20th Century Ghosts: 20th Anniversary Edition by Joe Hill

This collection of short stories by Joe Hill is a rarity. Not because it's a limited run or a anything like that, despite being a 20th anniversary edition. The rarity is due to the fact that first published novels are almost never an anthology of short stories. Yet in 2005, PS Publishing took a leap of faith in up-and-comer Joe Hill and unleashed 20th Century Ghosts upon the world and a new horror writer great was born!

Joe Hill is not the writer's real name. Born Joseph King, Hill is a member of the acclaimed King family of writers. That's right, Stephen King is Joe Hill's papa! Hill is an abbreviation of his middle name, Hillström, as well as an off-tribute to his love of comic books as Joe Chill is the man who killed Batman's parents. Wanting to make a name for himself based on his own works and not the gravitas of the King family moniker, it was a struggle to get the attention of even the smallest of publishers.

20th Century Ghosts is a reflection of Joe Hill's evolution from relative unknown writer to award winning author. No less than 2 stories in this collection have been adapted into films. Love the growing horror franchise of 'The Black Phone'? The short story that gave birth to those Ethan Hawke led thrillers is here. A couple more were adapted into comic books. This was an amazing collection where just about every story was a masterpiece.

I've got 2 favorites: 'Pop Art 'and the title story of this collection are tied for first. 'Pop Art' is about an unusual friendship between a lonely young boy and his best friend Arthur, a living child made of inflatable plastic! '20th Century Ghost' is a sweeping epic love story to the silver screen in which a small time movie theater is haunted by the ghost of a young cinephile. 

Other notable tales that I really, really liked was 'Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead', an ersatz high school reunion between 2 former love birds setting in the Monroeville Mall during the filming of the George Romero classic Dawn of the Dead! It was a new addition to this anniversary edition. 'Best New Fiction' sees a struggling literary review editor looking for the next thing in horror fiction. I both loved and was similarly creeped out by the Tales From the Darkside level ending. 

'Abraham's Boys' tells of 2 boys whose demanding father reveals his secretive past. 'Voluntary Committal' was a trippy adventure about a spectrum child and his creative process that has an unforgettable ending on par with Richard Bachman's 'The Long Walk'. In 'The Cape', a previously unpublished work, I found myself rooting for the bad guy! That's how freaking amazing a writer Joe Hill is!

I can't forget 'Last Breath' about a family that visits a museum that displays the last gasps of both the world famous and the common man. Another new addition to this book, it's a quirky story on par with another 90s horror anthology series I grew up with, Monsters, as the tongue is definitely in cheek with this clever episode.

The one story that I wasn't such a fan of was 'My Father's Mask'. It starts off with tremendous intrigue as a family sneaks away with their son in the dead of night, supposedly trailed by a mysterious cadre. However, things go downhill the next morning when the boy awakens. The suspense molds into some bizarre S&M Oedipal fantasy with nearly nude parents wearing domino masks. By the time this story ends, readers encounter a cherubic lad riding a bike in a nightgown and an unusual round of cards. Oh, and questions. A whole lot of questions. I went online afterwards in hopes of getting some answers about how the story ends. Turns out I wasn't the only one confused by it. Yet it seemed after getting responses from several so-called 'experts', I became even more confused about the symbolism and wasn't really sure what the hell I had just read.

1 dud out of 17. Terrible odds if you were a manufacturer of hand grenades. But for entertainment purposes, that's pretty good. If it's coming from Joe Hill, I'd take those odds any day. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars

Full Throttle: Stories by Joe Hill

I've been in the mood to read Joe Hill lately. 

This 2019 collection of Joe Hill stories is a baker's dozen of short stories that have seen print previously in anthologies or magazine form. The two stories that Hill co-wrote with his famous father, Stephen King were my least favorite as they lacked the voice of the younger author which I have become a fan of over the past decade. But overall, this was a great read filled with excitement and a whole lot of chills for someone who is interested in reading Halloween themed stuff but couldn't yet because it wasn't October yet. 

