Stranger Than You Dreamt It

If you thought I was done gushing about Joe Hill, hooboy were you wrong.  I finally got around to reading Strange Weather, a book composed of four different stories, and I just…

Damn, dude.

Let’s get this started.

So first off, this is my first signed copy of one of his books. It stayed in a curio cabinet where I had the beginnings of a collection going (Stephen King’s End of Watch among the small stack that has since grown). I was not one of the lucky few who had a doodle sketched by his name, but it’s still special to me nevertheless.

The book is comprised of four shorts, each one taking place in a different season, and I use season loosely here.  Each has its own tone, its own quasi sort of personality.  It’ll leave you feeling scared of the unknown, then terrified of the world we live in.  It’ll bring you up to the top of the clouds, then plummet you back to the world below without anything to break your fall but the cold, hard ground.

Friends.  I loved this book.

The first story, Snapshot, follows a boy who after a brief altercation, has to watch his back against the man with the weird camera that snaps pictures of the past by sucking up memories. Hill has terror down to an art. I haven’t been so scared to turn the page since I read Heart-Shaped Box, another goodie written by Joe Hill. And god, the ending! A beautiful twist to an otherwise frightening tale.

Things take a turn in Loaded, when a terrorist attack isn’t all it appears to be.  It was a total edge-of-your seat thriller where the villains are in the wrong place at the wrong time and the heroes have their own agenda.  The story is not for the faint of heart.  There is no happy ending, but like real life, there will be no happy ending until a solution to mass shootings is found one way or the other.

The third short, Aloft, plays with the question we’ve all had at one point in our lives or another: What if we could walk on clouds?  A young man—unwillingly—finds out that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be after a sky-diving accident.  He’s stuck a few miles in the air, and the only way off this ride is a suicidal jump to the surface.  Freezing, starving, and oh so thirsty, will he have the courage to find a way out?

Rain takes place at the beginning of a dystopian future, where rain falls from the sky as long, sharp crystals that tear families apart—both figuratively and literally.  A young woman’s girlfriend is torn to pieces by the needles right before her eyes, and she is determined not to let the loss break her.  She must find a way to survive this new world and the anarchy around her.

What can I say?  Each story had strong characters that you wanted to either watch succeed or witness their ultimate demise.  The thought-provoking themes forced you to put the book down and process what you just read before moving on to the next.  Some collections of short stories stay with you for a moment before floating on by, out of sight, out of mind.  The collection in Strange Weather, however, stick.  And yeah, it could be because there are only four stories in there, but I take into account that I finished this book almost a month ago before having the time to sit down and write out something other than word vomit (which this probably still is let’s be fair here), and I still remember what I read.  I still remember how each story made me feel.  That’s some good writing there.

All in all, I’d give this collection 10/10.  Snapshot was hands down my favorite; I’m a sucker for supernatural horror.  It was a damn fun ride, and I can’t wait to read his next collection (also sitting in the curio cabinet). 

Have you read Strange Weather?  Which one was your favorite?