one reads almost like it is in part an homage to The Langoliers, except what's going on here really does seem to involve the government scooping someone off a flight and trying to convince them they're still there.
Bissell provides a lot of material about '00s-era Guantanamo-esque torture concerns, and I wonder how much of that is accurate? I hope not much; I fear differently.
Excellently-written and very involving stuff. According to Bev Vincent's afterword, it was Owen King who suggested this one for inclusion. Good suggestion!
"Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds" (Dan Simmons, 1988)
Guy is on a rollercoaster, except it's actually a plane that is about to crash, seemingly because he put explosives on the wing, seemingly because of some incident in the past? I think?
I feel like I probably didn't pay sufficient attention to this one, but I wasn't in a mood to do so, and so I didn't. Sorry about that. I'd still love to read Hyperion and/or Carrion Comfort someday!
This one didn't do much for me; it struck me as not much more than an excuse to have a lot of scenes in which people puke bugs. This is probably an instance of me being uncharitable. I mean, lookit that photo above. No way that guy doesn't deserve my respect. I can practically hear the theme music from The Dunwich Horror as I look at it! Anyways, bugs are puked in "Diablitos," and it's not a bad story at all.
"Air Raid" (John Varley, 1977)
This one, I loved. I'd never read anything by Varley, but this story -- which he later rewrote in novel form as Millennium (not to be confused in any way with the Chris Carter television series, although the novel itself was adapted into a 1989 movie of the same name) -- is a beaut.
It's told from the point of view of Mandy, a member of a "Snatch Team" operating from a future Earth. The people of that time have mostly succumbed to a crippling genetic mutation, but have figured out how to open portals into the past, and send Snatch Teams back to rescue passengers from airplanes that are fated to crash. They can't change the past in any way; they can only exploit things that happened.
I may have to get a copy of the novel and read it; I'd be happy to spend more time in this story.
Yep, pretty sure I'm gonna track one of those down. This story reminded me of the years in college in which I read quite a lot of science fiction (though never enough); it reminded me a bit of Alfred Bester and a bit of Cordwainer Smith, to be specific. Not bad things to be reminded of.
"You Are Released" (Joe Hill, 2018)
It's about a routine flight from Los Angeles to Boston during which contact is lost with Guam around the same time a "flash" is observed from that direction. Not by the airplane, you understand; just in general, as reported to the pilot from the ground. This story clearly takes place in some sort of weird future where Guam has been threatened by North Korea, and in which things could potentially escalate REAL quickly if there were any sort of reason for them to. That Joe Hill; he's a master fantasist.
The story bounces back and forth between the perspectives of a set of characters, and gut-churningly well-written. Ol' Joe King may have himself a future.
In his introduction, Big Steve King confesses that Joe Hill is his son, and says he couldn't be prouder of the relationship.
"Warbirds" (David J. Schow, 2007)
It's a well-written, involving story that makes one feel as if one is aboard the bomber plane Jorgensen describes; and the end of the story is strong, which is always a plus.
"The Flying Machine" (Ray Bradbury, 1953)
This one is a parable-esque tale about the emperor of China, who sees a man flying in the air with constructed wings and calls him down to have a little talk about it. Good stuff from a guy whose ability to write good stuff is considerable.
I am reminded of my need to go on a Bradbury binge. This story made its intial appearance in his collection The Golden Apples of the Sun, which I've owned a copy of for, like, twenty years and STILL have not read.
Goddamn, I suck.
I should probably say something more about it than that, but this seems like a story that ought to be read, not summarized.
"They Shall Not Grow Old" (Roald Dahl, 1946)
One of these days, I'm guessing my blogger's eye will turn to him in a major way. That'll be cool; I've not read most of his stuff in decades, and I've read very little of his writing for adult readers. Such as this very story!
Which, obviously, I have now read. It's very good, and shares with his writings for children a certain whimsicality that persists in the face of adversity and/or outright horror. It's about some British fighter pilots, one of whom goes missing and is presumed dead only to turn up again two days later, convinced he's only been gone an hour. What happened to him?
Read the story and find out.
