The Fireman by Joe Hill

(hb; 2016)

From the inside flap:

"No one knows exactly when or where it began. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one. . . The doctors call it Draco incendia trychophyton. To everyone else it's Dragonscale, a highly contagious, dead spore that tattoos its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks -- before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

"Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she's discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, her and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob's dismay, Harper now wants to live -- at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers giving birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can stay alive long enough to deliver the child. . ."

Review:

Fireman is a too-long novel written by a normally excellent author. Hill has followed in his father, Stephen King's, path and taken a story that could easily be cut to three-quarters of its length and offered up a tale-bloated work that is worth reading if you are a fan of Stephen King's novels It and The Tommyknockers (in terms of length).

The first quarter of this 750-page book is excellent. After that, it starts to go downhill (shortly after Harper moves into Camp Wyndam, a refuge for those with Dragonscale). It is not that Fireman is a bad book, it has a lot of great writing and characterization (too much of the latter, at times) and this melding of humanity-based horror, romance, straining-for-epicness and social/political commentary is noble. That said, if you are not a fan of overly emotional characters and drawn-out storylines (I am not big on either), this might be an interesting-but-not-worthwhile experiment that ultimately fails -- and, sadly, one that Hill seems likely to strive for again, scope- and character-wise (if his post-novel notes are any indication).

I have little doubt this will be the basis for a future television/online miniseries or film. Maybe that will play better than this well-intentioned and sometimes well-penned novel.

Doctor Sleep, by Stephen King

(hb; 2013: sequel to The Shining)


From the inside flap:

"On highways across America, a tribe of people called the True Knot travel in search of sustenance.  They look harmless - mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs.  But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, the True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the steam that children with the shining produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

"Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel, where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father's legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence.  Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant shining power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying.  Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes 'Doctor Sleep.'

"Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan's own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra's soul and survival. . ."


Review:

Doctor Sleep is an entertaining, gentler and worthwhile - if sometimes rambling - sequel to The Shining.  For the most part, I haven't been a fan of King's work for the past two decades, but this is - in some parts - a return to King's earlier, better-edited writing (seen in the novels 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, Cujo, The Dead Zone and the expurgated version of The Stand) that often drew me in with its warmth, its character-based from-the-gut horror and its humor.  (Speaking of which, sharp-eyed fans of Joe Hill may appreciate King's references to Charlie Manx from Hill's novel NOS4A2.)

Good read.  Check it out.

NOS4A2, by Joe Hill

(hb; 2013)


From the inside flap:

"Victoria McQueen has an uncanny knack for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions.  When she rides her bicycle over the rickety old covered bridge in the woods near her house, she always emerges in the places she needs to be.  Vic doesn't tell anyone about her unusual ability, because she knows no one will believe her.  She has trouble understanding it herself.

"Charles Talent Manx has a gift of his own.  He likes to take children for rides in his 1938 Roll-Royce Wraith with the vanity plate NOS4A2.  In the Wraith, he and his innocent guests can slip out of the everyday world and onto hidden roads that lead to an astonishing playground of amusements he calls Christmasland.  Mile by mile, the journey across the highway of Charlie's twisted imagination transforms his precious passengers, leaving them as terrifying and unstoppable as their benefactor.

"And then comes the day when Vic goes looking for trouble. . . and finds her way, inevitably, to Charlie. 

"That was a lifetime ago.  Now, the only kid ever to escape Charlie's unmitigated evil is all grown up and desperate to forget.

"But Charlie Manx hasn't stopped thinking about the exceptional Victoria McQueen.  On the road again, he won't slow down until he's taken his revenge.  He's after something very special - something Vic can never replace.

"As a life-and-death battle of wills builds - her magic pitted against his - Vic McQueen prepares to destroy Charlie once and for all. . . or die trying."


Review

Excellent, fantastical and fun horror novel that gripped this reader from the get-go, and didn't let go until the last page.  The characters and the plot are engaging, the villains are fun and Ray Bradburyesque, the pacing is flawless and NOS4A2's tone is miniseries epic in its genre-based timeline. Yes, it's a long-ish book (700 pages), but it's a fast 700 pages.

Worth owning, this - one of the best horror/rural fantasy books I've read this year.

The New Dead edited by Christopher Golden

(pb; 2010: zombie anthology)


Overall review:

Above average zombie anthology, worth owning - most of the stories are good, at least slightly different than the others.

The only stories I didn't like were: Stephen R. Bissette's "Copper" (a good idea ruined by choppy and overlong writing), Mike Carey's "Second Wind" (too chatty, rambling) and Max Brooks' "Closure, Limited: A Story of World War Z" (Brooks' use of the present tense reads too much like stage directions - it's a failed Night of the Living Dead rehash/mini-play, at best).


Standout stories:

1.) "What Maisie Knew" - David Liss: A man (Walter Molton) purchases and houses a female Reanimate, an illegally resurrected (and preserved) zombie named Maisie, for reasons that aren't entirely beneficent.

A familiar but imaginative concept highlights this solid story.


