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One Past Midnight: The Langoliers

by Stephen King, Willem Dafoe (Narrator)

3.7 of 5 stars 3.70 · rating details · 14,277 ratings · 134 reviews

The first of a four-part audio series from Stephen King's best-selling book, "Four Past Midnight." On a redeye flight from Los Angeles to Boston, only 11 passengers survive--but landing in a dead world makes them wish they hadn't.

Audio Cassette, 510 pages

Published February 1st 1990 by Highbridge Audio (first published 1990)

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Jan 07, 2012 Trudi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-want-to-marry, horror, made-into-movie, time-travel, stephen-king, scary-as-hell, science-fiction, 2012-reads, audiobook, group-in-peril, survive-this, novellas, re-reads, my-desert-island

Over the years this has remained one of my favorite pieces of King's writing. In a phrase, IT IS AWESOME. The first time you read it there is so much mystery, tension, what the bleep mindfuck going on that it literally keeps you on the edge of your seat. As a science fiction story, I proclaim it a classic.

You really want to come to this novella completely blind, because the reveals are so rewarding you don't want to be robbed of them early. But I have discovered upon subsequent re-reads (and no...more

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Apr 06, 2008 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Langoliers is a good story. I can't put it any other way. I loved the Idea of the time rip being mistaken for the Aurora Borealis. The Langoliers had a lot of good ideas and developed them nicely, keeping the more outlandish ones within the realm of possibility. The plot was smooth (not any jerky transitions) and was very fun to read. It was also intelligent. It's one of those books you can't stop reading, it hooks you and doesn't let go. There was also less profanity that most of Stephen Ki...more

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Mar 25, 2009 Lady Danielle aka The Book Huntress rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, owned-copy

This is more of a science fiction/thriller than horror. I enjoyed the ensemble cast, particularly the enigmatic Nick. This story does keep you wondering how things will be resolved. I thought the miniseries was pretty true to the story as well. Really liked the actor they chose to play Nick. He nailed him. I really like to see King try something that isn't his usual genre, as he did with Eyes of a Dragon. I think it was a success. My copy is in Four Past Midnight. Probably won't read the other s...more

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Jan 25, 2009 Jocey added it

One Past Midnight or The Langoliers, by Stephen King, is a book about passengers who fall asleep on a plane and wake up and go to another place. There are many main characters, but the character who stood out more to me was Dinah. Dinah is a 10 year old girl who is blind. One of Dinah’s main internal conflicts is that she is blind. One of her external conflicts is with Mr. Toomy. He’s a crazy guy who hates Dinah.

During my time reading this book I made a text-to-self connection. There was a part...more

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Sep 07, 2010 Phillip rated it 4 of 5 stars

For all the stephen king fans out there you all should read this book because its just like the rest. very suspenseful and interesting. This book starts off as a group of passengers board a airplane flight and somehow half of the people dissaepared on the airplane after entering a time rift. This book felt very weird because there was 2 problems at the same time.
The first problem in the book was deciding where they were and where did most of the people in the aircraft went. The very nice part...more

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Jan 12, 2010 Angeliki rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american, fiction, borrowed

It took me 2 afternoons to read this book and I still can't tell what I'm thinking about it.

When I completed the first chapter the story seemed to me strangely familiar after a few pages I realised that I had actually tried to read it again a few years ago but I couldn't finish it. So I decided that this time I would stick to it and finish it. And I just did!

In the beginning there was curiosity, lately the agony came and in the last two chapters I was struck by major disappointment! Why?Why to w...more

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Mar 14, 2012 Louis Skipper rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm going to carefully avoid any spoilers.

I saw the movie long ago and recently picked up the audio read by Willem Defoe who does an excellent job.

I'm not a reader of Stephen King, so I have no point of comparison. My only problem with the story was the "langoliers".

The result of the langoliers could have (and should have) been achieved with out these creatures.

Their appearance in the story was just silly.

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Jul 02, 2011 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So I was looking for a quick read while I waited on a different audio book to come available at the library. So I decided to give the Four Past Midnight stories a try. The Langoliers was one I had heard of before because of the movie, but I have never seen the movie and knew nothing about the story. Coming off a Dystopian novel kick I thought this would be a good transition.

I really enjoyed this book/Novella, it was fast paced from the very beginning and the characters were amazingly well devel...more

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Dec 02, 2008 Rex rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Interesting story about what might exist just outside our own dimension, in the place where time is born or dies. I'd call this standard Stephen King fare -- good and entertaining, though it's not up there with his best. Still, average King is an above-average experience for me.