"Murder in the Air" (Peter Tremayne, 2000)
This one is a locked-room murder mystery set on an airplane in the middle of the flight. Guy gets dead -- apparently via a gunshot -- in the bathroom, and no weapon is found when the door is broken down.
Good setup; good execution.
This isn't really my genre, per se, but I enjoyed the story, and it reminds me that I'd like to read some Agatha Christie one of these days. I saw the seventies films based on Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile last year, and very much enjoyed them. Which has nothing to do with Peter Tremayne, except that his story fits nicely into those parameters; not a bad thing to be able to boast.
"The Turbulence Expert" (Stephen King, 2018)
"The Turbulence Expert" is, of course, the primary reason why I bought Flight Or Fright. This perhaps creates the expectation that it will be my favorite story in the book. And the verdict on that: nope. That'd handily go to "You Are Released," with the Matheson and Varley stories as runners-up.
Which is not to say that "The Turbulence Expert" is bad. Nope: it's good; not one of the better recent King stories, I'd argue, but good.
It's about a guy who works as a "turbulence expert," accepting commissions from an unknown "facilitator" who places him on commercial flights which are fated to experience clear-air turbulence. The expert's job: save the lives of every soul onboard by...
Well, read the story and find out.
"Falling" (James Dickey, 1981)
King acknowledges in his introduction that not everyone is into poetry, and I'm guessing that the placement of "Falling" is a tacit admission that it's a bit like the credits of a movie in that most people are going to get up and leave.
It isn't exactly the most penetrable verse ever put to paper. I freely confess that I simply wasn't in the mood to bite down on the work long enough to get the flavor of it; I remember that being the case the first time I read it, too. I haven't been in that mood in about two decades, and that's a fault in my character, not a fault in the poem.
That said, Dickey has no interest in making it easy on anyone, so casual readers -- which, let's face it, is the vast majority of King readers (which, let's face it, is the vast majority of Flight Or Fright readers [and which, let's face it, is entirely understandable on all counts]) -- are statistically likely to get to this and just grey out.
*****
Bev Vincent provides an afterword, including telling the tale of how Flight Or Fright came into being. It was Stephen King's idea, pitched to Vincent and to Cemetery Dance publisher Richard Chizmar around the time of the premiere of the Dark Tower movie. Vincent was tasked with finding the majority of the tales; King would write an original and then introduce each. Vincent found the rest either through prior knowledge or internet research (including Facebook suggestions).
He also points out some interesting resonances the anthology shares with King's novel -- Vincent calls it a novel! (I've been saying it is for years) -- The Langoliers. For example, John Varley is namechecked in that story, and there's a character who treats the entire situation like it's a locked-room mystery (kind of like the Tremayne story). Plus, Jonestown -- a featured component of the E. Michael Lewis story -- is mentioned.
Vincent's take: it all feels like it was meant to be.
All things considered, it's a very good collection of fiction, with the two original tales proving to be well worth the read. Not that there was much doubt on that score; but still.
Two stories tell us something about the future of flying
Having long been a fan of Stephen King—and an avid flier—I was eager to get my hands on this piece to see the sorts of authors and stories that were gathered to create this nightmarish collection. Not only are the pieces entirely unique from one another, but they span the entirety of the flight experience. Some authors penned their stories not long after the Wright Brothers made their brief sojourn into the air while others tackle topics of a Cold War era or even when travel was as sleek as could be imagined. This great cross-section of writing enriches the collection even more, though there is a theme of fear within each piece. As the editors offer a brief synopsis of the piece to come, the reader is able to place it into context and can—should they wish—notice the chronological and technological progresses made in air travel. As the reader is introduced to scores of characters in a variety of settings, they can relate to as many as they like while endeavouring not to scare themselves with vivid imaginings of what could go wrong. The choice of stories was wonderful, as was the varied lengths of the pieces on offer. However, perhaps I should not have read this days before I would board a plane. Now then, which button was actually used to bring down the plane and not summon assistance for additional pretzels?
Kudos, Messrs. King and Vincent, for this captivating collection. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and hope you’ll continue to collaborate again soon.