My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I didn't know much about horror novels until I discovered Joe Hill. The first book of his I read was Heart Shaped Box, which not only blew me away, but made me realise what my own stories had been lacking - that sliver of darkness to drag the reader down. I read Heart Shaped Box in a weekend, and was left breathless and a little shaky. Locke and Key was next, which was one of the greatest comic series I've read in years. After taking a break (and reading something that didn't evoke quite so many nightmares), I returned to Hill's world and read NOS4A2. On my second encounter with Hill, he did not disappoint.
Hill's characters are incredibly three dimensional. His settings are real, his use of the every day to evoke terror is beautiful in it's simplicity. The story, while slowing down in parts to a gentle simmer, never looses heat. You root for his heroes and you loathe his villains. It's a great romp, and at a hefty size it's worth the read. A brilliant one for a long weekend.
I think what I most love about his work, though, is his creation of one universe. His characters co-exist, even if they don't interract. So you feel, when reading his novels, that you are visiting his world again, to be told a story inside his universe, with his laws and histories. It's a place I want to visit again and again, and thankfully with two other novels and two short story collections to go, I can visit. Maybe once I can sleep with the light off again.
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