Strange Weather: Four Short Novels

Strange Weather, the latest offering from Joe Hill, is four books in one! Collected here are four novellas, united by the theme of weather (sometimes strongly, other times more subtly), with the stories running the gamut of apocalyptic rain to raging wildfires.

Hill hits the ground running with Snapshot, an eerie little coming-of-age tale revolving around a supernatural Polaroid camera. I was worried at first that this would be Hill riffing again on his father, Stephen King, who wrote his own supernatural camera story way back when with The Sun Dog, but Hill gets off a good one here and does his own thing. The result is pretty fantastic, with some solid meditations on aging and the fear of our own personal futures. There's a great deal of emotional resonance to this one, and Hill pulled pretty hard on my heartstrings. Not quite a tear-jerker, but it got pretty dang close.

Loaded is unapologetically political, and frankly I don't think it would work any other way. This story tackles America's favorite obsession, our one true golden idol - guns, guns, guns! Sensitive readers who decry having politics in their fiction will be clutching their pearls in white-knuckled fists hard enough to make diamonds when they lay their eyes on this one! This here story is a ripped from the headlines of Everywhere, USA horror revolving around racism and gun violence. I have no problem with political stories, and I agree with the majority of what Hill has to say here. What bugged me, though, is that it took a really, really, really long time for this novella to start going places. At first it felt more like a series of short stories united by a common element, as Hill introduces a number of characters over the course of several chapters (one who disappears for a good long while) before showing us how it all comes together. I was a bit frustrated, initially, but once the various threads started coming together, I found this to be a pretty decent work overall, and I now find myself wanting to see Hill play around a bit more in the crime genre.

Aloft has some cool character development and relationships, and although the situation Aubrey finds himself in during a parachute jump gone awry is certainly interesting, I just wasn't able to suspend my disbelief deeply enough for this one to gel with me. Even at novella length, it seemed to carry on longer than needed, or at least longer than my interest could stay vested, and I found myself itching to get off this ride way too soon.

By the time I was about half-way through Aloft, I was ready to chalk up this book as a loss. What had started out strong was quickly devolving, and I'd gone from a really strong opening, to an OK crime story, to finally just wanting to be done with this thing. And then I hit upon Rain, the final story in this sequence, and holy crap.

Hill admits to spoofing himself and his doorstopper of a book, The Fireman, with Rain, and while I enjoyed the former title quite a lot, this one is better. It's shorter, leaner, and our central character goes places. It's nicely apocalyptic and strange, and Hill gets in a few solid pot-shots at Donald Trump (which are both highly appreciated and slightly amusing, but also too f'ing accurate...). So yeah, I dug the heck out of this one.

Although the middle portion of the book fatigued me, Strange Weather is ultimately redeemed by its strong opening and an even better finish. If either Snapshot or Rain had been released as solo stories, each would have been an easy five star for me. Taken a whole, though, this is a pretty solid three-star collection for me and I'll be happily adding my signed pre-order to the shelves alongside Hill's other works once it arrives in October.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss.]

Here’s the really scary thing about Strange Weather - within 4 or 5 books or so, Joe Hill has reached the heights of storytelling genius of this father. He probably hates being compared to his father, but as one one of the reviewers here says, he’s Stephen King’s Doppelganger. For me, that’s the best thing on earth. Joe Hill does the expansive, brilliant, crystal clear storytelling that Stephen King did until roundabout 2000, he has those unique, fresh, unexpected ideas. Everything supernatural is a metaphor for something that bothers mankind. Every story is a world to itself, every character someone you know or someone you are. As someone who’s seen what Alzheimer’s does up close and personal, Snapshot just floored me. It’s what Daddy did in Insomnia - using the supernatural to explore the all too human. I promise, I will stop the comparison here because Joe Hill has come into his own.

This collection of short novels - don’t be fooled, it’s not short stories - is the pinnacle of what Joe Hill has done so far, and I said the same about Nos4A2 and Fireman. This guy is growing and growing, and he was better than most authors 2 books ago.

That said, get the book, start reading - and welcome home.

This is a collection of four short novels (very similar to the type his dad is known for.) my favorite (mostly) was Loaded, dealing loosely with our trigger-happy society. Rain, is a darker version of bartholomew and the oobleck, but in this case, what falls from the sky can kill you. Snapshot is about a special camera that takes memories instead of preserving them. Aloft was my least favorite-about a sky-diving excursion gone wrong.

Joe has a gift for characterization. All of the people in the stories felt fully fleshed out, like someone you knew well already. While the stories often veer into horrible situations, there is little gratuitous violence or gore, and the most terrifying parts are often the everyday horrors—bullies, domestic violence, extreme weather.

I’ve read several books now by this author and look forward to reading more.

I thought the first three stories were overwritten and under interesting. The saving grace and reason it got the third
star was the final story, Rain. Loved it. Vintage King family journey into an America under siege. Good lead character and
good scenes. I do have to add I will be leery of any Hill reading in the future since I see a trend to make political opinions less and less subtle and more and more in the forefront of every story. I could care less who or what he takes shots at, I just find it distracting and a bore.

This is a collection of four short novels (very similar to the type his dad is known for.) my favorite (mostly) was Loaded, dealing loosely with our trigger-happy society. Rain, is a darker version of bartholomew and the oobleck, but in this case, what falls from the sky can kill you. Snapshot is about a special camera that takes memories instead of preserving them. Aloft was my least favorite-about a sky-diving excursion gone wrong.