My favorite stories were the tragic 'By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain', which later became the focus of an episode of the Creepshow series on Shudder, 'Dark Carousel' with it's perfectly eerie ending set across the pond, and 'Mums' which may or may not be about a young boy who grows a menacing plant-like version of his late mother. My absolute favorite was 'Late Returns', which along with 'Mums', was published for the first time ever in this book. It's about a young man who takes a part-time job driving his hometown's bookmobile and discovers that he can recommend great final reads to dearly departed members of the local library. I so very much did not want this story to end and I would love for it to be a movie or even a mini-series.

Another story that I would like seen put on film is 'You Are Released'. It's about the early hours of a nuclear holocaust as experienced by the passengers on a jumbo jet. Although I really want this story to be longer as well, with everything that has been happening in Israel in the past week, I think I could wait for the movie as I get this eerie feeling that right now, life is imitating art. 

Don't skip out on Hill's foreword nor his afterword. Both are amazing non-fiction reads. The foreword talks about how having 2 famous writers for parents influenced him to become a writer. There's also a great story about Hill when he was a little fella starring in the framing sequences of the original Creepshow movie. Hill's afterword discusses where you might have come across many of the stories collected in this book, along with sources of inspiration for those tales. Hill claims he's not a story teller but I would love to read a collection of his thoughts. He's that good a writer!

I think I am done with Joe Hill novels for a little bit. Not because I'm tired of him. Nor is it because I'm scared crapless; though Joe Hill is the only author that can write about non-demonic things and scare me cleaner than Ex-lax. It's just that as we are now in October, I am burning through a bunch of those Halloween reads that I've been saving up to read. Thanksgiving and Christmas are up next and I really want to dip into those reads too. Maybe when it's time to spend the holidays in St. Louis this Christmas, I'll bring another Joe Hill work that I haven't read yet with me. Hopefully, the author will have something new on the horizon as I am running out of things of his that I haven't read yet.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Strange Weather: Four Short Novels by Joe Hill

I wish I knew how to properly explain Joe Hill's effect on me. He's such a great writer and yet, almost everything he writes either unnerves me or scares the crap out of me. No matter how much he gets into my head and keeps me awake at night, I just want to read more of his stuff. He's like a scab that you're not supposed to pick, lest it get infected. Yet, it feels so good.

The latest work of his I read is this collection of 4 short novels. From 2017, this tome came out immediately after The Fireman and was next on my list of his stuff to read, when I took a sharp detour into the NOS4A2 realm of his. That book took me a very, very, VERY long time to read considering how scary it was. But once I completed it, I then went into some of his Hill House comics before I finally got around to this anthology. 

The overall connection to this book is the weather; though it's not exactly the main subject of the story. The first two stories have the meat of the action of the book happen during a massive thunderstorm and a firestorm brought about by wild fires. The later half of the books do have to do with unusual occurrences with weather.

The first is about a teenage boy whose former babysitter is in the early stages of dementia. Only the elderly woman claims that her memories are being removed by a strangely dressed man with a Polaroid camera. The kid kinda shrugs off her claims as that of a lady sadly losing her mind to a medical monster. That is until during a routine trip to his favorite convenience store, he runs into a smarmy dude in a cowboy hat carrying a strange camera with him and driving a car full of photos starring the lad's old nanny! Don't let him take your 'Snapshot'!

'Loaded' involves a mall security guard who seemingly stops a mass shooting. At first, this man is considered the hero of the media and the local police. But when an investigative journalist starts digging into his past, the guard's account of the crime begins to unravel.

'Aloft' sees a young man about to go on his first ever skydive. Scared out of his wits, when he finally exits the plane, he experiences firm ground! That's because the cloud that he was expecting to fall through is completely solid and seems to conform to his every needs and thoughts. As he explores this atmospheric mystery, he'll also confront his past as well as the forbidden love affair that has been holding him back in life. 

Lastly, if you thought the weather of Summer, 2023 was bad, you haven't experienced 'Rain.' In this story, the Denver metro area experiences a downpour of sharp metallic nails! Walk with one woman as she tries to alert her in-laws of the death of their daughter and systematically witnesses the downfall of civilization. This story will make you question the next storm cloud you encounter!

My favorite of the 4 stories was 'Aloft'. It was so ethereal, having such a differing pace from the other stories. 'Rain' was good and if you recall that Image Comics had released a 2022 5-issue miniseries with the same name, then give yourself a cookie. That's the comic book adaptation of this final mini novel. I just wanted more out of this story and I felt that the ending was too abrupt. I'm also wondering if 'Aloft' and 'Rain' occur in the same universal as when the main character stuck on that weird cloud takes a bite out of it, he claims that the material seems like needles in his gut. 

