Horns by Joe Hill
On a chilly summer morning, one year after the brutal murder of his girlfriend Merrin, Ig Parrish wakes up to find that two small horns have sprouted from his head. He is puzzled as to why they are there, but when he goes to ask people what to do about them they suddenly tell him their deepest, darkest desires. A doctor confesses he’d like to grind up some oxy and snort it. A cop tells him he‘d like to shoot him in the face because […]
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
It’s the mid eighties, the land of Stranger Things nostalgia, and eight year old Victoria ‘Vic’ McQueen (aka The Brat) has just discovered something interesting: if she hops on her bike and cycles through to a certain spot in the woods by the river, a magic bridge will appear. Whenever something has been lost all Vic has to do is cross the bridge and she will end up where the lost object is. But something else is lost as well: across the country, young children […]
20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
The Green Man by Kingsley Amis
20th Century Ghosts – 3/5 Stars Decidedly a mixed bag for me on this first collection of Joe Hill stories. What’s interesting in part is that the ways in which this book is talked about on the cover, in the introduction, and other places really seems to indicate that they weren’t sure Joe Hill was going to make it, or wanted people to take him seriously. Without a doubt he’s a serious writer, and very talented, but that sort of “son of the most famous […]
Full Throttle by Joe Hill
Full Throttle is a collection of 13 (heh) short stories penned or co-authored by Stephen King’s spawn, who goes by ‘Joe Hill’ in an admiral attempt not to trade of his father (and mother’s) name. The stories within range from disappointing, to confusing, to middling, to verging on brilliant. It’s an uneven achievement and overall I found it disappointing. The quality of each story was so uneven, I’ve tackled a very brief review of each below… Full Throttle Hill’s answer to a modern retelling of […]
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (2013) is a horror novel that bears similarity to some of Stephen King’s work, which is probably why it ended up on my to-read list, along with The Passage by Justin Cronin (2010). The antagonist of NOS4A2, Charles Manx, is reminiscent of Pennywise the Clown of King’s IT: both vampirically stay young by kidnapping and feeding upon kids, and both warp happiness into horror, Pennywise with his clown suit and Manx with the trappings of Christmas. His lair, for lack of […]
N0S4A2 by Joe Hill
Bingo Square: Adaptation As a child Vic McQueen finds a shortcut to lost things through the Shorter Way Bridge. On her bicycle, she can zip through one side to wherever a missing thing is on the other. Her mother’s bracelet. A special toy. One day she meets a girl who mentions a man Vic should avoid at all costs. Charles Manx likes to take children to Christmasland in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith. A place where it is Christmas every day, a playground of everything you […]