Joe has a gift for characterization. All of the people in the stories felt fully fleshed out, like someone you knew well already. While the stories often veer into horrible situations, there is little gratuitous violence or gore, and the most terrifying parts are often the everyday horrors—bullies, domestic violence, extreme weather.

I’ve read several books now by this author and look forward to reading more.

I thought the first three stories were overwritten and under interesting. The saving grace and reason it got the third
star was the final story, Rain. Loved it. Vintage King family journey into an America under siege. Good lead character and
good scenes. I do have to add I will be leery of any Hill reading in the future since I see a trend to make political opinions less and less subtle and more and more in the forefront of every story. I could care less who or what he takes shots at, I just find it distracting and a bore.

Definitely entertaining, but I was really hoping for some of the incredible depth and brilliance of Twentieth Century Ghosts. The first story had an interesting premise but seemed to meander off and never really explain itself. The second was an incredibly poignant look at race and gun control, but he ruined it by ending it with a terrible last line that was like a bad, bad and tasteless joke. It actually made me angry and ruined the entire thing. The third story was fun, much like his father's works, nothing to write home about. The final story had such amazing potential, but it read like a rough draft. The protagonist just seemed very stiff and fake, and how she reacted to certain scenes was very unrealistic.

Snapshot - beautifully written with an engaging narrator both in the book and for the audiobook. I quickly fell in love with this story.

Loaded - for me, this story felt like turning on the news to a shooting. I don't like that, but understand where the author was coming from, I think.

Aloft - an intriguing story about love, lost friendship, and facing your fears.

Rain - You truly feel for the main character if you have any sympathy for humanity. I adore this story and how the words flow and the characters grow.

This book is truly made of some Strange Weather. And I love it!

I guess the stories were well-written? They simply weren't engaging; frankly, they were boring. I found myself skipping paragraphs, and checking the percentage on my Kindle to see how much I had left to read.

This past weekend I attended the West Virginia Book Festival. It is a multiday event in Charleston that features multiple authors, preferably those local in subject or origin, but the festival also brings in many national figures. One of the main reasons for my drive down was to meet Joe Hill, the oldest son of Stephen King’s children. It didn’t hurt he has a new book out, Strange Weather, and would be signing copies after his talk. He proved to be an incredibly funny, if occasionally ribald, speaker who acknowledged the influence of his father, but also made clear his desire to stake out his own place in the artistic world, hence the pseudonym. The four novellas are each approximately one hundred pages, give or take twenty pages, and while each involves a horror element, Mr. Hill expertly shows the worst monsters are oftentimes our fellow human beings.

The first story, “Snapshot,” deals with an overweight, socially awkward thirteen-year-old named Michael Figlione. Living in California during the late-1980s, Michael’s biggest concerns are avoiding being bullied at school and the prolonged absences of his anthropologist mother from his household. When an elderly neighbor shows up in his driveway, however, he soon develops a much bigger problem. Appearing confused and forgetful, Michael at first suspects his neighbor is beginning to suffer from dementia. She warns him of a figure called the Polaroid Man who steals away a person’s memories whenever he takes their picture. Michael soon meets this heavily tattooed, creepy figure (who Michael takes to calling the Phoenician) and, after a gas station mishap, also earns his wrath.

The second and longest story in the collection, “Loaded,” involves a mall security guard named Randall Kellaway. He applied for positions in a variety of law enforcement departments, but was always turned down, largely because of his mental instability. When he stops what appears to be a mass shooting, he is lauded as a hero, but the media slowly begins to pull apart his story and his tenuous grasp on sanity disintegrates with it. As the author acknowledged in his talk, this story carries heavy political undertones reflecting the debate on gun violence in this country. It is a subject his father famously wrote about in a 2013 essay and Hill’s story also carries some similarities to King’s now out-of-print novel Rage. While I largely enjoyed this story, the last sentence made me groan at its tackiness.

“Aloft” involves Aubrey Griffin experiencing skydiving for the first time. Like many people, he has a last minute moment of panic, but ultimately still jumps. Unlike most people who parachute softly or land with a thud, however, he ends up stranded on a cloud. This cloud is somewhat sentient and provides whatever he needs (e.g. food, bed, romantic companionship). He reflects back on his life and relationship with a bandmate named Harriet and all the things that led him to the moment of the jump. He also makes a discovery that he is not the first individual to end up in this predicament and the cloud is unwilling to let people leave without a fight.

The final story in the collection, “Rain,” presents the petrifying prospect of rain being a regular occurrence, but instead of water, the sky releases nails. Anyone who has ever had a raindrop land in their eye can cringe at the thought. The first time it happens in the story, many people are caught outside and end up resembling porcupines. There is no ability to predict when it will rain next and the disaster repeats itself. Slowly the deadly rain spreads out from Boulder, Colorado to the rest of the United States and then world. By the end of the story, it is revealed who perpetuated the chaos, but it remains unclear what will become of humanity’s future.

On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. Hill has also made a career working in comic books and each story is bookended by drawings similar in style to his other work, which are an added bonus. Although I have not read as much of Hill’s work as that of his father, it is clear their strongest pieces are in short fiction. Hill has a tendency to occasionally use slang and item descriptions that clearly mark the era of his works, and I am curious to see how well this book will age in future decades. Sometimes Hill’s humor is juvenile, but that is part of what makes this book fun. My one regret is I do wish the characters had stronger development of their personalities. The one exception to this is the protagonist in “Aloft,” but that is unsurprising because he spends most of the story alone. While this work will never enter the pantheon of world literature, each story is a great way to kill two hours and they can be read in any order. Joe Hill aimed to earn his own place of honor in the literary world and this collection proves his merit.

