Strange Weather
By Joe Hill
William Morrow & Company, 9780062663115, October 2017, 448pp.
The Short of It:
Some readers might overlook this collection because they aren’t into short fiction but this collection includes four complete novels and trust me, you’ll forget you are reading short fiction once you get into each story.
The Rest of It:
This is a really excellent collection of stories. I hate to compare Joe Hill to his pop (Stephen King) but he has a very similar sense of humor which comes out in his writing. Not surprising really.
I enjoyed all of these novels but my fave is probably the one titled “Loaded”. A mall cop is hailed as a hero until the full story is revealed. It has plenty to say about gun control and with everything currently going on in our world, this story is timely.
Although I shy away from short fiction, I couldn’t help but fall into these stories. Hill delivers realistic characters and has a knack for pacing. I never felt like the stories were too short which is how I sometimes feel with short fiction.
Strange Weather is a good example of short fiction which is also very satisfying to read.
Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
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Book Chatter 
Ti, you make me want to read this one. I love short stories and I do love this genre. I’m thinking I need to read this – luckily I already have it on my kindle. Glad you posted about it and that story about the mall cop sounds great.
I’m surprised you haven’t read it yet. You usually beat me to the punch.
Ditto…you make me want to read this and I hate short fiction.
I think you’d appreciate this collection.
I thought this might be too scary for me but I think I could handle what you’ve described.
There are horror elements but nothing you can’t handle. The first short novel is actually quite lovely about a young man and his neighbor who is battling dementia… but her dementia was brought on by a photographer her stole her memories by snapping Polaroids. Interesting, huh?
It’s funny, I don’t gravitate toward shorter fiction/short stories, but when I read them I like them. I see you’re reading Hillbilly Elegy for your book group. I liked it, didn’t love it.
Give me the lowdown on Elegy. I am not a fan of the topic at the moment but it’s for book club so as long as we can discuss it I guess I am in.
I thought Elegy was interesting, but didn’t go far enough. It is the author’s personal stories, which are interesting and very revealing, but I think I wanted more connection to now.
I did skip it because it is a collection of short stories. I don’t know if you have totally sold me on changing my mind, but I am interested.
These are actually short novels. Much more meat to each story than what I normally get from a true short story.
This book is on my radar. I want to read it since I like short fiction.