 'Snapshot' was also very good, though I felt like the last chapter should have zigged when it instead zagged. If the closing events of the future had gone full circle with the action set in the 1980s, I think it would have been my favorite story.

The best story was 'Loaded.' Mind you, I didn't say that it was my favorite. The controversial topic of gun control and American's gun culture obsession, mixed in with dashes of race, how poorly we treat over vets, especially with their mental health, and police violence makes this book very hard for many to read. The amount of violence that occurs in this story was what did it for me. Oh, how I hated... I dreaded that ending! (Note to anyone reading this review with the power to do so, if 'Loaded' ever becomes a movie, the main character MUST be played by GOTG's Chris Pratt!)

"Loaded', in my mind, is Joe Hill's version of Stephen King's Rage, which was written under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. I'm not trying to compare Joe Hill to his dad. I say that this 'Loaded' is like Rage because I truly feel that if Strange Weather was ever to be re-released, there is a very good chance it won't be included in the reissue. After Columbine, Stephen King took Rage, about a troubled teen who shoots up his homeroom class, out of The Bachman Books anthology. I just think if we get an episode like what happened in 'Loaded' to occur for real, it might hit too close to home for some and we'll see that book get shelved.

Every novel in this collection ended a bit too soon for me. It left me wanting so much more. Hopefully with 'Rain', Image might make a sequel. I really think 'Loaded' might one day be a movie, if not a streaming series. 'Snapshot' had potential for one of those great 'the villains isn't dead' moments (and to be fair, I never said the antagonist died). As for 'Aloft', I liked the ending. However, it had an ending a lot like Tom Hanks' Cast Away where it's left up to the reader to finish the story and I'm not so fond of those ambiguous endings.

On to the next Joe Hill work to scare my pants off...

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Basketful of Heads

Joe Hill is the only author whose collective body of work terrifies me. Hill's magnum opus, NOS4A2 gave me such chills, that I had to stop reading it for several months before I got the courage to finish it. Several chapters of his Dark Horse series Locke & Key gave me sleepless nights. And his 2016 work The Fireman, while the least scary of his works that I have read, still had moments of horror that I just can't shake off. 

And yet, I can't stop reading his stuff!

Basketful of Heads was Hill's first miniseries published under DC's Hill House imprint. With the collapse of Vertigo, DC Comics partnered with the author to develop a line of horror comics based on his previously published short stories and new works. Other authors were supposed to be involved in this project. Shortly, DC announced the creation of the DC Horror and Black Label imprints and those other stories were released under that line. 

This 2019 miniseries is set during the end of the Summer of 1983. June Branch has arrived on Brody Island, off the coast of Maine, to pick up her boyfriend, Liam. Liam has been working during his college break as a junior law enforcement officer to help with the influx of Summer tourists. Coming off his last shift, Liam and June encounter a chaotic scene. A quartet of prisoners on work release have escaped from Shawkshank Prison!

These men are considered armed and dangerous. So Liam decides to stay with Chief Clausen's family to protect them while the police force conducts their manhunt. With a tropical storm approaching the island and the tragic news of a fallen cop, June and Liam soon find themselves at the Chief's house alone.

The storm causes the power to go out at the Clausen compound. While June looks for flashlights, the prisoners invade the home and take Liam hostage. In the melee, June looks for something to defend herself and grabs what she believes to be an ordinary antique axe from Chief Clausen's den. Only when she lops off the head of one of the prisoners who stayed behind, she discovers that the weapon has magical powers, allowing the decapitated criminal's head to remain alive. 

June learns from the head that Liam has some sort of unknown item in his possession. Probably money or jewels, which could greatly help with their escape. June knows nothing of this. But if she wants to see her boyfriend alive ever again, June has got to get searching, taking the talking head, and placing it in a picnic basket with her, in hopes of uncovering clues.

As she encounters the other prisoners, June's basket grows heavy with more heads. But is she any closer to saving Liam? And what is so special about this axe that it keeps the dead from dying?

