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Published Oct 2007
336 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Publication Information
Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon on an afternoon in 1945 . . . Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town . . . Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing . . . John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead . . .The past isn't dead. It isn't even past . . .
"This new edition of 20th Century Ghosts includes a previously unpublished story, and the collection should establish its author as a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction." - Washington Post.
"[A]stounding. Though most of the stories have elements of horror, the overall mood of the collection is one of heartbreaking wonderment. Highly recommended for short story and horror fiction collections." - Library Journal.
"A collection of pleasantly creepy stories follows Hill's debut novel (Heart Shaped Box, 2007)." - Kirkus Reviews.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: J. Lassen
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. His second novel, Horns, was made into a feature film starring Daniel Radcliffe; his third, NOS4A2, is forthcoming as a TV series from AMC. His book of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, won the Bram Stoker Award and British Fantasy Award for Best Collection. His most recent work, Strange Weather, a collection of novellas, was published in the autumn of 2017. He earned the Eisner Award for Best Writer for his long-running comic book series, Locke & Key, featuring the eye-popping art of Gabriel Rodriguez. Look for that one as a Netflix show in the not-too-distant future.
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