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Dec 07, 2008 Marts (Thinker) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: stephen-king, books-with-a-movie, books-i-own

Hey, this is one of those Stephen King books that I could just read over and over, and hey, I haven't said anything about the movie as yet, I've actually seen it about 5 times.
Imagine that a guy who's entire life is built on a fear of an imaginary thing!!

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Apr 03, 2013 Chris Hollis rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a review for the English language version. I've often said Stephen King writes great, plausible fiction up until about 80% of the way to the finish, at which point things usually go off on the wrong tangent -- they get weird. Maybe I've read all the wrong pieces, but this is a shining example.

'Shining', no pun intended.

Anyway, this starts off as an incredible story about a group of people separated from the passage of time, searching for a way to reconnect with the world outside the airp...more

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Dec 14, 2010 BritishWotsit rated it 5 of 5 stars

Great, just as good as short stories can get. In fact its pretty much a novel. Over 200 pages, yes i think it just about counts as a novel.

Great inventive and suspenseful storyline, amazing characters. I couldnt stop thinking about this story. I even watched the mini series on youtube whilst reading it. Well not at the same time, but you get me, like i read 50 pages, then watched it up to that point.
One of my fave KING stories and looking forward to reading the other short stories in "four past...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Norelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love this book! It is such a fascinating concept... Imagine boarding a plane, with hundreds of people and finding that while you were napping, the majority of the passengers, airline crew, including the pilot,have disappeared into thin air .How are you going to land the plane...where have the people gone...why are only 11 people left.... I don't want to give too much of the story away...you have to read it though..it is fantastic! For people that shy away from Stephen King writing horror stori...more

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Apr 01, 2011 Sara Pike rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is my first dive into the writing of Stephen King. I don't know why I wanted so long to read him but I am glad I finally got around to it. He paints such a vivid picture that it is easy to get caught up reading well into those midnight hours. I am continuing my reading of this master author by reading Secret Window Secret Garden. Though I am only just barely into the story I can tell that I will not be disappointed. You can tell that he is a story teller. That he wants to share with you and...more

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Jan 05, 2010 Nicholas rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of my favorite King stories because it's really imaginative. What if you fell asleep on a plane and woke up to find it empty? Panic. That's what.

King as always does a great job managing supernatural and natural threats. It's always bad enough that King drops his characters into a seemingly hopeless situation, but there's always one guy with a screw just a hair loose that comes uncorked by the experience and creates a whole new set of problems for the beleaguered survivors.

This story...more

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Sep 15, 2010 Nate rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this book and thought it had some very interesting ideas. It's not really horror like a lot of King's books and is really more science fiction. He has an interesting take on what would happen if you were involved with time travel - which isn't too pleasant at all if you happen to travel back in time! I would definitely recommend this book as a fun read. I listened to it which was even more fun as the guy reading it brought the characters to life. The book is suspenseful, but not s...more

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May 19, 2012 Jordie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Well that was pretty fantastic until the last sequence.

I guess overall the ending was expected to be lovely and sweet.

BUT. SPOILERS.
(view spoiler)...more

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Mar 09, 2013 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In Langoliers befinden sich zwei Geschichten. Die erste würde ich mit 2, die zweite mit 4 Sternen bewerten, insgesamt beläuft es sich also auf 3.

"Langoliers", 2 Sterne
Irgendwie konnte ich mich mit dieser Geschichte nicht so recht anfreunden. Sie war irgendwie so... mechanisch. So, als hätte King lauter Sachen genommen, die in seinen Geschichten öfter Mal vorkommen (Totale Abgeschiedenheit, ohne die Möglichkeit, Hilfe zu holen, Eheprobleme, Kinder, die eine unheimlich wichtige Rolle spielen, natü...more In Langoliers befinden sich zwei Geschichten. Die erste würde ich mit 2, die zweite mit 4 Sternen bewerten, insgesamt beläuft es sich also auf 3.