Some fun ideas but the stories are mostly overstuffed. Many horror cliches are present (e.g., nutty religious people). Suffused with lefty tropes and smugness ( virtuous lesbian, evil white male; etc.). Too bad author was so self indulgent, had the makings of a good collection.

Snapshot is the first story and it’s narrated by Will Wheaton who does a most excellent job.

Set in the 80’s, Strange Weather is the story of a 13 year old boy and his run in with a man he calls “The Phoenician”. The Phoenician is the villain of the tale. He’s ugly, vaguely imposing and possesses a camera that steals memories.

It’s also a story about aging, and about caring for those who once cared for you. It has some misty eyed moments and just a wee bit of eeriness. It lags pretty badly towards the end though and left me feeling gloomy.

Loaded is narrated by Stephen Lang who is deadly serious for a deadly serious story.

This dark tale is about guns, hate, prejudice, revenge and the media. I’m going to admit that there are many days that I have to turn off the news because I can’t take in any more of the unending ugliness occurring in the US right now (as I write this there has just been another senseless school shooting that is barely getting any media coverage). This is a story I never would have chosen to spend my free time reading had I known more before going in. I read to escape this true life horror. This story introduces a group of mostly loathsome people who come together in a climax of bloodshed at a shopping mall, taking out a few innocents along the way. In the aftermath, it turns into a story of the stupidity of hero worship and the suspicious reporter who smells something fishy. Though well written, it wasn’t my favorite and I would never read it again.

Aloft is narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris and just like the previous two narrators, he nails it.

Things go awry for a young man with an extreme fear of heights when he attempts to skydive to fulfill a wish made to a deceased friend and he ends up stranded on a cloud. This story is super imaginative but it also wasn’t my favorite. Something about Aubrey just grated on my last nerve. I don’t know if it was his fearfulness and gaseous emissions in the beginning, his never-ending pining away for a girl who was so not into him or just his personality. At any rate, it was a struggle and it shouldn’t have been. I found his thoughts boring and all we get are his thoughts. Sorry, I’m a jerk. I know this. If you’re going to throw anything my way, make sure it’s a horror book.

Rain is the final story and, if you ask me, the best in the collection. It is read by Kate Mulgrew who is one of my most favorite of all the narrators in all of the lands.

So many people seem to loath this story and find it ridiculous (and yeah maybe it is that) but I thought it was heartbreaking and sarcastically funny and Honeysuckle was a character I loved spending time with (unlike that Aubrey fellow) which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. She’s tough and resilient as a spiky rain falls from the sky and reigns terrors on those caught up in it.

I have to say, with the exception of Rain, I found this collection a wee bit unsatisfying.

Strange Weather by Joe Hill is a collection of four, short, horror novels with little to do with the actual weather and more to do with innate fears erupting from monsters found in everyday life. Weather seems to symbolize the over-arching theme of our worst enemy (self) which ties the four seemingly different novels together. Our inner thoughts (fears and beliefs) are the catalyst to the kind of weather we have to endure. Just like the weather (a snowy day is opposite of one that is sunny) these stories are different at first glance, but if you dig deeper, and I think Hill did, you discover real monsters are created out of our own paranoia and fear. And it is here, we should be afraid.
In the first story, Snapshot, the fear of memory loss and growing older plagues us in diseases -Alzheimer. This fear is embodied in a creepy guy called the Phoenician.
“But he was feverishly ugly, his chin sunk most of the way back into his long neck, his cheeks corroded with old acne scars.”
“Don’t let him take a picture of you. Don’t let him start taking things away.”
I can’t think of a scarier way to lose my memory, but to a guy that looks like the Phoenician and steals memories with a click of a camera. And the Phoenician’s descriptive doesn’t stop with his physical appearance, it infiltrates his voice, actions and mean, heartless words he often spits out at every one he encounters, especially the narrator, a young boy named Michael, a good kid who wants to do the ‘right’ thing. The story follows a straight forward almost predictable ending, so this is not what makes this story interesting. It is the motive behind the Phoenician that is interesting and it is a genuinely fun read, scary, but fun. I’m an eighties girl, so the references made me laugh out loud.
“He grinned wolfishly beneath his Tom Selleck mustache. And – look – even the Trans Am was there.”
OMG, I remember that mustache, needing charisma, and Magnum P.I. cheese stud. I became nostalgic over other Eighty fun memorabilia, G.I. Joes, Artic Blu, and the Polaroid camera. Snapshot reminded me of a shorter version of Hill’s NOS4A2, a book about good versus evil with a little digging into what we hold as humanly important and traditional. In Snapshot it would be sanity, memories intact and in NOS4A2 Christmas traditions are turned inside out distorting the complimentary reds and greens to greys, and poop brown, turning vile and freakishly horrific. Both stories make you afraid pulling at your inner fear and paranoia.
The second story, Loaded, focuses on our fear of guns, and our need to embrace them out of fear. Sure, there seems to be some politics from Hill here, but not in way that bothered me. The story pointed at not the gun, but the monster behind the trigger. The ending is worth the read on this one, and I couldn’t see it taking another direction considering the foreshadowing that lead up to it.
The third story, Aloft, strange indeed, about a man getting hijacked by a cloud while parachuting from a plane. Aubrey, the man kidnapped, is afraid of heights, but this is not the larger fear at work in this story. Are we not afraid of floating through life, as if on a cloud, and then later waking up knowing we never parted our hair differently or ate the peach life presented to us. Are we afraid of wasting so much time, there will be no time? Are we afraid of leaping off our cloud-like home and reaching a bigger potential within ourselves? This story may have taught me to be less afraid after reading it.
The last story, Rain, was the results of fear and loss. Loss was the reason for the killer rain, and fear augmented it. Once the killer rain fell, everyone began to theorize without fact and solely based on inner fear, inevitably causing a war among men. The ending came as unexpected until right before it was revealed. I like being surprised. Characterization was interesting. Honeysuckle Speck was completely flushed out in a short span of time with lines like the ones below, and heck, I just liked her.
“One look at the strappy white muscle shirt and the trucker haircut and you’d spot me for a bull dyke.”
Honeysuckle was true to her name, after wearing her sexuality out with big chunks of love for her lover Yolanda, the sweet smell of honeysuckles was left revealing real reasons to love, an invisible force that moved Honeysuckle on her journey to live, despite the grim circumstances the rain had left the world in. Rain could have easily been my favorite of the four stories, but I felt it needed to be a novel. The end, although complete, needed more flushing out. For example, the character of Ursula needed more background to play the key role she did. It was way too interesting to just be a short novel.
Strange Weather is highly recommended to those who want a good psychological scare by taking a look at reality.

