It’s hard not to judge them by their cover
The beautiful binding of subsequent Joe Hill books invariably catches my eye on bookstores. Until recently, I had no idea what I should associate this author with, apart from the fact that he is the son of Stephen King. After reading a few of his novels, I found Hill a great writer. After reading The Ghosts, I already know that in many respects he is even beyond his father. The collection of short stories is an unusual form, usually it becomes very uneven, some of the works show the heights of the author’s skills, while others the deepest valleys of his talent. The book we are talking about, however, shows all that is best in Hill’s work – depth, multitude of meanings, mystery and – so important for readers of this genre – horror.
The new horror films lack subtlety
Christopher Golden, a widely read American comic book author and creator, perfectly captured the problems of today’s horror in the introduction to the 20th Century Ghosts. Contemporary horror novels do not play with subtlety. Blood is pouring, the monsters do not hide, and the reader often has to fight with disgust. Moreover, this also applies to movies, not only literature. As Golden points out, the best predators act stealthily. So Joe Hill is a real horror predator. The collection includes fifteen different stories, not all of them can be classified as thrillers. One can even be considered a nice chronicle from a real film set. However, those who are meant to frighten do it in a very subtle and effective way. Who would have thought that a boy turned into a big cricket would be a terror? As silly as it sounds, it is actually formidable.
An author who is especially boring?
It should be noted that virtually none of Hill’s stories in this collection is a simple, one-dimensional work. Each of them touches upon some deeper problems, can be interpreted in many ways and stays with the reader for longer. The author is masterful in using words to make an appropriate impression on the recipient. Take, for example, the short story Best New Horror. It is the first track in the book, which is why it has perhaps the strongest influence on the reception of the rest. Interestingly, the writer is deliberately trying to… bore us! The slow pace of the action, the uninteresting hero – all this builds a slight anxiety, but most of all a stagnation of the action. The jaws will drop even more when, at the end of this short story, Hill sets off his literary fireworks.
Master of literary art
Even though virtually every story in the collection is a small fictional masterpiece, I would mainly like to focus on Joe Hill’s writing skills. He can transfer the reader to the pages of a novel, make him feel the same as his heroes. It’s really hard to single out specific titles here – each one is unique and brilliant in its own way. Pop Art is an amazing story about protecting your own self, the plot of which focuses on… an inflated boy. Voluntary Committal will not let you forget about itself for a long time, and My Father’s Mask is so bizarre that all night after reading it, I read various interpretations of it in the depths of the Internet.
First class intermedia
The short stories You Will Hear The Locust Sing and Bobby Conroy Comes Back From The Dead are also a nod to popular culture . This first piece is a tribute to the horror cinema of the 1960s – a huge cricket made of radioactive waste wreaks chaos in the streets of a provincial American town. The second of these short stories takes us to the set of Dawn of the Living Dead by George Romero. We get to know the director’s real collaborators, we see the way the filmmakers work, and we also delve into a kind of family drama of the title character, Bobby. There is nothing horror about this song, and yet I was not a bit disappointed with it.
In my opinion – better than my father
I must admit that I have not read any of King’s books as quickly as this collection of his son’s stories. In Ghosts, we get such works that we will keep thinking about long after the book is closed. We feel fear, disgust, anxiety, sadness, even joy – the writer is able to bring out all these emotions from the reader. Really great prose. I look forward to the next Hill editions that I get my hands on.
