Erin Clemence's Reviews > The Langoliers

On a red eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston, ten passengers awaken mid-flight and discover that everyone else on their plane has completely disappeared, leaving only their identifications and various pieces of abandoned jewelry behind. Luckily, there is a pilot left among the leftover passengers, but he discovers something even more sinister- there appears to be nothing left on the ground either; it seems as if the entire world is being swallowed up below them. Cranky passenger Craig Toomey believes they are falling prey to the “Langoliers”, a creature that haunted his childhood that feasts on the “lazy” and “unproductive” of society. The remaining passengers all have different ideas on what has happened and what they should do next, and they all must avoid turning on each other as they face an unusual foe.

Stephen King’s “The Langoliers” was originally published as part of a collection in the 1990s, and was recently published in 2019 as its own delightful story.

There are a lot of characters in this novel, with similar names and personalities, they are initially hard to differentiate (Brian, the pilot and Bob, the author, are just two). But as the ten remaining passengers develop, they form their own personalities and, as is prevalent in King’s novels, some are extremely likable, and there are those that are very much less so.

The Langoliers are a creepy, round-shaped entity that demolish land, buildings and people alike, destroying anything in its way and turning it into a vast emptiness. What started as a creepy story told to Craig by his demanding father, comes to life in the scariest of ways, in pure King fashion. For the majority of the novel there are merely hinted at, described as crunching, static-type noises in the background, and they only make their appearance toward the very end of the novel, heightening the suspense to its very peak.

I prefer King’s original, 1990s era novels, right when he was hitting his stride, to some of his newer novels (although I am a huge King fan either way) and “The Langoliers” is exactly the kind of King novel I love. As it was initially published as part of a collection, it isn’t massively thick, making it completely readable.

Great characters, suspenseful storytelling, and eerie “things that go bump in the night” are pure King, and this novel is downright scary enjoyment from page one.