Basketful of Heads was a brilliant dark comedy. It gives homage to JAWS being set on Brody Island. And it ties into the Stephen King universe with the inclusion of criminals from Shawshank. I was expecting this to be a book about a serial killer with a Little Red Riding Hood fetish. Instead, I got a thrilling mystery that was as funny as it was creepy. 

Chilean artist Gabriel Rodriguez is the quintessential partner when Joe Hill makes comics. But I must say that when you cannot get Gabe Rodriguez, the appropriate substitute can be Leomacs! He's got this quality that makes the living seem so vibrant and the dead look like rotting flesh. Creepy good! And the regular covers, crafted so deftly by Reika Murakami. (Can you find the eyeball hiding in this cover?) Once again- Creepy good!

In 2022, Joe Hill crafted a sequel. Refrigerator Full of Heads promises to continue the mystery of the magical axe. If it's half as good as this book, I really, REALLY want to read it. 

As for Hill House? Does it still exist? I can't find any info as to if Joe Hill has more horror comic books on the horizon. The storyline of Locke & Key has been continued and a couple of prequels set during major wars in American history are forecasted to be in the works. But I really want to know if the latest victim at the hands of horror writer Joe Hill is his Hill House imprint!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Plunge

I am a huge fan of Joe Hill. I love his comics books and his prose works. But, man, does his stuff creep me out. Joe's father, Stephen King, can cause my wife fitful nights without sleep. It's Joe Hill who keeps me awake at night. 

Plunge is a 6-issue miniseries from the author's Hill House Comics imprint at DC Comics. I was immediately taken by the ocean setting in the Arctic Circle when this book was first announced. I could have requested this book new as floppies with my favorite LCS. But having just finished Hill's latest volume of Locke & Key and the extremely unsettling NOS4A2, I needed a break from Joe Hill's work to build up my nerve again. And then 3 years passed. 

The story sets with a massive tidal wave that has the sent aquatic animals into a fervor. The underwater eruption has caused a missing ship from 1983 to resurface in the Arctic Circle, in waters between Alaska and Russia. And the ghost ship has begun emitting a distress code!

The company that owns the ship, Rococo International, is desperate to recover what remains. The official word from the corporation is that the owner's son was on the ship and wishes to recover his body, along with the rest of the crew. But if there's other items of value to be retrieved on the ship, so be it! With Russia within its rights to claim ownership of the wreckage, time is of the essence to begin the salvage operation. 

Enter the Carpenter Brothers. Their salvage crew doesn't give a crap about the Russians.Taking the job, the crew is joined by Dr. Moriah Lamb, an oceanographer with expertise in the atolls of the Aleutian Islands. Together, the brothers, Dr. Lamb and Rococo VP David Lacome seek to find out why this ship sunk and subsequently returned 30 years later. What they uncover is a crew, not quite dead, but definitely not alive; with the promise of answers to many of earth's greatest mysteries. But these rewards come with a deadly price. 

Stuart Immonen (Superman: Secret Identity) was the penciller of this work. But if you told me that it was Joe Hill's artistic partner on Locke & Key, Gabriel Rodriguez, I would have bet money... and lost! Immonen's artwork was just as creepy as Hill's writings. But I think if DC's publishing and marketing team hadn't spoiled some of the mystery behind this book, it would have been much more terrifying. 

For one thing, the back cover spoils just who really is behind the resurrection of the mystery ship's crew. The image on the back is from the cover of issue #4. At that point in the story, the culprits had already been identified and thus nothing was really ruined in terms of the plot. But if this was your first real encounter with Plunge and you want to read a synopsis of what this graphic novel is all about, prepare to have a major chunk of this story ruined for you!

As much as I loved the artwork, I was disappointed at its unevenness. I've read a number of comics in which the artist stylizes the characters to look like celebrities. Generally when this is done, most of the characters have human counterparts. In Plunge, only the character of David Lacome looks like a famous person. In both representation and in tone, Lacome is portrayed by Amazing Spider-Man 2's Paul Giamatti. So if this book becomes a movie or TV series, I expect whomever produces a live-action Plunge to cast the acclaimed actor. But can someone tell me why only Lacome's character resembles a celeb?

