Flight or Fright

Stephen King and Bev Vincent edited an anthology called Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales. The main reason that I read it is because if King put his name on a car repair manual, I would probably read it. He may not be as good as he once was, but once you’ve got me, it takes a lot to get rid of me. King contributes a story to this anthology so if you’re a fan and a completist like me, you’ll have to read this book too.
Flight or Fright’s story placement kind of mirrors a flight. It starts off slowly down the runway with a mostly atmospheric tale that borrows the horror of a historical event to evoke chills in the sky. It is more psychological horror than anything supernatural though the story leaves room for the possibility that other elements are at play.
Flight or Fright’s next two classic stories feel shaky during liftoff. One classic story written soon after the invention of airplanes failed to stir anything in me except initially confusion because the writing style feels as if it was from another era. The narrative is awkward, and the prose clunky. Another classic story is too popular and familiar to still have any suspense left in it, especially since it was adapted to the small screen. The Flying Machine only consisted of three paragraphs, and one paragraph was only a sentence long. I was not amused or entertained.
Then Flight or Fright eventually gains altitude and really makes some progress after those stories so be patient and don’t give up or maybe skip them entirely. Ray Bradbury’s The Flying Machine takes place in the past and really doesn’t feel like a horror story at all. I enjoyed how it wrestled with moral questions on innovation, but wondered how historians and Chinese people would react to Bradbury’s story. As an outsider who knows nothing about ancient Chinese history, I didn’t sense anything offensive, but there is always a danger for authors who don’t write what they know. Everyone should use their imagination, but be aware that there could be minefields. I don’t think that he triggered any.
Flight or Fright has a traditional mystery short story called Murder in the Air. I’m not into mysteries, but I found it oddly satisfying and refreshing since it appears near the end of the book and feels like a palette cleanser after all the varieties of short stories have completely taken you on a wild ride.
Flight or Fright fortunately has one solid, purely supernatural horror story called Diablitos. I adored it because it combined the supernatural with a contagion and leaves the reader with the hint of a possible apocalypse, which always fills me with joy.
Flight or Fright has more than one sci fi meets horror tale although Air Raid seems less like horror and more sci fi. I’m not entirely sure if I understood the story, but I understood enough of it for it to be effectively chilling. Somehow the story is able to use futuristic elements, a dystopian world, a traditional hijacking situation and time travel without dropping any balls. This short story felt like it could easily be expanded into a novel, a series of books or even the pilot of a show. They Shall Not Grow Old is a more spiritual take on a sci fi trope, and it worked for me though I found it challenging to visualize the imagery described in the story.
Lucifer! is a great horror meets sci-fi futuristic tale that puts a sociopathic twist on time travel that succeeds at being disturbing and haunting. Ask yourself what you would do in that situation. The Fifth Category feels like the protagonist, an Asian man, is an actual person living in the real world. The horror element is rooted in reality and ordinary human evil. I’m not sure if the story will be timeless since it benefits from having memory of the W’s administration, but it definitely works for now. Both these tales are deeply disturbing and leave the reader without reassurance. Which is worse: a man who knows that he is a sick twist and revels in it or a normal man who unwittingly and deliberately unleashes sadism on the world?
Joe Hill’s You Are Released is the best short story in Flight or Fright and examines the flipside of living with the effects of sick men. I could not read another story after that one, and I had the time and inclination. I was left so shaken, and it felt so damn real because it is definitely rooted in this current timeline, 2016 through 202?. A cursory look at reviews definitely suggests that some readers with certain trash political inclinations did not appreciate this story because they definitely picked up what Hill was dropping, but considering that since the 1940s through the early 1980s, we had similar concerns, it could still stand the test of time even if (hopefully) the world political stage changes dramatically. As long as certain weapons exist, this story would still work. He populates the story by shuffling through the perspective of a huge variety of characters without being confusing or making each character sound similar while still moving the story forward and not being repetitive. I need to stop reading Hill’s short stories and start reading his novels because he is so good. If he could accomplish so much in a short story, imagine what he could do without restrictions.
Flight or Fright has a couple of stories that have counter intuitive narrative structure that I did not completely understand, which is a failure considering what Hill accomplishes in his brief but challenging story, but was not left as satisfied or intrigued as Air Raid. Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds uses the protagonist’s subjective thoughts about specific times and places bleed through the story so the narrative is not linear though the momentum is. It didn’t entirely work for me, but it does feel like the opposite of The Fifth Category so I thought that its placement in the anthology was brilliant if you’re the kind of anthology reader that reads the stories in placement order. Warbirds did not work for me. The narrative style shifts two times, and maybe the fault lies with me, but I don’t think that either shift told the story well. It was too jarring and waiting until the end of the story to explicitly identify the interviewer’s father was seems like it could have been a mistake. It feels as if it is the modern, psychological take on the Arthur Conan Doyle classic story, but I was left puzzled with what exactly the author was trying to convey to the reader. If you get this story, please reach out because I could just be having a philistine moment.
Because poetry died for me during law school, I could have skipped the final short story in Flight or Fright, Falling, which consists of seven pages of poetry. It is theoretically beautiful, but didn’t work for me at all. It felt oddly gendered in an unrealistic way, but hey, do not take my word for it because when it comes to poetry, I know nada.
I love anthologies because when you’re an adult who loves to read, but life does not even give you enough time to read a short story without interruptions, even an uneven anthology is a treat. Flight or Fright’s best stories more than make up for its weaker ones.