Strange Weather is a collection of four novellas by Joe Hill. Each story is entirely unique. The first story, “Snapshot”, is about a young boy who accidentally finds himself in the path of a man with a camera capable of taking a lot more than your picture. In “Loaded”, a reporter who once lost a loved one to a racist police shooting follows the story of the supposed hero of a mall shooting, and what she discovers will change her life forever. “Aloft” traps an anxious young man in the clouds, and in the final story, “Rain”, the clouds turn dark and deadly.

Prior to this, I’d only read NOS4A2, and I was crazy about it. It is one of a handful of books that I still flash back to now and again, particularly when I’m struggling to fall asleep. And now every time I see a sign proclaiming our lovely state of Maine “Vacationland”, my mind converts it to Christmasland. So, it’s probably fair to say I was excited (AHHHH!!!!) and had some high expectations.

While I wasn’t disappointed in the least, it also wasn’t at all what I expected. And really, that’s perfectly fine. Joe Hill is not a one trick pony and he is not Stephen King the 2nd. He is an excellent storyteller with a full tool box and a stellar imagination. What I think I love most about Strange Weather is the range, going from a completely realistic, yet horrifying, scenario in one story, to jumping out of an airplane and being caught by a cloud that isn’t a cloud at all in another. While only one story could be considered “political”, all four stories hit on relevant current concerns: aging and memory loss, gun control and racial profiling, anxiety and fear, and gender/sexuality and climate change/apocalypse. I love the mix of practical relevance and fantastical events.

My favorite story was “Loaded” because it hit home for me, and I felt like the subject matter was treated with an equal hand. Frightfully applicable given the recent tragedy in Las Vegas. While I’m not sure it is appropriate to call it horror, it is horrifying because a) it happens here all the time and b) we continue to do nothing about it. Nothing is scarier than the monster walking amongst us.

All of the stories were interesting, some were provocative, and some were really out there. While I enjoyed them each individually, collectively they are truly wonderful.

Note: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley. I pride myself on writing fair and honest reviews.

This book would not be something that I would normally read, but after having heard from SO many people that Hill is a fantastic author I knew I had to give him a try. A collection of short stories seemed like the perfect way for me to acquainted with his work and overall I’m pretty impressed even though I didn’t love every single story.

I’m going to start with my least favorite and end with my favorite so I can end on a positive note! Snapshot had some parts that I really liked, Michael is an adult and is recounting a series of incidents from when he was twelve in the eighties. I love books set in this era so that was really cool and I liked the conversational style it had. I felt like a friend was telling me a crazy story from their past. I was pretty underwhelmed in the end, I found it predictable and the resolution was meh.

Aloft follows Audrey, an early twenties man who goes skydiving with some friends after one of them passes away to honor her memory. He is the sole focus and I found him to be well drawn for such a short amount of time spent with him. This had such a weird premise, it was pretty out there for me and while I liked it, I didn’t love it.

Rain focuses on an end of days type of event in Colorado and is told by a woman named Honeysuckle. I love a good apocalypse novel and haven’t read one in forever, so I was pretty into this bizarre tale of crystal spikes falling from the sky. This was dark and atmospheric and I really liked Honeysuckle and was invested in her. The ending left a bit to be desired but overall an entertaining read.

Loaded was the strongest in my opinion, maybe because it was so timely, but I thought it was extremely well done. It had a brief period with different timelines, present day, then back to the early nineties and I was impressed by how well this worked in a story that’s only a bit over one hundred pages, I’ve read full length novels that can’t pull this off as well! There are several characters in this story and they’re all linked by a mall shooting and the way things were plotted was smart and came together smoothly in the end.

If you like short story collections and don’t mind supernatural elements in your thrillers, give this a shot. I liked that I could easily read each section in a single setting and appreciated the great sense of place and atmosphere in each story, they were all highly original and engrossing.