I wish I could dive deeper into this book. But to do so could ruin so many more elements that this book's cover has already taken away from the reader. This book gave me chills. Look at the character of Lacome to be the one who brings the biggest jump scare. I may have said too much. But it's definitely a scene that will stick with me for quite some time.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Marvel Comics #1000

Seeking to cash in on DC's success with Action Comics #1000 and Detective Comics #1000, the House of Ideas got creative in their 80th anniversary with Marvel Comics #1000.

True, I was sucked into the hype. I went to my local comic book shop and ordered my selection of a variant cover. My choice was tough. I really love Alex Ross and his regular cover was amazing. But I was in love with the 1960s cover done by Mike Allred!

Marvel Comics #1000 was worked on by 80 different creative teams and it was a wide range of talent! From Kareem Abdul Jabbar to Peter David to Joe Hill to Toby Whithouse- it was a massive potpourri of names. Sadly, Stan Lee passed before getting to contribute to this milestone comic. 

The book stars out with a pretty cool concept from the very first panel of Marvel Comics #1 way back in 1939. The 3 men who witness the creation of the mechanical Human Torch are apparently a part of some secret Science Guild. They've been working in the background of the rise of superheroes for the past 80 years and Atlas agent Jimmy Woo is on the hunt for why they've spent 8 decades looking for the discarded mask of a fallen mystery man.

Each page of this book covers a single year progressing from 1939-2019. This format moves the story of the Science Guild forward from 1939 until about 1943. Then it starts to sprinkle tributes about first appearances and major events throughout the book. If Marvel Comics #1000 would have either stayed with a single cohesive story, a year at a time or having 80 different tribute pages- I would have been happy with this one-shot. 

But Marvel decided to ramble. For one thing, the publisher decided to choose some really weird things to be giddy about. Like 1980 was devoted to a brief encounter between Doctor Doom and Iron Man. At times, Marvel gets preachy. I'm talking Axel Alonso, all readers who think unlike us are stupid, preachy. But for a company that claims to be 'woke', I thought it was quite odd that one tribute was devoted to Storm's punk era look in the mid-80s. That just seemed hypocritically sexist to me. 

However, that tribute page for 1977 about a galaxy far, far away. WOW! It gives me re-newed hope of a Marvel/Star Wars fantasy crossover!

Marvel Comics #1000 had promise. It just couldn't decide which way it wanted to go. 80 different Tributes or epic story spanning all of Marvel's publishing history. You only had to choose 1 direction Marvel. But you got greedy and the lack of quality and care bled through!

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

I'm not going to say that Joe Hill is a better writer than his father, Stephen King. But I will say that he's quite more of a terrifying writer. I've read IT. I've read The Shining and several other Stephen King books. While they are great reads, none of them have ever frightened me like a work from Joe Hill.

Locke and Keye was a creepy good horror comic. The Firefighter was an engrossing, scary futuristic biotech gone wrong thriller. And then there's NOS4A2...

A young girl named Vic has the ability to travel great distances thanks to a powerful psychic bond with her Raleigh bicycle. One day Vic runs afoul of Charlie Manx; a sadistic murderer of children who travels to and from realities in his Rolls Royce Wraith. With the vanity plate NOS4A2, Manx lures children into his car under the promise of taking them to Christmasland. But this Winter Wonderland is anything but a Utopia as Manx and his automobile feeds on the energy and innocence of the children they kidnap. 

As a result of Vic's encounter with the madman, Manx is captured and imprisoned. Manx spends his final days in a prison hospital. And life seems to go on for Vic. But it's not an easy life as PTSD and drug use have put a toll on the young lady.

Years later, Vic and her son spend a summer at a cabin by the lake in hopes of repairing their fragile relationship. Things seem to be going well as the days go by. That is until a maniac in a gas mask arrives in an antique Rolls. 

Vic fights for the life of herself and her son. She almost wins against the armored man, when a silver hammer goes down across her spine. Stunned, Vic watches as the gas-masked man and his accomplice steal her son, Wayne. That other character appears to be Charlie Manx! But Vic just received news earlier that day that Manx died of old age in prison!

It took me over a year to finish this book. The character of the gas-masked man, Bing Partridge, was so deranged that I had to put the book away for a while. I don't often let a book defeat me. I try to conquer it but if I find a book to be just unreadable, I will put it down and not look twice. 

