Rating: 
Summary: Sometimes the horror of the unknown is that it stays unknown
Review: Just because there is a car, or at least something that looks like a car, on the cover and in the story Stephen King tells in his latest novel, "From a Buick 8," is no reason to think this is "Christine" revisited. This is not a novel about a possessed car and half the fun is trying to speculate along with the book's characters as to what exactly is that thing in Shed B. The strongest similarity between the two novels is actually the switch from first person to third person narrative, although this new novel does that with much more frequency that the other work, which was divided like Gaul into three parts. King has announced he is in the final stages of cleaning out his literary cupboard and it is fairly clear that the blaze of glory he intends to go out on and write "fini" to his career is going to be the three volumes ending his epic of Roland of Gilead and the Dark Tower. So I did not start reading "From a Buick 8" expecting something on a par with "The Stand" and "It." I was hoping for something more akin to "The Dead Zone," and that is closer to the mark in terms of where this novel stands in the King oeuvre.
The idea that the greatest horror of all is the unknown is not exactly a new one and King has explored it before, albeit to lesser degrees than he does in this novel. The Pennsylvania Troopers of Troop D are telling high school senior Ned Wilcox the story of the mysterious Buick in Shed B. Ned's father was a trooper who was killed by a drunk driver and the boy has been hanging around the Troop, learning dispatch codes and such, in an obvious effort to connect with his dead father. As the Troopers take turns telling the story they kept warning young Ned that there is not going to be a punch line; as much as the boy wants answers, they just are not going to be forthcoming, get used to it, kid. Even as the story sticks to this line through the final downward path of the novel you find yourself wondering how far will King go. Will he actually come clean and resolve the mystery he has been developing, will he stick to his guns and show that sometimes there are no answers to the big questions, or will he find a middle ground that provides some inadequate explanation that preserves the uncertainty that is the story's compelling hook? Usually my disappointment in a Stephen King novel comes when the ending does not live up to the set up, and while it might simply be a case of lowered expectations this time around, I think he does manage to have his cake and eat it too at the end of this one. The ending is satisfying, even if it is not as memorable as what he has provided on occasion.
I heard tell that as he was recovering from his own close encounter of the worst kind with a motor vehicle King was tooling around Western Pennsylvania in the company of State Troopers. The geographical setting of the novel does not seem distinct from King's beloved Maine, but he does seem to capture the authenticity of police work for State Troopers (who are not exactly high up on the list of law enforcement types who are the subject of fictional narratives). You get the feeling that most of the stories that make their way into "From a Buick 8" were told to King while he was in the company of those real Troopers, and the Author's note in the back of the book confirms as much. This speaks to what has always been the backbone of King's work, which is not so much his ability to come up with nightmares a plenty, but rather how he could consistently convince us that his horror stories and tales of terror are taking place in the real world in which we live. Laurell K. Hamilton has come up with some horrific conclusions for several of her Anita Blake novels, but her alternative reality would never be confused with the real world. King simply tapped into our cultural consciousness and served as our conduit to what was out there on the other side. "From a Buick 8" is simply the latest reminder of that particular truth.
Rating: 
Summary: End of the road? Maybe its time.
Review: I fell in love with Stephen King when I was 10 and picked up a copy of Carrie. I've been reading his books ever since so it's with sadness that I have to say that this is one of the weakest books he's ever written. King has announced that he's retiring. I was sorry to hear this but haaving read Buick I think it may be time for him to hang it up. This book is not scary so it fails. A romance book is supposed to be about love. A mystery has to have a central puzzle. A horror book is suppose to have at least one good really good scare in it. Buick 8 doesn't live up to it's genre. Buick is about a car from another world and the 20 years it spends sitting in a police barracks garage. Occasionally it spits out monsters and occasionally it eats people but that's about it. Buick would've been a superior book if King has either skipped the supernatural and wrote a Shawshank type story or if he'd allowed the Buick to do more. We never learn the who, why or where of this car and the ending reads like King just got bored. Lump this in with King's other unsatisfying efforts like Dreamcatcher, Hearts in Atlantis, Bag of Bones,Tom Gordon, and Rose Madder.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring - doesn't go anywhere
Review: Not a great book - I like a lot of King's works, but this one is pretty bad. The idea of the story is okay, but it just doesn't go anywhere - very boring reading. Not recommended.
Rating:
Summary: CREEPY... (but full of beauty)
Review: I've read a lot by Stephen King of late. Books like The Green Mile, Bag of Bones and Desperation have made me appreciate his depth and skill as a writer--the Dark Tower series has blown me away. Now...along comes From a Buick 8. It, like the enigmatic "vehicle" mentioned in its title, is truly unique. Here we have the powerful sense of camaraderie common to his greatest novels and novellas. The bond between the group of law officers in this book is strongly reminiscent of that between the prisoners in Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption and the guards in the Green Mile. King has done well with ensemble groups of characters--this book is no exception. From a Buick 8 also does very well in making each character of the ensemble "deep." There are no stock characters here. In this sense, this book approaches the emotional heights of Desperation and the last couple of Dark Tower books. From a Buick 8 is genuinely creepy without becoming overly grotesque. This is not necessarily always a plus when it comes to books from the "horror" genre, but it works to great effect in this story. I was reading this book while camping in the wilderness. The woods seemed to make a little more noise of the suspicious variety if I read some right before bed. There is also a scene recounting a father's feelings towards his son that holds forth a deep truth. It should not be missed or simply passed over. From a Buick 8 is not, in my opinion, King's best work--but it is still darn good. He continues to impress me as a writer growing in skill and importance as he ages. There are rumors that he may retire after the publication of the final Dark Tower books. If this book is any indication of what might still be over the horizon of his imagination, I sure hope these rumors don't prove true.