I love short stories. When done well – they are wonderful, easily digestible, extra-tasty (wow – I must be hungry!) bits of fiction goodness. “Strange Weather” is an example of a variety pack of great short novels.

The first story, “Snapshot” was my favorite. It was wonderfully creepy, while remaining strongly connected to the humanity of the main character. There is love, care, grief and helplessness all wrapped up in a scary package of “what if?” And those two elements being perfectly mixed is what makes this story so strong. “Almost from the first, I felt it was important not to do anything to alarm her. There was no obvious reason for caution – but a lot of our best thinking takes place well below the level of conscious cogitation and has nothing to do with rationality. The monkey brain absorbs a great deal of information from subtle clues that we aren’t even aware we’ve received.”

Then in the apocalyptic “Rain” – Hill demonstrates an excellent sarcastic take on the crazy times in which we live… (after mass death) …” then a teenager standing beside her asked if I wanted large fries or an Egg McMuffin and told me that McDonald’s wanted to express their sorrow for my loss. It was the end of the world, but you could still hit the drive-thru on your way to oblivion.”
I must admit, I was less fond of “Loaded” – but that was just because that subject matter is hard for me to handle. It was well written – but just too much for me.

But at the end of it, I took from “Strange Weather” – the true humanity in unreal circumstances. “I’ll face whatever blows in on the wind. It may come to blow gales of pure sadness instead of air and leave us all taking shelter from grief. Maybe time itself will begin to crest and drop instead of temperature. We may have the nineteenth century for winter. For all we know, we might’ve already slipped into the future without knowing it.”

Indeed, I think we may have. And it’s not a good one.

STRANGE WEATHER

I love Joe Hill and his novels and short novels. He just truly ROCKS. He can write anything and turn it into pure magic -- but it is BLACK magic.

While all four novels were totally different, they all had one thing in common -- fear-suspense-mystery-and plenty of YIKES in there.

SNAPSHOT

I just fell in love with the narrator, Michael Figlione. A stranger rolls into town along with his camera that he uses to 'take' pictures with. Michael is a bullied, chubby, sweet, kind guy who takes matters into his own hands when this stranger gets involved in Michael's life. This was one good read, full of great characters, a cruel stranger, and a terrifying camera. I will certainly miss Michael -- he was just the best guy ever, so down-to-earth, and so real he practically jumped off the pages. He jumped right into my heart.

LOADED

This novel was epic. There were so many characters, each walking their own road, and then Hill brings them all together into his web of a story. This involved plenty of great characters and plenty of guns. This was a bone chilling look at society that sadly rings very true in our world today. The coldness and mean spirit of one character simply shines. I loved this story.

ALOFT

Talk about a parachute jump that goes wrong -- a strange cloud in the sky -- a man held captive -- and the very surprising ending. Roll all of these factors together and this is a good read. However, of the four novels, this was my very least favorite. For some reason, this one didn't hit me as the other three did. BUT -- it is still good - !!

RAIN

I love gray and rainy days, but wow, after reading this story, I think I will look at those rain clouds with an entirely different perspective. I loved the main character, Honeysuckle. She's brave, kind, and handles what seems to be the end of the world with guts and gusto, taking care of herself and her loved ones. This novel was so good, so fast paced, so shocking.

This is one of the best books I've read in a while. Joe Hill is certainly his father's son, although he definitely stands alone. His is good. He is dark. He is entertaining. He has wit and makes his characters leap entirely off the pages. This is one book I couldn't put down and when I had to, it was with reluctance. Now I am sorry I am done reading it, but have his fat juicy novel THE FIREMAN on my book shelf waiting for me.

If you enjoy horror, shocking writing, plenty of twists and turns, solid characters, and extremely good writing, this is a book for you. Highly recommended!!!!

I’m always a bit hesitant before beginning an anthology. You see, I like big books, that is one of the things that I love most about Joe Hill, he’s not afraid to take me on a seven hundred and fifty page (or more) journey. He has always kept me captivated through his tomes. So, in Strange Weather I’ve got four short novels packed into approximately four hundred and fifty pages. Could Joe Hill captivate me four times over in a fraction of the space he normally uses? I was anxious to find out.

What I did with Strange Weather was I read one story and then switched to a different full-length novel. I think that was the best approach for me. It gave me some great separation from one story to the next. I guess you could say that I used the stories as a pause or interlude between the other books I was reading.

Joe Hill possesses a rare gift. He is able to create a familiarity between his characters and the reader. This gift translated exceptionally to the four stories in Strange Weather. It worked better in some circumstances than others, but I’m sure that another reader would have a stronger connection with different characters based on their own experience. Joe Hill has created someone who is recognizable to every reader.

Now, how do I rate a book like Strange Weather? The stories were well crafted, with great characters. I had fun reading the stories but…there is nothing there that is going to stick with me long term. There are no friends that I will think fondly of like: Vic McQueen, Iggy Perrish, Harper and John or Judas and Georgia. Nor is there a villain that will haunt me for the rest of my life, like Charles Manx. Strange Weather was an entertaining way to pass away a few hours.