NOS4A2 was a great book. I just couldn't give up on it. The novel just had a sexually depraved character who really made me really uncomfortable. Like Joey (on Friends) having to put Cujo in the freezer because it got too scary for him, I had to let this book go for a while! But Joe Hill had his hooks in me and after a good enough break, I returned!

It's almost October. That means spooky reads for a spooky time of year. If you are looking for a lengthy read that will unsettle you with a touch of the spirit of Christmas, then you need to take NOS4A2 for a ride. Just don't say I didn't warn you if you need to hide this book behind the ice cream for a while.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland

 A mysterious Rolls Royce Wraith cruises the highways and byways of the United States. In the driver's seat is a creepy looking chauffeur named Charlie Manx. With horrid teeth and static in his eyes, Manx is literally a man possessed. But from what? 
 His normal passengers are young innocents excited with the promise of magical amusement park known as Christmasland. However on today's trek, Manx is transporting a trio of escaped prisoners who need a place to lay low. With two prison guards as hostages, it looks like nothing can go wrong; these fugitives are home free. But when the Wraith pulls into the escapees' new refuge, they will learn that Christmasland is actually the stuff of nightmares!

    Wraith: Welcome to Christmasland is a 2014 comic book prequel to author Joe Hill's NOS4A2. If you've been reading my blog for a while now, you'll know that I am a big fan of Hill's. The comic book series Locke & Key and last year's massive novel, The Fireman, are personal favorites. You can tell that he is the son of the Master of Horror, Stephen King. But Joe Hill is no second rate knock-off.
    My wife gave me this hardcover edition for Christmas. However, due to shipping issues, I didn't get this book until a few days afterwards. But let me tell you, it was worth it. For one, it's Joe Hill and I have NOS4A2 on my to-read list. Since this is a prequel, I'm ready to read it now!
Secondly, this is a Christmas-themed comic. I love Christmas comics. Lastly, this is a horror comics. I love horror comics and Wraith was a perfect mix of all three of my loves. 
     However, with large amounts of gore and some really creepy kids, I couldn't read this book too close to bed as Hill's creation of Christmasland truly gave me nightmares. I was a little bummed that artist and Locke & Key co-collaborator Gabriel Rodriguez didn't craft this story. But C.P. Wilson III (The Stuff of Legend) does an admirable job at some truly horrific stuff. (It really freaked me out!) Plus, we get some covers by Rodriguez and now that I think about it, his polished style just wouldn't capture the deceptive mix of Christmas joy, Texas Chainsaw Massacre level violence, and the harsh reality of everyday life.
     There's one last thing I loved about this book. My wife bought the book from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's online store. That means that the CBLDF got a donation and I got a really cool book from a favorite author! Who, I might add, autographed this book! He even included an original sketch (from Joe Hill) of a key from his Locke & Key series! 
    Can we say 'best gift ever!'?

My copy's autograph plate.

     Worth Consuming

     Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The Fireman by Joe Hill

   A mystery virus is causing people to mysteriously burst into flames. Coated with tell-tale shimmering patterns of black and gold on their skin called Dragonscale, the afflicted have normally been quarantined. But with governments in shambles, cities burning out of control, and resources getting scarcer by the day, it's now  standing order to shoot on sight those suffering from the Dragonscale.
    Harper, a young nurse obsessed with Mary Poppins, makes a pact with her controlling husband that should they develop the Dragonscale, they'll consume some Ambien and wine and drift off into a permanent sleep. It seems that they're well on their way to that plan when Harper begins to show signs of the virus after the hospital she works at burns to the ground. But when Harper finds that she is now pregnant, the nurse is more determined that ever to survive. Harper's Dragonscale seems to have an turned her husband into a hypochondriac, whose convinced that he is slowly burning alive. Yet, the hubby isn't showing any signs on the Dragonscale on his body, but he's slowly loosing his grasp on reality.  
     In a drunken rage, Harper's husband comes home with a gun, blaming her for his impending doom. Harper's husband chases her off into the woods and when she breaks her ankle, it looks like her spouse will finally implement his murder-suicide plan. Thankfully, Harper is intercepted by a fireman offering to take her somewhere safe.
     The Fireman in question is one part man/ one part urban legend. He's seen trolling the fiery ruins of Harper's community seeking out victims. But he also has the Dragonscale and has been seen bursting in flames. Only, this inflicted patient of the 'Scale' also seems to be able to control the flames that lick his body, nor does he seem to be burned by them. Is the Fireman Harper's savior or is he a monster in disguise responsible for sending her to the nurse ultimate demise?
     