2.) "In the Dust" - Tim Lebbon: Three survivors of a zombie plague find that a military barricade trapping them in their hometown might not be a bad fate: a good read that adeptly avoids clichés even as it stays genre true, with characters worth caring about.


3.) "Life Sentence" - Kelley Armstrong: Fun creepshow of a morality tale about a dying rich man (Daniel Boyd) whose ruthless bid for a "cure" takes darker-than-expected turns.


4.) "Delice" - Holly Newstein: A voudou priestess gets revenge on a rich deviant couple: mood-effective, all-around excellent story.


5.) "The Wind Cries Mary" - Brian Keene: Wonderful, emotive genre-blender story about a man and his zombie wife. Distinctive work.


6.) "Family Business" - Jonathan Maberry: An angry teenager (Benny Imura) seeks suitable employment in a undead-impacted world, even as his older brother, Tom, tries to guide him toward certain life-changing truths.

Superb, humane and well thought-out slant on the familiar shambler-human drama.


7.) "The Zombie Who Fell From the Sky" - M.B. Homler: Hilarious, satirical story about a sudden plague, poetry and the American military. Fans of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb may especially appreciate this one.


8.) "Among Us" - Aimee Bender: Uneven but off-beat and timely (given how the meat industry packages and sells it product) - "Among Us" is also amusing, in a Douglas Adams way.


9.) "Ghost Trap" - Rick Hautala: A fisherman-diver (Jeff Stewart) discovers an especially unsettling corpse, one that may herald further, familiar tragedies.

Solid, mood-effective, with a great use of title (given its plot-based elements).


10.) "The Storm Door" - Tad Williams: Nathan Nightingale, a paranormal investigator, finds that the returning, corpse-possessing dead he's been hunting are more dangerous than he initially thought.

Good read, notably different slant on the undead theme, especially when contrasted with those seen in this collection.


11.) "Weaponized" - David Wellington: Good, interesting, reads-like-real-life (if zombies were real) tale about the war dead being used to defend our country.



Other stories:

"Lazarus" - John Connolly; "My Dolly" - Derek Nikitas; "Kids and Their Toys" - James A. Moore; "Shooting Pool" - Joe R. Lansdale; "Twittering From The Circus Of The Dead" - Joe Hill.

Horns, by Joe Hill

(hb; 2010)

From the inside flap:

"At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death, of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.

"Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renown musician and younger brother of a rising late-night star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more -- he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.

"But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside...

"Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new look -- a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. it's time for a little revenge..."

Review:

Caveat: (possible) spoilers in this review.

Horns is an addictive, distinctive, playful reinvention and re-characterization of the "deal with the devil" plot-structure/-sub-genre, popping with pop-references (which keep with the novel's hell/devil theme).

Hill's skillful, multi-layered, playful writing veneers this sometimes-scary, sometimes-sad work. The sorrow and/or rage of the characters, particularly that of the core characters (Ignatius "Ig" Perrish, Merrin Williams, Lee Tourneau) is especially affecting and rings true -- combined with its natural, leavening humor, dark divinity, and mortal moods and motives, it pinnacles Horns above most of this season's published horror offerings.

Not only that, but as a bonus, repeat readers of Hill's may note a passing mention of Judas Coyne, the protagonist from Hill's first novel, Heart-Shaped Box. (I love it when skillful writers link/consolidate the reaches of their printed universes, pulling readers, like myself, into them even more.)


Fun, top-notch read, this. Own it.

According to imdb.com, a film version is forthcoming, sometime in the near future. I'll update information pertaining to it when more information is made available to me.

Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King by Lisa Rogak

(hb; 2008: biography)

From the inside flap:

"One of the most prolific and popular authors today, Stephen King has become part of pop-culture history. But who is the man behind those tales of horror, grief, and the supernatural? Where do those ideas come from? And what drives him to keep writing at a breakneck pace after a thirty-year career? In this unauthorized biography, Lisa Rogak reveals the troubled background and lifelong fears that inspire one of the twentieth century's most influential authors.

"King's origins were inauspicious at best. His impoverished childhood in rural Maine and early marriage hardly spelled out the likelihood of a blossoming literary career. but his unflagging work ethic and a ceaseless flow of ideas put him on the path to success. It came in a flash, and the side effects of sudden stardom and seemingly unlimited wealth soon threatened to destroy his work and, worse, his life. But he survived and has since continued to write at a level of originality few authors could hope to match.

"Despite his dark and disturbing work, Stephen King has become revered by critics and his countless fans as an all-American voice more akin to Mark Twain than H.P. Lovecraft. Haunted Heart chronicles his story, revealing the character of a man who has created some of the most memorable -- and frightening -- stories found in literature today."

Review

Balanced, entertaining bio about a man whose name is, for many, synonymous with icky terror.

Normally, I'm wary of any bio that's written about an author who's still and alive and publishing, but Rogak, via her facts and interviews, shows King as a flesh-and-zombie-shake man, with demons (father abandonment issues, drug addiction) who still managed -- and manages -- to keep his priorities straight: writing, and taking care of his family (longtime wife Tabitha, daughter Naomi, and sons Joe and Owen).