*I received a copy of the book from the publisher (via Edelweiss) in exchange for an honest review.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***
.
.
I was a bit reluctant to read Strange Weather, based on my disappointment of 20th Century Ghosts. I felt that Joe Hill was more comfortable with longer novels, and thus I was pleasantly surprised at this well-crafted collection of four novellas. .
.
Snapshot is the tale of an antagonist, the Phoenician, who had a camera with the ability to take the memories of anyone whose picture is taken. The story wasn't bad, per se, but it was my least favorite of the four. Loaded is the story of man whose anger issues and racism cause him to kill an innocent woman during an attempt to stop a murder. Hiding his mistake, things unravel quickly. This is a telling tale of intolerance, and could loosely be taken as a parable for our times.
.
.
Aloft is more of a fantasy tale, revolving around a man whose unrequited love causes him to go skydiving, despite his fear of heights. After landing on a solid cloud, I hope he learned to keep his feet on terra firma. The final tale, Rain, was an apocalyptic story of a killer rain, that drops spikes instead of water. .
.
Hill has hit his stride, and was able to spin a yarn with a good sense of character development while still keeping the high pace of action. At no point did I feel like the stories were incomplete or rushed. Overall, a must-read for Joe Hill fans

Strange Weather is a collection of four short stories, varying with their levels of horror and realism. Aloft, Snapshot, and Rain all include elements of the supernatural, while Loaded reflects the violent nature of the world today.

Snapshot was interesting, although the story went on too long and became very repetitive. Loaded was ultra violent, but it does show how an individual with PTSD could become completely unhinged. Aloft was the weakest of the four stories, as it was equal measures bizarre and uninteresting to me. Rain presents the view of an apocalyptic world that is scary in its realism, as it shows a society's progression into chaos under cataclysmic circumstances. The stories were well narrated by very talented individuals of the acting community and I enjoyed listening to Strange Weather overall.

Generally, books don't make me uncomfortable. Scary movies can scare me, creepy TV shows can make me creepy, but generally books don't have that affect. However...

All four stories in Joe Hill's Strange Weather made me uncomfortable, each in their own specific, and different, ways. "Snapshot" creeped me out: a young boy is trying to find out why his elderly neighbor is losing her memories, only to discover that it is a tattooed man with a memory stealing camera to blame. The final confrontation, and what was discovered in the camera and its eventual use, will make you rethink today's technology. In "Loaded," a mall security cop stops a mass shooting, or does he? This one hits a little too close to home, given the current national crisis with gun violence. "Aloft" will make you look at clouds in a decidedly different light (are they watching back?). And finally "Rain," a terrorism story of a different kind, but one that again hit too close to home with too much death during a time period of my own personal loss over my mother and dogs.

These stories left me uncomfortable in a variety of ways, but they also made me think, and both are signs of excellent writing. Hill continues to prove that he is just as adept a writer as his father, and in some ways he may be a stronger writer. King's short stories often hit with scare factor in overdrive, and while Hill's stories also do, they continue to have a heart and soul that I don't always find in King's work. (Hill's "20th Century Ghost" remains one of my all time favorite short stories.) While Hill gave himself more room to work in by writing novellas instead of short stories, he still manages to pack a remarkable amount of feeling into these stories.

I honestly can't recommend this book more.

A well written collection of novellas by one of horror's new masters. All of the stories contained in this book supply fascinating glimpses of horrible situations. For me the two stand outs are "Snapshot," read by Wil Wheaton and "Rain," read by Kate Mulgrew. Hill does an excellent job of putting the reader into the minds of the main characters. "Snapshot" is downright creepy and should not be read during summer storms. "Rain" is emotional and tragic, but at the same time uplifting with a twist I did not see coming.

The other stories, "Aloft" and "Loaded" are also well written and "Aloft" is also quite creepy, but they failed to engender the same connection that the other stories did. Still, they were fun and entertaining, definitely worth a listen.

Joe Hill’s Strange Weather is a collection of four short novels with diverse narrators, themes, and settings that might appeal to readers preferring light thrillers or science fiction. The first story, Snapshot, takes place in the 1980’s, and is told from the point of view of Michael, a thirteen-year-old boy. He is approached outside his home by a woman who used to babysit and clean for his family. She seems disoriented and lost, fearfully telling Michael to not to let his picture be taken. He is puzzled by her warning until he later encounters a menacing stranger with a Polaroid camera who seems to have some evil intent. This tale is one of the stronger ones in the book, exciting and reminiscent of some of his famous father’s earlier works. Loaded, the second novella, is very different in tone and takes place in the current day. It explores the timely topics of gun violence, police brutality and racial profiling. The story describes what can happen when an overzealous security guard with a propensity toward violence makes a huge error based on his own biases. While the plot is gripping and contains an unexpected twist, the story seems a bit overly ambitious as it attempts to make several political statements at once. The third tale is Aloft, and it is probably the weakest of the four. Aubrey, the main character finds himself in a unique situation after agreeing to participate in a sky-jumping tribute in memory of a friend. The story has science fiction elements combined with allusions to a well-known fairy tale. The final offering in Hill’s collection is Rain. Told from the point of view of a woman named Honeysuckle, it also combines science fiction with a well-known reference-this time a children’s book (and movie). This last story includes a bizarre weather catastrophe, a cult, and terrorism. Hill proves he is a talented and versatile writer, with a good grasp of the hot button topics of our time. Despite the varying strength and success of the four novellas, each was entertaining and thought-provoking in their own way.

