Strange Weather: Four Short Novels

I have a new favorite author. Oddly enough, he’s the son of my former favorite author. Joe Hill, son of Stephen King, has surpassed his father in the brilliant writer department. Make no mistake, Hill’s genre is also horror/thriller/suspense. He attacks his stories with fresh eyes and contemporary views, drawing on the present-day world to engage his readers. Strange Weather: Four Short Novels, his latest offering displays his skill as a shorter story author. These are not short stories, not because of their word count, but, because of their substance. It’s interesting that he chose four short weather-related stories; after all, there are four seasons. In the first story in this collection, Snapshot, Hill creates characters that evoke sympathy as well as terror. Told in the first person by thirteen-year-old Michael Figlione, Hill captures the tone and curiosity of a soon-to-be high schooler who is a little nerdy and something of a loner. It’s with great insight that Hill utilizes the theme of the isolated outsider to move Michael forward in the tale. When the boy is confronted by the sight of his barefoot former babysitter, elderly Shelly Beukes, standing at the end of his driveway he is less horrified by the sight of her shoeless feet than curious and concerned for her well-being. What ensues is creepy, from the Polaroid Man, to his Polaroid knock-off Solarid camera. What follows is every elderly person’s worst nightmare; a nightmare Michael is quick to understand. His…

Mostly excellent! Both Rain and Loaded I felt deserved a 5 rating, but Snapshot and Aloft not so much; so the average for the collection was a solid 4. In Aloft, though, I found Chapter 15 to be an excellent piece of writing; I just wish the surrounding chapters had been half as enjoyable. Even though I've read a good bit of Mr. Hill's other writing, this collection revealed something I had not noticed before. The voice of the narrative (not the narrator) changes dramatically to suit the locale and culture of the story. I will have to read more of his to see if he does this a lot. Maybe other authors do this as well, but it hasn't caught my attention before being impressed by it here.

Joe Hill's newest book, a collection of four novellas, is exactly the book I needed from him to remind me how and why I fell in love with his work in the first place. His ability to explore some very unique concepts is well executed and some of the ideas here are brilliantly wacky. The range of the stories here is really well balanced. There's no one genre being represented here: there's a little science fiction/fantasy, a little weird fiction, a bit of the apocalypse, and even a political-leaning thriller with no supernatural elements at all. The collection begins with a short novel called "Snapshot," about a young man who finds a camera which is not quite what it seems. The camera's abilities help him to get ahead in life, but not with out consequences. This story reminded me very much of Hill's dad, Stephen King, in the way the story is paced and in the "possessed object" set-up, but with Hill's style and sense of humor. It's not a mind blowing novella but it is a good bit of fun and a decent way to start the collection off. "Loaded", the second short novel in this collection, really caught me by surprise. This is one of the few pieces of Hill's that I've read which contains no supernatural element what-so-ever. I found this to be incredibly engaging and powerful. It is also very scary because of the way it reflects on some forms of tragedy that have become all too common these days. This is easily one of Hill's most affecting pieces of writing. One could claim this to…

This book was seriously awesome. It contains four short novels (novellas?). The first novel Snaphot, was fantastically done. It’s a classic good vs evil tale involving a boy and his elderly neighbor who suffers from Alzheimer’s. It was very well written, but might have suffered being drawn out a bit in the end. Still, it was a great spooky story that gave me goosebumps. Loaded is the title of the second novel. This one was very hard for me to read. It’s focused entirely on guns and gun violence. I almost quit at times but it was so outstanding I couldn’t put it down- the ending will chill you to your bones and overall I’m glad I stuck with it. At first I thought Hill was advocating against guns, in a single line at the end of the book he flips that assumption on its head. He says in the acknowledgements section this was his way of trying to work out the different sides of the arguments regarding gun laws. It made perfect sense, and I’ve struggled with these arguments myself at times. Overall, absolutely outstanding work that I think everyone should read. Afloat was probably the weakest of the three for me, but I’d still give it four stars. It was entertaining and fun. It’s just in comparison to the other three which I felt delivered some sort of message- I couldn’t quite find one here. It reads the quickest of all of them, but doesn’t offer any solid conclusion. Rain- I ate this one up! Honeysuckle Speck is a truly kick-butt character. Like Rosie the Riveter for the…

Each one of these novellas are alright, in their own regards. All of them inhabit inherently different protagonists and represent them well, but the plots/premises themselves, well, they leave a little to be desired. I don't really have it in me to give in-depth reviews of each novella, so I'll keep them brief and rate each of them accordingly. "Snapshot" never seemed to fully hunker down with the existential thoughts of its premise until the finale, nor did it commit to the fearful nature of a camera that can seemingly steal memories. It was a bit slowgoing for the first novella, and I'm glad to say that none of the other ones feel as deflated as this one. Honestly, the ending had enough sentiments to get me emotional, but there was a specific revelation that was a bit goofy for me to swallow. 2.5/5. "Loaded" is the one I have heard many things about going in, and I am happy to say that I thought it lived up to most of the chatter surrounding it. It is incredibly disturbing, largely topical, and genuinely didn't feel like it chose one side over the other, instead opting to explore all avenues. Inhabiting the mind of a surprisingly uncomfortable "protagonist" while hating what they're doing, but still being emotionally manipulated to almost be on their side, it really worked for me. I thought the narrative arc was incredibly strong, and by the last 60 pages, my heart wouldn't stop racing. However, the inciting plot element didn't need that much backup behind it, and kinda…