20th Century Ghosts

by Joe Hill

Imogene is young, beautiful, kisses like a movie star, and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead, the legendary ghost of the Rosebud Theater. Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with a head full of big ideas and a gift for getting his ass kicked. It's hard to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town. Francis is unhappy, picked on; he doesn't have a life, a hope, a chance. Francis was human once, but that's behind him now. John Finney is in trouble. The kidnapper locked him in a basement, a place stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. With him, in his subterranean cell, is an antique phone, long since disconnected ...but it rings at night, anyway, with calls from the dead...Meet these, and a dozen more, in one of the most praised collections this century. 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS is irresistible, addictive fun, showcasing a dazzling new talent.

• ISBN10: 0061147982
• ISBN13: 9780061147982
• Publish Date: 16 September 2008 (first published 30 September 2005)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[pamela]

20th Century Ghosts, like most short story collections, is a book I now have a love-hate relationship with. It's hard to write short stories where every single one speaks to every reader, and like most other collections, this one had stories that I loved and stories that just didn't thrill me at all.

When Joe Hill is great, he is really great. Pop Art, 20th Century Ghosts, Last Breath, Dead Wood, and Voluntary Committal were the stories that really stood out to me as excellent. They were emotional, had depth, didn't try to do too much in their short length, and left me feeling like I'd read something profound as I turned the last page.

Other stories, however, like In the Rundown, Back to Home, and Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead, just didn't do anything for me. I found them a little pedestrian, with little or no development to keep me engaged.

The rest of the collection was fine but didn't blow me away. Many of them had stellar concepts, but there was just something missing in the execution. Many of the stories also had incredibly abrupt endings that left me unsatisfied or were just plain weird with no explanation. The overall theme of the collection was a bit all over the shop as well - many of these stories felt like they were going to be horror but were anything but.

Overall, I did enjoy the collection, and it was an easy read. I'm a big fan of Joe Hill, and I love his writing style. If nothing else, this collection gives a great snapshot of what he is capable of, and the different styles and genres in which he can write.

[empressbrooke]

I picked this up because one of my favorite authors, [author:Christopher Golden], wrote the intro. He does horror really, really well, so if he liked it, then surely I would, too.

I thought it was better than the last collection of short stories I read ([book:Paper Cities]), but not as good as Hill's full-length novel [book:Heart-Shaped Box]). Hill provides a pretty broad spectrum of horror stories, some of them being so subtle that it takes a reread to find the horror.

I can see why Golden likes it; Golden and Hill share a similar brand of horror. It isn't just things jumping out and yelling "Boo!" - it's the slow, creeping chill when things start to go wrong.

Although some of the stories just fell flat for me, I did especially like the title story and the longer novella at the end, Voluntary Committal.

[ibeforem]

Hill may not be using his father’s name, but he’s certainly inherited his father’s imagination. I thought this was a great collection, and I’m really not a short story fan. They’re not all horror and gore… some of the stories are sweet, touching, even familiar. Though some of them definitely creeped me out. My favorites were 20th Century Ghost, Voluntary Committal, Pop Art, and The Black Phone.