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From a Buick 8
From a Buick 8
Author: Stephen King
The state police of Troop D in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret in Shed B out back of the barracks ever since 1979, when Troopers Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox answered a call from a gas station just down the road and came back with an abandoned Buick Roadmaster. Curt Wilcox knew old cars, and he knew immediately that this one was...wron...  more »
ISBN-13: 9780743211376
ISBN-10: 0743211375
Publication Date: 9/24/2002
Pages: 368
Rating:
  • Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
 337

3.6 stars, based on 337 ratings
Publisher: Scribner
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback, Audio Cassette, Audio CD
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

MeadowbrookManor avatar reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 28 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 8
More cerebral than Christine - I enjoy it when everything isn't quite all the way explained... Note: Has tie-ins to the Dark Tower series!
reviewed From a Buick 8 on
Helpful Score: 6
Like a fine wine, I am pleased to see that King only gets better with age. A frightening book indeed, the kind of fear that shakes up your moral core. No perfunctory scare in this book.
reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 14 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
WoW! a very good book. i love paranormal books and this one did not disappoint me!
candieb avatar reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 239 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
Wow, I didn't like this book at all. I only finished reading it because I really did want to know the end, but the story dragged and it was just too much of the same thing. Maybe there's some deeper meaning, I dunno, but yuck. I cannot believe I found a King novel I didn't really really like! But this was a stinker for me.
reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
One of my favorite Stephen King books, this one is a bit more like a Twilight Zone episode than the horror that he's known for. An abandoned car is taken in by state troopers, except it turns out to be not a car at all, but a gateway into another world. What I liked about this was the sheer force of mystery. The traditional story arc in most popular fiction is missing. Instead, it's a bunch of folks trying to make sense of the very strange goings on in their garage.
Read All 77 Book Reviews of "From a Buick 8"

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xxxmikeyxxx avatar reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 55 more book reviews
this book is not stephen kings best work,i read more than half of it and then quit .
reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 53 more book reviews
I thought this was a great book. I loved how they let you almost glimpse an alternate reality that is so horrifying you wouldn't want to send your worst enemy there. I thought it was very suspenseful. I couldn't wait to see what the "Buick" was going to throw at them next. The writing is so great I could actually picture myself sitting in the car and hearing it starting to humm.... Great read!
reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 131 more book reviews
this book is great and comes with a free poster of the same title.
reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 204 more book reviews
This definitely was not one of my favorite King books. The first few hundred pages of this book were definitely not page turners but the last were. The story of the Buick unravels by going between the past and present where I feel the entire book should have been written as a flashback. The length and the drawing out of the story almost made this book unfinishable.
jazzykins avatar reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 2 more book reviews
This was one of those books that started out kinda slow, but once it got going, it was very good. It took me a while to finish it, though, because it just didn't have enough of that King feel to it. A bit alien, a bit supernatural, a bit creepy. Buick Roadmaster sitting in state police barracks shed becomes a portal to another world...? dimension...? Interesting plot, definitely different. Just a bit slow in spots.
reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 44 more book reviews
Stephen King!
reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 37 more book reviews
Typical Stephen King. Can't put it down. He takes that horrible tragedy of when he was hit by a car, and uses that experience to add gorish details to this story. That car is a mystery wrapped in an enigma! Great read, and you Stephen King gentle readers won't be disappointed.
reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 10 more book reviews
Whilte I LOVE King, the longer the better, this is a shorter read. Good characters, interesting twists.
reviewed From a Buick 8 on + 4 more book reviews
The book's intriguing plot revolves around the troopers of Pennsylvania State Patrol Troop D, who come into possession of what at first appears to be a vintage automobile. Closer inspection and experimentation conducted by the troopers reveal that this car's doors (and trunk) sometimes open to another dimension populated by gross-out creatures straight out of ... well, a Stephen King novel. As the plot progresses, the veteran troopers' tales of these visits from interdimensional nasties, and the occasional "lightquakes" put on by the car, are passed on to the son of a fallen comrade whose fascination with the car bordered on dangerous obsession.

Unlike earlier King works, there is no active threat here; no monster is stalking the heroes of the story, unless you count the characters' own curiosity. In past books, King has terrorized readers with vampires, werewolves, a killer clown, ghosts, and aliens, but this time around, the bogeyman is a more passive, cerebral threat, and one for which they don't make a ready-to-wear Halloween costume--man's fascination with and fear of the unknown. While some readers may find this tale less exciting than the horror master's earlier works, From a Buick 8 is a wonderful example of how much King's plotting skills and literary finesse have matured over his long career. And, most of all, it's a darn creepy book


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