Rating: 
Summary: Don't Let the Negative Reviews Mislead You
Review: I think a lot of readers missed the boat on this one. 'From a Buick 8' is one of the best novels King has written in a long time. If you'll bear with me, I'll tell you why.The story involves the death of a Pennsylvania Trooper named Curt Wilcox. Curt's son Ned is about to finish high school. He takes a job with the police department, mainly to learn all he can about the death of his dad. The cops take him in, show him the ropes, and tell him an out-of-this-world story involving his dad...and what APPEARS to be a Buick Roadster. And as we've come to expect from King...strange things happen.... People who don't like King because of "monsters and gore" should enjoy this book. It's more of a thinking person's book - it's not really flashy and it won't gross you out, but you'll remember the story, the characters, and the atmosphere much more than you would after reading 'Pet Sematary' or 'The Tommyknockers' or even 'It.' What does King do differently in this book? For one thing, his exploration of character has evolved into something far beyond the stuff of most horror novels. Writers who want to know about characters and character motivation could do much worse than to study King. 'From a Buick 8' is not jammed with characters, but there are several and they're all satisfyingly well-drawn. King's use of description and the atmosphere he creates have always been good, but they really serve his purposes here quite well. You almost feel as if you are in Shed B with the Buick when these creepy events happens. King has always been a very visual writer and that gift certainly comes through here. In his best works, King addresses not only our fears, but our hopes and dreams as well. 'From a Buick 8' is part coming of age story, part self-discovery, and part self-examination. The ending? When you get there, you'll understand that it couldn't end any other way. It's different and satisfying. If you haven't read King in a long time, now is the chance to give him another try. Ignore the negative reviews from people who want to see monsters and gore on every page. Judge for yourself. (Just keep an eye out for '57 Buicks, though.)
Rating: 
Summary: curiosity vs. satisfaction
Review: "From a Buick 8" explores the horror that can exist in your imagination. The Pennsylvania State Troopers that house the old Buick in the shed behind the barracks know horrible things surround the old car, but most of them can only imagine what this car is capable of. But through this car, they have learned what fear is all about.
You already have a good idea what this novel is about, so I won't go into the details. The story centers around the people working at the barracks who take turns telling what they know to a young high school boy. The characters are well developed, deep, interesting people. Their personalities are characterized by their reactions to the car out back. The reader gets to know them through each of them talking about the stories surrounding the old Buick.
So, what's good about this book? The character development, the mystery, the potential for horror, the fear it instills, and the curiosity it arouses. The fact that King does not write down his exact vision of the horror lurking within this car is the best part. You must use your imagination to conjure up what you, the reader, think this car may be capable of. Is is the car, acting alone? Or is the car a mechanism an evil empire uses to perform its deeds? You decide. Some may find King's lack of explanation decreases the satisfaction they derive from reading this book. I did not. I enjoyed having my brain tickled into deciding for myself what the Buick was and could do. I think King's enormous popularity has created an interesting situation. Any time one sees his name as the author, immediately they think of their own favorite King book. All others are compared to this, their one favorite. For a true King fan, it's almost like having lots of kids: all are different, each loveable in his own way. Don't sell yourself short by creating expectations about what you read simply because of who wrote it. Take each book and enjoy it for what it can provide. Imagine how boring it would be if all of King's books were exactly like "It" or "The Stand" or whatever else you thought was his best.
OK, off my soapbox, back to the book. Not fast paced, but good enough to hold my interest. Well written, good characters, and enough horror within the Buick to keep your mind going. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: King Classic
Review: Fully enjoyed this title. A little different for King. More story and less freaky weirdness, not that it isn't freaky weird but there's less of it than usual. Fun read. I also recommend Evolution by Jennifer MacDonald. I just finished it and found out it's on sale here for half price.
Rating:
Summary: King needs a road map.
Review: King's recent books have been really poor. In both Dreamcatcher and Buick, Stephen seems to have lost his way. There's just nothing here of interest. I'm still a fan of King, but he is slipping. I can only hope against hope the upcoming Dark Tower books will not be this poor, but I fear King's lost his touch.