Notable, portrait-supportive interviews with friends and family include: Peter Straub (who, among his books, co-authored The Talisman and Black House with King), Bev Vincent, and Rick Hautala (a consistently exemplary author and college friend of King's).

Good read, this. I'm not a big fan of most of Stephen King's post-mid-Eighties books. As a reader and writer, I'm a "minimalist," not a "maximalist" (phrases King used in his non-fiction book, On Writing). However, I've long admired what he's done, as a man and a writer, and this confirmed my feelings on the man, and his persona.

Worth checking out.

20th Century Ghosts, by Joe Hill

(hb; 2005, 2007: story anthology)

Overall review:

This is one of the best short story anthologies I've read in a long while. It's up there, excellence-wise, with Clive Barker's three-volume Books of Blood, Richard Christian Matheson's Dystopia: Collected Stories, Stephen King's Night Shift and Ray Bradbury's The October Country -- favorites of mine.

Hill is a master storyteller, with a flair for clever sublime end-lines (reminiscent of another writer I admire, Robert Bloch). If you love short stories, you should be reading this sixteen-story anthology. Not a literary stinker in this bunch.

Review, story by story:

"Best New Horror" - A falling-apart-at-the-seams horror editor (Eddie Carroll) is turned on to an exciting, elusive writer whose disturbing stories drive Carroll to seek him out, with a result both expected and terrifingly wrong. Hill's able writing and effective foreshadowing makes this tale work -- in lesser hands, it wouldn't have.

"20th Century Ghost" - Gentle, sweet-natured tale about a woman (Imogen Gilchrist) whose of love of cinema defies Death. Memorable, classic piece.

"Pop Art" - Cleverly titled first-person account of an asocial boy who befriends an inflatable sixth-grade classmate, Arthur Roth. Funny, original, melancholic and ultimately inspiring. One of my favorite stories in this collection.

"You Will Hear the Locusts Sing" - An adolescent boy wakes up transformed into a locust -- and is delighted. Excellent thematic flip-flop of Kafka's "Metamorphosis".

"Abraham's Boys" - The Van Helsing brothers, sons of the famous vampire-executioner, discover their legacy. Well-written, ironic.

"Better Than Home" - An anxiety-ridden boy (and son of a Major League baseball player) talks about his boyhood, even as it happens. Pleasant, solid.

"The Black Phone" - Stunning, clever piece about a kidnapped boy (John) who's thrown into a basement with a supposedly-disconnected phone. One of my favorite entries in this anthology.

"In the Rundown" - A socially-inept store clerk encounters a roadside murder scene. Solid, this.

"The Cape" - A resentful ne'er-do-well accidentally finds a childhood blanket-turned-cape that allows him to fly. Excellent, with a sneaks-up-on-the-reader denouement.

"Last Breath" - Delightfully Bradbury-esque macabre tale about a retired doctor whose "museum of silence" contains the final exhalations of the now-dead. One of my favorite stories in this collection.

"Dead-Wood" - Trees with the ability to haunt: this uber-short piece is an interesting, confident and effective contrast to the other pieces in this anthology.

"The Widow's Breakfast" - Warm, sad tale about a rail-jumper who gets fed by a widow. Spine-freezing, sad end-line to this one.

"Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead" - 1978. During the shooting of Dawn of the Dead, a made-up zombified extra (Conroy) runs into an old high school sweetheart -- who's married, with a six-year old kid. Bittersweet, nostalgic - on multiple levels. One of my favorite stories here.

"My Father's Mask" - Unsettling, at-times surrealistic take on the family-on-the-lam story, as told by a pubescent boy. Strange, solid work.

"Voluntary Committal" - Twilight Zone-esque entry about a schizophrenic, maze-building boy who sets out to save his brother. Melancholic, effective, runs a bit long.

"Scheherazade's Typewriter" - "Hidden" charming story in the author's Acknowledgements section, about a haunted Selectric typewriter. One of my favorite stories in this collection.

Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill

(hb; 2007)

From the inside flap:

“Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals… a used hangman’s noose… a snuff film. An aging death-metal god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, an item for sale on the Internet, a thing so terribly strange, Jude can’t help but reach for his wallet…

“For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man’s suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. He isn’t afraid. He has spent a lifetime coping with ghosts – of an abusive father, of the lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed. What’s one more?

“But what the UPS man delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost, no benign conversation piece. It’s the real thing.

“And suddenly the suit’s previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door… seated in Jude’s restored vintage Mustang… standing outside his window… staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting –with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one bony hand…”

Review:

Stunning debut novel, one that doesn’t redefine the boundaries of mainstream horror fiction, but possesses a nerve-rending uneasiness – of ghosts both real and born of past traumas – that grabbed me and made me loath to set the book down until I’d finished it. Can’t recommend this one enough – Hill is a writer to watch for

The resulting film is set for release in the near future.