"Langoliers", 2 Sterne
Irgendwie konnte ich mich mit dieser Geschichte nicht so recht anfreunden. Sie war irgendwie so... mechanisch. So, als hätte King lauter Sachen genommen, die in seinen Geschichten öfter Mal vorkommen (Totale Abgeschiedenheit, ohne die Möglichkeit, Hilfe zu holen, Eheprobleme, Kinder, die eine unheimlich wichtige Rolle spielen, natürlich ein paar schreckliche, fast unbegreifliche Monster, ein paar Personen, die sich opfern müssen, damit der Rest der Gruppe überlebt, sowas.), und hätte daraus eine Geschichte gebastelt, die jetzt zwar nicht total schlecht ist, der aber irgendwie die Seele fehlt. Fast so, als wäre Langoliers einfach noch nicht ganz ausgereift. Als wäre es die aller, allererste Vor-Fassung einer Geschichte, mit der er sich erstmal klar machen wollte, wie das ganze ungefähr ablaufen soll, und die er dann einfach nicht nochmal ausgeführt und überarbeitet hat.
Vielleicht liegt es auch an der Länge. Kurzgeschichten von King empfinde ich meistens auch als irgendwie seltsam. Zwar nicht unbedingt schlecht, aber irgendwie seltsam. Vielleicht liegen mir seine Kurzromane (es ist komisch, eine 300 Seiten lange Geschichte als Kurzroman zu bezeichnen, aber für King es eben kurz) einfach ebenso wenig.
Fakt ist aber, dass ich zu keinem der Charaktere eine wirkliche Beziehung aufbauen konnte, von manchen wusste ich auf der letzten Seite immer noch nichts, außer ihrem Namen, und hatte keine Ahnung, wer sie eigentlich waren. Es ging alles so schnell und gleichzeitig hatte ich das Gefühl, dass 300 Seiten lang gar nichts passiert ist und die Geschichte einfach nie so richtig in Fahrt kam. Ich war einfach von keinem King bisher so wenig ergriffen wie von Langoliers, und das ist irgendwie schade.

"Das geheime Fenster, der geheime Garten", 4 Sterne
Ich habe vor einigen Jahren schon einmal den zugehörigen Film mit Johnny Depp gesehen, der wirklich gut war. Ich weiß nicht, ob ich sonst so motiviert gewesen wäre, weiterzulesen, weil ich von der vorherigen Geschichte doch eher enttäuscht war.
Das geheime Fenster, der geheime Garten (Warum dieser ellenlange Titel, warum?) hat mir dann aber wieder wirklich gut gefallen. Er hatte wieder das Gefühl, das mir bei King so gefällt - ganz ohne Monster. (Oder fast, im Epilog taucht dann eben doch nochmal etwas Übernatürliches auf, das hat der gute Herr sich nicht nehmen lassen. Damit ist es aber wie zB. auch bei Das Mädchen, die Geschichte kommt eigentlich auch ohne das "Horrorelement" aus.)
Den ganz großen Plot-Twist kannte ich ja aufgrund des Filmes schon, aber trotzdem war der Roman für mich von vorne bis hinten spannend, er hat mich mitgerissen und ich habe ihn gern gelesen.(less)

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Jul 11, 2012 Sakura87 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autori-nordamericani, racconti, horror, thriller, novecento

Quattro dopo mezzanotte: quattro racconti horror per quattro momenti della notte a partire dall’ora delle streghe, a partire dal momento in cui tutto può succedere.

Una dopo mezzanotte: I Langolieri.
Brian Engle è un pilota che, appena atterrato dopo la sua ultima traversata, ha ricevuto la notizia della morte dell’ex moglie in un incendio. S’imbarca dunque nuovamente alla volta di Boston, e si concede un lungo sonno durante il volo; la piccola Dinah, non vedente, si risveglia e cerca immediatame...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Robbie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The main character in this book is Brian Engle. A divorced man on a flight from Tokyo who just found out his ex-wife passed away while he was in flight. He takes a red eye from LA to the east coast and falls asleep. He wakes up to someone screaming and when he goes to help her he sees a few other people on the plane but everyone else is gone with only their jewelry and other personal belongings left behind. They are all confused and later realize the two things they had in common was passing thr...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, audiobook, fantasy, horror, novella

The Langoliers took me a long time to get into, and to start with I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it. The premise sounded fantastic - a plane sets off, only for all but a handful of its passengers to disappear mid-flight. It's an intriguing concept that had a lot of potential, and King did some very interesting things with it. I think the biggest problem I had was distinguishing between the characters. Some of them are established early and established well, but many are introduced in a muddl...more The Langoliers took me a long time to get into, and to start with I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it. The premise sounded fantastic - a plane sets off, only for all but a handful of its passengers to disappear mid-flight. It's an intriguing concept that had a lot of potential, and King did some very interesting things with it. I think the biggest problem I had was distinguishing between the characters. Some of them are established early and established well, but many are introduced in a muddle towards the end of the first act, and I spent a lot of the rest of the story trying to keep who was who straight, which naturally detracted from my enjoyment. For this reason, I ended up putting the audiobook down for a few weeks, and didn't pick it up again until faced with a long walk and some silence to kill.

I'm glad I did bear it out, though. So it's not the most well-crafted story ever told. The idea behind it never stops being compelling, and those characters that are well established are easy to root for. I particularly liked Laurel, a school teacher flying to Boston to meet a man from a lonely hearts column, only to fall hard and fast for one of her fellow passengers along the way.

