This anthology contains 4 stories
The Langoliers,
Secret Window, Secret Garden,
The Library Policeman and
The Sun Dog.
In
The Langoliers, 10 passengers of a flight from Los Angeles to Boston awaken to find they are the only 11 people left on the plane. All crew members and other passengers have mysteriously disappeared. Luckily, 1 of the surviving passengers, Brian Engle is a pilot. Not long after making an emergency landing in Bangor, the survivors realize in fact that they have somehow traveled through a rip in time into a world that is about to be destroyed and must retrace their flight back if they are to live. Of the 11 survivors, only 8 make it back alive.
S
ecret Window, Secret Garden is about writer Morton Rainey who is accused by plagiarism by a stranger named John Shooter while staying at his summer home. At first Mort believes that this crazy stranger burned down his home in Derry and murdered 2 men in his mistaken belief. At the end, Mort realizes that he is actually schizophrenic and Shooter exists only in his mind. Mort is killed when he attempts to murder his ex-wife, Amy. Amy however comes to realize that Shooter may in fact have been more than a figment of Mort's mind. He might in fact have become real.
Standing in for the local Rotary Club's Speaker's Night, Sam Peebles borrows 2 books to help enhance his speech from the library. Later, Sam discovers that the librarian he met, Ardelia Lortz is supposedly dead and when he loses the books he borrowed, he must contend with
The Library Policeman sent by Ardelia. Sam defeats Ardelia with the help of his secretary Naomi Sarah Higgins and a drunk Dave Duncan. While the town believes Ardelia to be a murderess, Dave reveals that Ardelia is actually a vampire.
Finally in
The Sun Dog Kevin Delevan receives a Sun 660, a Polaroid camera for his 15th birthday. He and his father soon realize that the camera is haunted by a monstrous dog. Acting upon the hints Kevin dreams of every night, Kevin captures
The Sun Dog within another Polaroid camera when it materializes.
The first time I read this book, my favourite story was
The Langoliers. While the story I liked the least was
Secret Window, Secret Garden. This has not changed this time round. Which is why I have always wondered, why the movie makers chose to make a movie out of
Secret Window, Secret Garden ? My preference for
The Langoliers and then
The Library Policeman, I suppose is because these 2 are "simpler" stories. The lines of good and evil seem clear and the good guys wins in the end. With
Secret Window, Secret Garden, the good guy IS the bad guy and in
The Sun Dog, the good guy doesn't win completely. I'd like to believe that good will always triumph at least in books.