Stephen King's "N."

Stephen King has a new short story collection entitled Just After Sunset that's due out on November 11th, 2008. The most notable piece in this new book for connoisseurs of weird literature is a tale called "N." This work marks Stephen King's most recent and possibly most extensive creation of a blatantly Lovecraftian story. References to a "three lobed eye" and the name "Cthun" appear. Mysterious stones outside a little New England town prompt madness. And the story's structure comes to us through the papers of a psychologist driven to insanity by a patient named "N." This latter feature even mimics a format constructed in one of H.P. Lovecraft's most famous tales, "The Call of Cthulhu."

Readers of the weird, a number of whom are usually skeptical or dismissive of King's efforts along these lines, won't have to wait until November to get a sense of this story. Simon & Schuster have put up a website featuring twenty five episodes of "N." This comprises a significant chunk of the story, if not its entirety. Each video is about two minutes long, and utilizes handsome comic art animations to bring the story to life. A player, complete with every episode, appears below, though quality may still be better at the original site linked above. This is an aesthetically delightful marketing strategy to whip up interest in the story, and provides the curious something for free. However, be forewarned: the site's brief advertisements appearing every few episodes may create fatigue for the viewer trying to watch it all in one sitting.

Marvel Comics is also working with Simon & Schuster to bring forth a series of comic books or a graphic novel based on "N." sometime next year. The art used in the "N." animations appears to be lifted from this upcoming project. In any case, it will be interesting to see if King's heavily Lovecraftian effort is able to generate the popularity and high interest among his large pool of readers that his other works routinely do.



-Grim Blogger