I'm not sure whether reading this rather than listening to it would have helped with keeping all the characters straight - I actually have an inkling that The Langoliers would be best suited to television, and if I get the opportunity I'd like to watch the miniseries adaptation. The audio itself irritated me quite often. When I first started listening to audiobooks regularly earlier in the year, I wondered why the format didn't seem to utilise background sounds or music - thanks to The Langoliers, I have an answer. It's incredibly distracting. Not to mention, the narrator made the English character sound somewhere between South African and Australian, and the girls, Dinah and Bethany, sound like they had severe head colds.

Still, though it squanders some of its potential, the central conceit of The Langoliers carries through into an overall enjoyable story.(less)

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Jan 09, 2012 Kelanth, numquam risit ubi dracones vivunt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: orrore

Mano a mano che mi addentro nella produzione letteraria Stephen King, mi rendo sempre più conto di quanto mi piace questo autore scoperto da me tardivamente, ma che sto assaporando piano pescando qua e là tra i suoi innumerevoli libri.

Scopro sempre con maggiore sorpresa come ho sempre etichettato la parola, il genere "horror" in maniera completamente errata, applicandoci sopra esclusivamente un clichè di mostri, di squartamenti e creature della notte; quando invece l'orrore può avere veramente...more

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Jun 21, 2007 Sarah Sammis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: released, read-in-2007

Four Past Midnight contains four novellas by Stephen King. For the purpose of my book count, I'm counting each novella as a separate "book" and I'll be posting a separate review for each one.

The first novella is "The Langoliers" which I have to admit I was reluctant to read from the few minutes of the made for tv movie I've seen a few times on late night TV. My whole preconception of the story was of a group of people stuck on an airplane while angry hair balls barked at them from the tarmac. Th...more

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Apr 30, 2010 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Synopsis- During a red eye flight to Los Angeles, 11 pasengers fall asleep during the ride. Hours later, they wake up to find...nothing. Every other passenger that was on the the plane has now vanished into thin air, leaving no trace behind. They manage to land the plane, only to arrive in a dead world, lost in time, with a strange noise in the background...

Classification
Audience: Horror/supernatural fans, young adults
Purpose: To frighten the pants off the reader
Mediem: Novel
Genre Setting: Ficti...more

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Sep 25, 2010 Jillian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Jillian by: Kyle

Shelves: audio-book, library

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 02, 2011 La Stamberga dei Lettori rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sakura87

Quattro dopo mezzanotte: quattro racconti horror per quattro momenti della notte a partire dall’ora delle streghe, a partire dal momento in cui tutto può succedere.

Una dopo mezzanotte: I Langolieri.

Brian Engle è un pilota che, appena atterrato dopo la sua ultima traversata, ha ricevuto la notizia della morte dell’ex moglie in un incendio. S’imbarca dunque nuovamente alla volta di Boston, e si concede un lungo sonno durante il volo; la piccola Dinah, non vedente, si risveglia e cerca immediatamen...more

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Jun 29, 2009 Rachel added it

Shelves: really-want-to-read

I do believe that this is the first Stephen King story that I was introduced to. I watched the TV Movie, and was absolutely captivated! From then on, I sought out King's work with fervor, and begged to be allowed to buy them all from the bookstore and have them for my own! Of course, I was...about 11 or 12 then, and the reading material wasn't exactly "suitable", the books weren't exactly "cheap", and my parents weren't THAT crazy.

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Oct 25, 2011 Heidi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Spooky Stephen King story about a couple of passengers who wake up during a long-haul flight to find that most of the other passengers (as well as the crew) have disappeared. (Not to be confused with the Left Behind series...) The characters are all well-developed and the bad guys are bad! I wavered between three and four stars, finally deciding on 3 just because the story wasn't long enough. I wanted more!

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Feb 16, 2010 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love my horror movies, but I don't usually read horror books. This was kind of the first one that I tried and I absolutely loved this. I can't believe that Stephen King can write so many books in his life with this much power in his stories. I love the way he twists the ending to practically everything he writes. This was no different. I'll definitely be reading more by Stephen King in the future.

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Feb 18, 2013 Angel Lepire rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not sure why, but this is one of my least favorite S.K. books. I think it's because I saw the (terrible) movie before I read the book, and I just couldn't get the bad acting out of my head as I was reading it. Also, I just didn't love this story. This is probably the harshest review I would give any King book I've read, because I really do love them all. This one just never connected for me...

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About Stephen King

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. He met Tabitha in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono, where they both worked as students. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.(less)

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