About this item
Highlights
- Joe Hill's award-winning story collection, featuring "The Black Phone," soon to be a major motion picture from Universal Pictures and Blumhouse ProductionsImogene is young, beautiful . . . and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945. . . .Francis was human once, but now he's an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . .John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, rings at night with calls from the dead. . . .Nolan knows but can never tell what really happened in the summer of '77, when his idiot savant younger brother built a vast cardboard fort with secret doors leading into other worlds. . . .The past isn't dead.
- Author(s): Joe Hill
- 336 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Horror
Description
About the Book
This award-winning collection of short fiction by the "New York Times"-bestselling author of "Heart-Shaped Box" leads readers into a maze filled with exits into a vast country of the surreal. Available for the first time in the U.S., this volume includes an exclusive bonus story.Book Synopsis
Joe Hill's award-winning story collection, featuring "The Black Phone," soon to be a major motion picture from Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions
Imogene is young, beautiful . . . and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945. . . .
Francis was human once, but now he's an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . .
John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, rings at night with calls from the dead. . . .
Nolan knows but can never tell what really happened in the summer of '77, when his idiot savant younger brother built a vast cardboard fort with secret doors leading into other worlds. . . .
The past isn't dead. It isn't even past. . . .
The first collection from #1 New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill, 20th Century Ghosts is an inventive and chilling compendium that established this award-winning, critically acclaimed author as "a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction" (Washington Post).
From the Back Cover
Imogene is young, beautiful . . . and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945. . . .
Francis was human once, but now he's an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . .
John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, rings at night with calls from the dead. . . .
Nolan knows but can never tell what really happened in the summer of '77, when his idiot savant younger brother built a vast cardboard fort with secret doors leading into other worlds. . . .
The past isn't dead. It isn't even past. . . .
Review Quotes
"Hill's best stories veer away from the well-trodden creep shows and back alleys of genre writing into more dangerous territory: suburban basements, ball fields and schoolyards." -- Washington Post
"[An] inventive collection . . . brave and astute." -- New York Times Book Review
"Fully developed characters with complex emotional lives enhance the 14 stories in Joe Hill's extraordinary collection, 20th Century Ghosts. There's not a false note or disappointing effort in this volume." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The collection of short stories ranges from creepy to sweet, with an impressive arsenal of tactics to attack your psyche." -- Boston Globe
"20th Century Ghosts is Hill's first collection of short stories and displays consummate skill in a variety of genres . . . Amusing, moving, horrifying--Ghosts runs the full spectrum." -- USA Today
"Alternately sad, scary, strange and at times even sweet, these tales will haunt you long after you've read them." -- Parade
"[A] lovely, earnest collection of short fiction." -- Village Voice
"[O]ne of the best [horror] collections of the year. Hill is a relative newcomer who consistently creates creepy, very disturbing stories." -- Locus
"Each tale is unique, and the collection proves that Hill's talent is not limited to horror, but extends well into the mainstream." -- Denver Rocky Mountain News
"[A] new take on the fantasy-horror genre...Highly recommended." -- The Sun Herald (Sydney, Australia)
"The selections range from the mundane to the surreal, with a strong emphasis on the kind of horror tale perfected by Ray Bradbury, Peter Straub and Stephen King." -- San Francisco Chronicle
"This solid, inventive, scary collection of stories reveals a writer who has thought hard about the problematics of horror." -- New York Times on 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS
"Each of these chilling tales arrests you from the opening sentence and leads you -- trustingly, thanks to the simple mastery of the story-teller -- into a place of gulping fear." -- Daily Mail (London) on 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS
"Subtle and disturbing in equal measure." -- Coventry Telegraph on 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS
"Irresistible stories." -- Evening Herald (Ireland)