    I first became aware of Joe Hill from his epic Locke & Key horror series published by IDW Publishing. That very graphic comic series made me a fan. When I found out a couple of months ago about the release date of this book,  it immediately went on my wish list.
    At just about 750 pages, this is a huge book. But I devoured the first half of the apocalyptic horror novel in less than 72-hours and consumed the entire novel in 9 days flat. I think I eased up just a bit over past couple of days cause I didn't want this book to end. 
    Joe Hill's parents are the writers extraordinaires Stephen and Tabitha King. I've never read any of her works, but I can tell that the writings of the Master of Modern Horror had a large influence on his son.  But that's not to say that Joe Hill is not a genius in his own write. He's a gifted storyteller and this satire on the human spirit is a fantastic read. This book shows both the very best and very worst of humanity when faced with a disaster and it pulls no punches.
    There's more than enough swears to make Quentin Tarantino blush. The violence at times is unsettling and there were on more than one occasion where a beloved character bites the dust. (Maybe George RR Martin was Joe Hill's grandpa???) But this book was a page-turner that I often couldn't put down.
    One part Sci-fi, one part horror, one part doomsday thriller, the Fireman is not to be missed. Make this the summer read you've been looking for.
    
   Worth Consuming
  
    Rating: 9 out of 10 stars. 

Locke & Key, Book 6: Alpha & Omega

I didn’t intend to read a Joe Hill book right after reading a book by his famous father, Stephen King. It just happened. I’ve been reading Locke & Key since it first came out in hardback starting in 2009. I’ve gone through many ups and downs with the Locke family and their adventures with the magical keys of Keyhouse.

 

I’m actually glad this series is over. I didn’t hate it and I wasn’t disappointed with this volume in the least. But, I hate when series overstay their welcome and become dull and boring. Thankfully, Hill and his partner in crime artist Gabriel Rodriguez closed the door to the series before things got stale.

This volume contains the final chapter of Locke & Key. Unlike some finales there really wasn’t any plotlines left untidy. I felt like there was absolute finality in the series, especially with the touching reunions seen in the final chapter. Maybe Hill & Rodriguez will revisit the Keyhouse with a new family or even explore more of the origins of the House and the keys. But for now, I’ve got closure and I am very satisfied with it.

 

This is not a series for all-ages. Lots of sex, gore, and violence abound in this final volume. The action and dialogue was fast paced and epic. I see big things for Joe Hill and I hope he decides to explore the graphic novel/ comics medium again real soon.

 

(FUN FACT: NEAR THE BEGINNING OF THIS BOOK, THERE IS A FLASHBACK SCENE OF A CAR ACCIDENT. IN ONE PANEL, YOU SEE AN EMT WORKING ON A VICTIM, WEARING A YELLOW COAT. IF YOU LOOK CLOSELY, YOU WILL DISCOVER THAT THIS IS A CAMEO OF STEPHEN KING IN A NOD TO HIS NUMEROUS APPEARANCES IN FILMS BASED ON HIS NOVELS. IT’S A VERY COOL TRIBUTE TO THE “KING” OF HORROR.)

 

Worth Consuming.

 

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Locke & Key, Volume 5: Clockworks

The epic story of the Locke children and the Keyhouse is almost complete. Before the finale there’s Clockworks, in which the Locke’s find a key that can turn back time. In doing so, we learn the origin of the Keyhouse, the keys, and why Dodge hated the kid’s father so much. We also learn why Dodge started out as a girl in volume 1 and why he’s been terrorizing folks ever since.

Joe Hill does a fantastic job with the plotting and helping everything finally start making some sense. The art continues to amaze and no matter how scary things get, the story always captures the human spirit giving the reader both hope and dread for the future of humanity. Papa Stephen King should be proud his genes are continuing to mystify the next generation.

I think once volume 6 comes out, I’m going have to read all the books prior in order to let this sprawling story come together as a beautifully terrifying mosaic.

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.