Rating: 
Summary: Very slow and somewhat boring
Review: Stephen King is a great writer, but this is definitely not one of my favorites. Yes, I've read all his statements about how he likes to write different things, etc. To me, this one was "bad" different as opposed to "good" different. The plot is almost non-existing, and the characters and pretty boring as well. The book was extremely hard to get through. If you liked "Desperation" or "Insomnia" - this is a totally different kind of book. Not a bad book, but not a book I would recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Great Characters, Great Horror
Review: Way back in the old days all I ever read was Stephen King novels. I must have read nearly all of them over the years-until about four years ago. Moderately irritated with what I deemed an increasingly banal succession of books, I decided to abandon the horror master. I saw new King books come out in hardback and move on to paperback while I moved on to other authors and other genres. With the exception of "Dreamcatcher," which I did like to some extent, my interest in Stephen King's new efforts precipitously waned. Then I picked up "From a Buick 8" on a whim, deciding to give it a chance and see if the king of horror still had any sparks left in him. Other reviews and general opinion certainly did not inspire me to read this book. Most disliked "From a Buick 8," claiming that it was not scary enough. I am here to tell you I loved this book. I do not know if this great experience will cause me to rush out and read his other newer novels, but based solely on this book I say that King penned a winner. "From a Buick 8" is a story about a state trooper's barracks in Pennsylvania. Troopers have come and gone over the years, but enough personnel remains to know the full story about the horror contained in Shed B behind the barracks. When Trooper Curt Wilcox died after being hit by a drunk driver, his son Ned begins to show up around the barracks looking for odd jobs. The cops recognize the boy is the spitting image of his father, so they befriend him and adopt him as a fixture of the station. But Ned is there for another reason, one recognized by the old timers who knew his father. For Curt's son, working with the troopers is a way of holding on to the memory of his departed dad. After the boy gets accepted to college, Commanding Sergeant Sandy Dearborn pulls some strings and finds Ned summer work as a dispatcher. It isn't long after that when Ned notices what is in Shed B and starts to ask questions. The book is a shifting narrative account of the horrible incidents leading up to Curt Wilcox's death. What resides in this shed is a car, a Buick of old vintage. The troopers impounded the car in 1979 after a strange man abandoned it at a local gas station. The car is eerie, with a body impervious to damage and a steering wheel the size of tire. The engine isn't an engine in the normal sense, but a strange casing with "Buick 8" painted on the sides of it. The cops have a strange feeling about this car, with special interest shown by then Commanding Sergeant Tony Shoondist and Ned's father, rookie trooper Curt Wilcox. When the car lights up like a Christmas tree (referred to as a "lightquake"), the two take an even stronger interest in this weird object. This being a Stephen King book, the strangeness doesn't stop with unknown lights. Things start to emerge from the trunk of the car, things no human eyes have ever seen and likely will never see again in this world. The troopers quickly assume the role of caretakers and protectors, shielding the world from the potential horrors of the Buick. And believe me, despite the grumbling of some who have read this book, there are horrors aplenty in this gripping, character driven horror novel. The reason many people probably do not like this book is because King buries the horrific elements under intensively drawn characters. The car takes second fiddle to Ned, Sandy, Curt, Tony, and the other major and minor characters in the story. At one point in the narrative, Sandy tries to emphasize to Ned how minor the car really was in the lives of the cops at the station. Ned doesn't want to here this, of course, because he is more interested in the story of the Buick and its effects on his father than listening to accounts about the personal lives of police officers. The car is important, but those readers who pay attention recognize that the Buick serves as the nexus for a constantly shifting cast of people, with all the aspirations and all the failings of life. Human tangibles such as family, friendship, and honor matter more in life than obsession with an object that has few if any answers. As for those who complain that King doesn't take the easy route and give us answers about the car, wake up! He shows you what the car is and even has one of the characters witness the strange dimension linked to the automobile. Why do you need to know more than that? A few years ago there used to be a thing called imagination. It isn't Stephen King's problem if your ability to imagine no longer exists due to MTV and mindless television shows and movies. In the end it doesn't matter where the horror comes from. Evil is as evil does. King provides ample descriptions of the horrors of the Buick that this
reader is more than satisfied with the story. Fans of Stephen King, myself included, really should not be as hard on the old boy as we have been in recent years. This guy really appreciates his fans and tries to please them whenever he can. I have heard that "From a Buick 8" might be his last effort. If it is, instead of just calling it quits here's a guy who is going ahead and finishing his Dark Tower series. He certainly doesn't have to do this, but he wants to conclude what he started because he knows his fans want closure. "From a Buick 8" would serve as an adequate swan song for a great author, but the book is so good I hope he sees fit to continue churning them out.
Rating:
Summary: Not what it seems
Review: In the same way that the Buick which features in this story is not a real car, "From a Buick 8" only looks like a novel - in reality it is a short story padded out to inordinate length. Essentially SK follows a lather rinse repeat formula - the same spooky events occur over and over again padded out by a lot of boring waffle. For example about 4 pages are taken up by a description of two characters spilling coffee on a woman's skirt and buying her flowers to make up! And this has NOTHING to do with the plot. Most of the story is told in flashback by a number of narrators to a young boy, whose impatience with their refusal to get to the point could be seen to reflect the reader's growing impatience ... SK takes the opportunity to rebuke these readers via the narrator chiding the boy for being obsessed with supernatural events - nothing is ever that tidy in real life, blah, blah ... At this point I began to suspect that the book's ending would be a major disappointment with nothing explained or resolved - and I was right! Actually I don't mind novels that digress from the main storyline ("3 Men in a Boat", is one of my favourite books) but in "From a B8" these digressions simply aren't interesting and do nothing to add depth to the leading characters in the book who are all one-dimensional. Also I don't need SK to tell me that real life is not full of tidy resolutions but I expect better things from fiction! Kind of hard to believe that this is from the same author who wrote 'The Body' ...
Rating:
Summary: Well Written But No Story
Review: I'm a big King fan but this book has no story. Granted, King knew that when he wrote it, and perhaps he is tired of conventional plots. But the level of dread he tries to invoke, in the absence of anything really happening, does not work. Just my thoughts...
Rating: 
Summary: Possibly King's Worst. Zero rating.
Review: I think before this even came out, people were saying, "What? Another book centered around a car?!" But, you still have to have an open mind; it could have been good for all we knew ... right? Wrong. The first 100 pages of this book will put you to sleep, going on and on about the backstory of how this car from another world, found it's way into the lives of some very boring state troopers. If you don't fall asleep buy then, the rest is equally, if not more boring and time spent when you could have been reading some authors that WILL scare you, and write more complex in the process: Clive Barker is the first to come to mind, even The Manhattan Hunt Club, by John Saul was better than this. Also check out, Bentley Little for a good scare. pass this one up. I love King's old stuff, this has got to go. Sorry, Stephen. Zero rating. 0000000000.
Rating: 
Summary: Satisfaction brought him back
Review: Good, it was a little differnet then most of King's stuff but it had a Christine feel to it. To tell the truth I didn't want to put it down, I wanted the answers.
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