I loved the often-sweet characters, who are all 'other' in some way. It's safe to say that JH's inner child is alive and well. 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.

(Jan.Aside from multi-author anthologies, not too many short story collections are being pubbed these days, especially in genre. There's not a false note or disappointing effort in this book, which introduces one of the most confident and assured new voices in horror and dark fantasy to emerge in recent years. This is particularly noticeable in the title story, about a haunted cinema whose young female ghost seduces patrons with unfulfilled lives, and the surreal 'My Father's Mask,' which disturbs with subtle hints of taboo sexuality. Whether detailing relationships between children and parents or between teenage peers, Hill is flawless in his ability to articulate frailties that humanize his characters and make them vulnerable to intrusions of the strange. 'Voluntary Committal' tells of an idiot savant who applies his uncanny architectural skills to helping his adored older brother find a suggestively sinister way to remove problems from his life.

Van Helsing, tries to teach his young sons his dispassionate methods of vampire slaying, but succeeds only in demonstrating his soullessness. In 'Abraham's Boys,' Count Dracula's nemesis, Dr. Fully developed characters with complex emotional lives enhance the 14 horror stories in Hill's extraordinary debut collection.

20th century ghosts book