In fact, otherness is the closest thing to a universal theme for the book - otherness and its attendant ills: bullying, isolation, loneliness, detachment from reality, and, in some cases, violence.I agree with Christopher Golden, who wrote the forward, that 'Pop Art' is a truly exceptional work.I wish that horror-haters would read this book, as I think it represents what the genre can be at its best. Joseph Hillstrom King, born in 1971 (pen name: Joe Hill), is the 1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman and Heart-Shaped Box. I loved the often-sweet characters, who are all 'other' in some way. A subscriber suggested this to me and it was the first. It's safe to say that JH's inner child is alive and well. A past reading Ive found thankfully.This is a jewel in a collection of great stories by Joe Hill. Many of the stories are told from a child's point of view.

There's never a lecture, unwieldy dialog, or clunky narrative (an occupational hazard, I'm afraid, of the horror writer who envisions a separate reality only to falter when trying to describe it). Unifying elements: JH's control of the story is a combination of a beautifully light touch and an unflinching attention to whatever represents the horror in the work.

It's not my place to say which JH does best I suspect that would come down to a reader's preference. There is something to be gained from reading a wide swath of an author's work in the form, IMHO.In JH's case, it's an appreciation of his astonishing range on the one hand and the consistency of the unifying elements on the other.Range: the book includes gross-out horror (no judgment intended, I just mean traditional gore), light-to-medium supernatural, and pure literary, as well as a couple of standards - the serial killer victim in the basement and the boys-at-play-discovering-something-awful-in-the-woods. Aside from multi-author anthologies, not too many short story collections are being pubbed these days, especially in genre.

20th century ghosts by joe hill