Rating: 
Summary: An element of horror in everyday life
Review: This newest effort by Stephen King is something that to my knowledge he's never tried before. He's taken something that comes from the deepest recesses of his own mind - in this case something that looks like an old Buick (but knowing Stephen King it's anything but that) - and incorporated it into the daily lives of a novel's main characters. In this case the main characters are the members of a Pennsylvania State Police barracks. One day, years ago, one of the officers responds to a call about an abandoned car. At least that's what it starts out as, but since we're dealing with a Stephen King novel we know from the get-go that it's not a car - and it probably wasn't abandoned either; rather, it was deliberately left at the gas station where it was "found". The "car" gets towed to the barracks and gets stored in a shed, where it quickly becomes apparent that it's more than just a car - but exactly what it is isn't really made clear; it looks like King wants to leave the reader with a little mystery in the story. He then tries to integrate the "Buick" and its actions into the daily lives of these troopers. They run various experiments in an attempt to discover exactly what this thing in their garage is. They don't come up with any definitive answers, but along the way a lot of weird things happen - and I won't spoil anything for the reader by going into detail about them. The troopers can't be sure what this thing is, but they'd rather keep it under lock and key in their shed than let it loose on an unsuspecting world (now there's a tired old cliche if ever I've heard one!), so that's exactly what they do. And so over the next several years, in between the usual things that happen to state troopers, they keep the "Buick" confined to the shed and watch what it does with something more than a dispassionate eye. All this doesn't mean that the book isn't as scary as King's best work. It's plenty scary - and the fact that King doesn't resolve exactly what the "Buick" actually is makes it even scarier. This is definitely a worthy addition to the canon.
Rating:
Summary: It doesn't really go anywhere...
Review: This book is more frustrating than anything else. Though the plot is fairly interesting and in some parts somewhat suspenseful, the book leaves you with a bucket load of unanswered questions. The car obviously ties in with The Dark Tower series and Hearts in Atlantis, but the finish leaves you with a "what was that?" feeling. Without reading the other books, I would have really felt left in the dark. Read it if you have a lust for King, but if you are a newbie to his world (or worlds, as the case may be), read a few of his other works before trying to tackle this one.
Rating: 
Summary: From A Buick 8
Review: I have been a Stephen King fan for years. The Stand is possibly the best cross-over SciFi, horror novel that was ever written. I would have to say that From A Buick 8 might be the worst. The only reason I gave this book a single star is because it has King's name. It is a long drawn out read, save your money.
Rating:
Summary: Nice concept, but no substance
Review: I hate to agree with some of the other critics who say this book is too long and boring, but... it is. I was able to hang in .. happily.. for the first 200 pages or so... but it gets old rather quickly. Most of the book is just a constant stream-of-conscience recollection of this evil Buick in a garage, and there are layers and layers of smarmy, state-troopers-are-a-family mentality. Which is all fine and dandy, but it's just not what one would expect from a Stephen King book. King is a wonderfully talented author, of course, but-- unless you have a particular interest in state troopers, Pennsylvania, or vintage Buicks, I'd pass on this book.
Rating:
Summary: not "classic King" burger but more like an acquired taste
Review: Bought this on a whim in a used book store, not planning or thinking of Stephen King at all since I thought I had "out-grown" his fiction (last time I read his stuff was 7 years ago and before that not since high-school when I devoured every King book I could find at the time). Something about the sparkling car on the book's cover caught my eye. I quickly found it to be an easy read and enjoyed seeing King grow as a writer. It's got the best of King's writing style (his panache for catch phrases and his campfire "gather-round-I'm-gonna-tell-you-a-good-yarn" energy) but the narrative structure and themes in the work seemed more mature than I have seen in the past. Basically we learn the events surrounding a boy's father's death and the mysterious Buick 8 car through a series of flashbacks, all told to the boy in a span of a few hours from a group of the town's older generation, as they stand outside the local Sheriff's building, drinking and eating sandwiches. This setting allows King to combine his love for oral tradition of story-telling and lets him touch on several themes of most striking of which, the need for humans to make a story of everything, to make narrative chain's of unrelated events, to give answer to the world mysteries, which are ultimately sometimes unanswerable. Something King has always touched on but more profoundly here which is due to King's fairly recent car accident. There's a lot going on in this book if you give yourself to think about it a bit, and while not a rollercoster-ride as compared to other action-packed King books, I nevertheless found it to be an engaging read, sharing the boy's need to discover and give meaning to the past events. Not your typical King burger, but more like a hot turkey dinner with a good cup of red wine, maybe not as tasty but somehow more satisfying in the end.
Rating:
Summary: back to reality, please
Review: King needs and editor who can look him in the eye and tell him when a book isn't worth the millions people are about to shell out for it. This should have been a short story, not the endless sleeper I'm struggling to finish.
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