20th Century Ghosts: Featuring The Black Phone and other stories

Description

Imogene is young, beautiful, kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead, the legendary ghost of the Rosebud Theater. Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with a head full of big ideas and a gift for getting his ass kicked. It's hard to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town. Francis is unhappy, picked on; he doesn't have a life, a hope, a chance. Francis was human once, but that's behind him now. John Finney is in trouble. The kidnapper locked him in a basement, a place stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. With him, in his subterranean cell, is an antique phone, long since disconnected...but it rings at night, anyway, with calls from the dead... Meet these and a dozen more, in 20th Century Ghosts, irresistible, addictive fun showcasing a dazzling new talent.

Joe Hill burst onto the literary scene with 20th CENTURY GHOSTS, which won a clutch of major awards. It was followed by the brilliant supernatural thriller HEART-SHAPED BOX, aNEW YORK TIMES Top Ten Bestseller. He lives in New England in the United States.

Hill's stories are visceral and nasty in places, but never gratuitous. The collection as a whole is polished and well written. Even the most macabre themes are handled exceptionally well, so one story ever feels exploitative or trashy. Joe Hill is definitely one to watch. - Ross Sutcliffe - Sci-Fi Now