Strange Weather is a collection of 4 Novellas written by Joe Hill who is Stephen King’s son. You can tell while reading his books how much influence his father has on his writing. King Sr. is known for creating such detailed characters that you can anticipate their reactions to things in the story and can tell what their motivations are very clearly. Stephen King is one of my favorite authors and one of the things I love about him is how I can settle comfortably (even when I’m terrified of the story) into one of his novels like I am visiting an old friend. While I never know what to expect idea wise with him, I always know what kinds of characters and dialogue I’m in for. When reading Strange Weather as well as Joe Hill’s novel The Fireman, I felt like I was reading a book by Stephen himself. That isn’t a bad thing but I would be curious to know how he would feel knowing some of his readers can’t tell the difference necessarily between his writing and his dad’s. Before I move on to my review, I have to say I listened to the audio version of this book. It was hard to gauge how long each story was, and because of this my mind wandered quite a bit. I wasn’t engaged in all of the stories like I had hoped. Some of the narrators could have been better and many of the accents or characters phrasing felt forced and inconsistent. On the whole, my biggest complaint is that these stories were so LONG! They each felt like they could have ended earlier or had less details and the story would have remained the same or been better in some cases.
Snapshot

In this first story, every time a natural ending seemed imminent, the story took another turn and continued on. One of my Twitter followers said that they had read this too and it broke his heart or something to that extent. I didn’t get that feeling. Snapshot is “the disturbing story of a Silicon Valley adolescent (Michael Figlione) who finds himself threatened by “The Phoenician,” a tattooed thug who possesses a Polaroid Instant Camera that erases memories, snap by snap.” It started as a very promising story about an old woman, Shelley Beukes who helped raise Michael while working as their housekeeper. She had dementia and it seemed to be progressing quite rapidly. In one of her assumed dementia episodes, she tells the Michael, “Don’t let him take your picture. Don’t let him start taking things away.” He just writes it off as crazy talk until the day he runs into the infamous Polaroid Camera holding “Phoenician” at the gas station. I’m not sure if it was the unexpected length of the story or what, but I was so bored. At first I was really into it! But as time went on I was just hoping for it to finally end. Actor Will Wheaton is the narrator and he does a good job but I found myself laughing out loud at his inconsistent version of South African accent for one of the characters.
Loaded

The next story in the book was Loaded. It starts off with a young African American girl and her cousin walking home from school when after a series of events; her cousin is shot and killed by a police officer. This murder leads her life down a path into journalism and we meet back up with her some years later when she is covering a big news story about a shooting in the mall. Side Note: The audio narrator used the most off putting voice when doing the part of the African American characters. I get that he was trying to differentiate between the characters, but it was over the top. Loaded is about “A mall security guard in a coastal Florida town courageously stops a mass shooting and becomes a hero to the modern gun rights movement. But under the glare of the spotlights, his story begins to unravel, taking his sanity with it. When an out of control summer blaze approaches the town, he will reach for the gun again and embark on one last day of reckoning.” OK reading that you probably think that sounds kinda good right? Wrong. The story goes into far too many unnecessary details about the sex life of the mall shooter and her (yes I said her) victim. I didn’t need half the details given to understand her motivations. Then there are far too many details about Kellaway (the bad guy ) too. I get that Joe was trying to immerse us into the characters but I felt like saying “Get to the point!” Once the story finally gets going at the end however I was ready for it to be done. It got EXTREMELY violent. I’m not sure if it’s the times we live in or what, but reading about major violence is not for me these days. Also, saying this story makes the mall cop into a hero for the modern gun rights movement is a bit far-fetched. Unless I spaced out while listening, I don’t recall this being a big plot point. Loaded ended at the right moment for me though. Right before another act of unspeakable violence was about to occur so I am going to imagine a happy ending and move on.
Aloft

This one was actually kind of fun. It was so silly and out there that I bought into the fun-ness of it. “A young man named Aubrey takes to the skies to experience his first parachute jump…and winds up a castaway on an impossibly solid cloud, a Prospero’s Island of roiling vapor that seems animated by a mind of its own.” This one I enjoyed! Finally! It was just so out there and unique and that’s my jam when it comes to reading. Surprise me with a cool, original story and I am super into it!
Rain

The last story in the book called Rain was my favorite. It was apocalypticky (just made up a new word!) and had a sort of evil genius/terrorist vibe to it. “On a seemingly ordinary day in Boulder, Colorado, the clouds open up in a downpour of nails-splinters of bright crystal that shred the skin of anyone not safely under cover. It explores this escalating apocalyptic event, as the deluge of nails spreads out across the country and around the world.” So cool! I found myself thinking about this in such depth as to make a list of places that would be safe to go if I lived in this story. It made me think about long term solutions and how the world would survive if we had to live in the constant fear that any rain cloud would kill us during a storm with its killer splinters. I loved that in the story news reports were flooding in about these strange killer rain clouds and how people were even killed when hiding in their vehicles because the splinters tore through the roofs of their cars. I loved how the world had to come together to figure this out and try to find a solution. I wasn’t a huge fan of the main character in the beginning because she feels very stereotypical in the characterization she is given, but I really liked her by the end. She was strong and smart, plus her bravery is what leads us to the end of the story. This story was highly enjoyable and is the reason for any stars at all for me. Well, Aloft was OK too so let’s say this story was 1.5 and Aloft brought the rating up to 2.

Happy reading everyone! If you decide to pick this one up let me know. I would love to hear your differing or similar opinion.

