I have enjoyed Joe Hill books before. He does horror very well.
Strange Weather is a collection of four short stories. My favorite was Loaded. All of the stories were good creepy reads. Not the horror I was expecting but I enjoyed the book the same. The stories are the kind of scary that creeps up on you. You know something is wrong. Then, 'bam!' there it is. Different from what you expected so you are surprised at the turn of events. I truly enjoyed that.
The stories are not connected so you can read them in whatever order you choose. All of them will offer you an escape into another place, not necessarily away from reality though. I don't do spoilers and, with short stories, I'd rather you read them. Especially these. Grab the book and settle in. If your on a plane, you might choose 'Aloft'. I think that would be heart stopping.
Thank you to William Morrow Books for the giveaway. I am so excited to have won this amazing book! ( )

Strange Weather by Joe Hill is a collection of four short stories that have no connections outside of the fact that Mr. Hill wrote them and there is a weather aspect to each of the stories. Sometimes, that aspect is a key part of the story, such as in “Rain,” and sometimes it is just background like in “Snapshot.” One of the stories is science fiction while another definitely falls into the horror category. At the same time, one story is both science fiction and horror, and one is a bit too realistic to fall into either category.

In each of the stories, Mr. Hill takes a single moment and makes it into something spooky with little character development and a whole lot of atmosphere and finely-tuned scenes that capture a character’s feelings with minimal verbiage. Not all four stories are great. I personally struggled with “Aloft” as I didn’t really get the point. While I think “Snapshot” is creepy, there again I wasn’t enamored with the story. Perhaps it is because I do have a personal history with a family member experiencing dementia, but as creepy as it was, I couldn’t take to the story. “Loaded” is as disturbing as it is heartbreaking, and “Rain” is truly horrifying.

Wil Wheaton, as always, was by far the best narrator of the bunch. The others were perfectly adequate. I don’t know if their performances hindered or helped the stories, but I had no issues with any of their narration.

I’m glad I was finally able to cross this one off my extremely long list of audiobooks. Unfortunately, I don’t believe this collection is an example of Mr. Hill’s best writing. I was hoping for something a little more terrifying, a little more otherworldly, and a lot less esoteric than what I heard. ( )

This was an interesting collection and, I would suggest, serves as a really good primer for the best and the worst of Joe Hill.

Overall, I'm a big fan of Hill, having really enjoyed 20th Century Ghosts, Heart-Shaped Box, Gunpowder (from a smaller boutique publisher), N0S4A2 and its follow-up, Wraith, and, of course, his brilliant Locke & Key series.

At the same time, I count Horns and The Fireman as big fat misses.

And when we come back around to Strange Weather, I found some great stories, and at least one big fat miss.

Starting with Snapshot, I enjoyed the story quite a bit. It's the most Stephen King-style story of the four, and I think Hill wears his admiration loud and proud on his sleeve here. It's a fun story, but it lingers just a bit too long, overstaying its welcome just a bit. Mostly a hit, though. Four stars.

Next comes the ferocious Loaded where, I feel, Hill is firing on all cylinders. This is a brutal, ugly story, and a very good one. Perfect from beginning to end. All the stars.

Third, we have Aloft which, at its heart, is the heartbreaking story of a man trying to get over an unrequited love. But love is where Hill seems to be on shaky ground. He handled it so well in N0S4A2, a so bloody poorly in Horns. When Hill gets goopy, he gets really goopy, and he slides into this strange, whimsical wilderness where everything is magical and coated in a sickly-sweet fairy dust. It's the treehouse in Horns and it's everything that happens on the cloud in this story. For me, I simply couldn't buy into any of it, found it all insufferably stupid, and I despised the story. Loved the central theme, hated the story. Total miss. No stars.

And then, we end it on Rain, the cousin to his novel The Fireman. Don't get me wrong, they are in no way connected, but they feel similar: disaster strikes, we take to the road, we look for salvation. That's an oversimplification, and it doesn't do the story justice. Overall, I liked this one (maybe a hair less than Snapshot), but it seemed like the bulk of the story was taken up by a big detour to the girlfriend's father's house and back again, only then to tackle the central mystery. Still, for all that, some interesting characters and situations along the way. 3.5 stars.

So really, I do see this as the perfect intro to Joe Hill if you haven't read him up to now. You get the father's Kingian influence. You get Hill at his uncompromising best. You get the whimsical shit. And you get a hint at some of what his novels tackle.

Not a bad collection. ( )

Loaded was too real and too dark to be enjoyable to read.

The rest of the stories were decent and fictional enough to not be such a struggle. Aloft was... Odd.

None of this is a criticism, mind you. Loaded wouldn't have been such a difficult read if it was poorly written. ( )

This is a good, page turning quartet of novellas. The first, "Snapshot", is the weakest (and the one that reminds me the most of Hill's father--a comparison I try not to make too often). The other 3 are stronger and for the most part, tightly plotted, fitting well into the novella length. "Loaded" is the most explicitly political, a story about gun violence, masculinity, and racism, but it's well done. "Aloft" takes on the "friend zone" (not in those words), and "Rain" is a story about apocalyptic terror (with a Trumpian note). ( )