Stephen King published The Mist twice before: the novella is included both as part of a broader 1980 anthology of horror stories from various authors entitled Dark Forces and in a 1985 collection of entirely Stephen King stories, Skeleton Crew. In conjunction with the movie adaptation of the story, publishers have brought a new, standalone, version to market. I had to take a quick trip to St. Paul, Minnesota for work, so I dragged this along for something to read on the plane. It is interesting to me to note that my plane left the Minneapolis-St. Paul runway just as a powerful winter snowstorm descended on the region.

King has an uncanny ability to take the most mundane item or experience and instill it with terror. I still remember an interview he did on the Tonight Show where he transformed a simple rocking chair into an item of utter horror. King did this spontaneously, without preparation. This is what King does with The Mist. He wrestles with the concepts of desolation and desperation, giving monstrous form to those fears from the amorphous void of a powerful summer storm followed by an even more mysterious fog.