Joe Hill first won me over with his graphic novel series entitled Locke & Key.  Since then, I've particularly enjoyed his books Horns and Heart-Shaped Box.  Without a doubt, though, the short story collection called 20th Century Ghosts is my absolute favorite work by the author. 

Because he does shorts so well, I knew I had to read Strange Weather.  This book is a compilation of four brief novels--also called novellas.  

I'll briefly review each installment ...

The first is titled Snapshot.  It's about a man using a Polaroid camera that essentially steals memories.  The main character first encounters this man as a child, and he is horrified to learn the villain has been terrorizing his elderly neighbor.  He is eventually forced to confront the evil stranger.  This story is a simple yet brilliantly imaginative concept.  It takes such a universal idea but makes it feel fresh, inventive, and unique.  Hill provided very likable, identifiable characters in this tale, and he kept me turning the pages until the very end.  My only complaint is the "epilogue" of sorts.  I think Hill let this story linger a bit too long as he updated us on the main character's adulthood and connected his experience as a child to modern day technology.  This connected felt forced to me.  

The second story is called Loaded.  There's nothing supernatural about this installment, and that makes it the most horrifying of all.  It's about our nation's sick fetish with guns, and how lives are routinely ruined due to the rampant misuse of them.  Loaded is consistently either discomforting or flat-out terrifying.  Hill does not let up and go easy on the reader in this story.  I think it's perhaps his best work ... ever.

Aloft is the next novella in this book.  There have been a few moments in my life when I blatantly got jealous of an author because he or she came up with an idea that I wish could have been mine.  I don't want to give too much away with this one because it genuinely surprised me and I want you to have a similar experience.  I'll tell you this much--a skydiver lands on a UFO before opening his parachute.  ... I know!  Great idea, right?  

Hill finally delivers Rain as his last offering.  A freak thunderstorm breaks out in Boulder, Colorado, but this is no ordinary rainstorm.  This storm rains nails.  Honeysuckle must watch her girlfriend die in a flurry of crystalline spikes during this storm, and she then takes it upon herself to walk to Denver in order to inform her girlfriend's father.  She encounters awful, post-apocalyptic scenes as a result, but also witnesses humanity's will to continue.  Honeysuckle is challenged by awful scenarios throughout the story, but nothing is more revolting than her own neighbors.  Like Snapshot, I think Hill took this one just a bit too far.  I feel he should have left a mystique regarding the spiked rainfall that eventually plagues the planet, but he instead reveals the cause.  The perpetrator of the vile deed struck me as too contrived, too coincidental, and too, well, manufactured.  

Overall, Strange Weather proved an incredibly enjoyable experience.  Hill has a talent at creating imaginative plots and filling them with rounded, charismatic characters.  If you've ever wanted to try Joe Hill, I believe this book encapsulates the best of what he has to offer.  

This book is a collection of 4 short stories. Aloft was my favorite, followed by Snapshot, then Rain and finally Loaded.
I also really enjoyed reading the Afterword part and reading about how Joe Hill came about writing these stories.

The first story is called "Snapshot". This story is told by Michael Figlione. Well the adult Michael, who was telling the story of his teenage self, the summer he met the 'Phoenician' or the 'Polaroid Man" If the Polaroid Man took your picture you would lose part of your memory. This story was okay. I really liked young Michael, He was an overweight teen who did not have any friends, and when his old sitter Shelly started losing her memory (thanks to the Polaroid Man) he would go and watch her when her husband had to go out. This story was a bit sad, especially at then end. 3 1/2 - 4 stars

The second story is called "Loaded". Randall Kellaway Is a security guard, and there is a shooting in a jewelry store in the mall. He is considered a hero for taking out the shooter and stopping what could have been a worse situation. But all is not as it seems. and when local journalist Aisha Lanterglass starts digging into the story she uncovers more of what was going on. And as Kellaway's story beings to unravel he starts to lose it. This one really hits home, with all the shootings going on now a days. The beginning part of the story was good, but the ending had me reading faster to find out what was going to happen. But I really wish it ended differently. 3 stars

The third story is called "Aloft". I loved this one. Four friends go tandem skydiving in memory of their friend (June) that died of cancer. I went skydiving and loved it, so when I started reading this story it just brought back all the great memories I had. Unfortunately for the main character Aubrey Griffin, the memories will not be so great. First off Aubrey is afraid of heights and scared to death to be sky diving. He thought he could do it but as it got closer to the time to jump he knew he wouldn't be able to do it. But then just as they got to the jump spot they noticed a cloud that looked almost like a spaceship and then the engine of the plane died. So Aubrey and his tandem guide jumped but they hit and landed on the spaceship like cloud. Once the guide unhooked the clips from Aubrey a gust of wind came and pulled him off the cloud and back down to the ground. So now Aubrey is alone on this cloud, that is not a cloud. Anything he thought of would appear, a bed, a tub (and then it rained to fill it), the girl he has the hots for. But try as he might he cannot get off the cloud. It is almost like the cloud does not want him to leave.. Also thrown in were memories Aubry had of his life. 4 1/2 stars

The fourth story is called "Rain". This book was creepy. One day in Boulder Colorado (and then the rest of the world) the sky opens up and instead of the rain being water, the rain was very very sharp needles. That tore through anyone who was caught outside. This story is told through Honeysuckle Speck, whose girlfriend and her mother were killed while unpacking her car. Would never have even guessed the ending to this one. Was great. 3 1/2 stars