• Author: Joe Hill
• Publisher: Gollanzc
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Number of Pages: 482
• ISBN: 978-1473219915

Review:

This is a collection of thirteen stories, two of them completely new for the collection, all the others have been published somewhere else before.

A few of these stories will get a separate review (such as Throttle and In the Tall Grass, both co-written with Stephen King).

The review for Throttle is already online: https://looneybooks79.blog/2023/11/18/full-throttle-throttle/

I’ll level with you: although I am a big fan of Joe Hill’s stories not all of them have had a big impact on me. I am still in awe for what he did in NOS4R2, Heartshaped Box and I adore his Locke & Key graphic novels but Horns and The Fireman somehow didn’t connect with me. (I blame the Horns movie adaptation as I read the book after seeing the movie and somehow the movie ruined it for me)

Full Throttle is somehow a reflection of all his other work, his books and graphic novels, combined: some of them I love, others I just don’t like! It. Took me months to finish this collection, which practically never happens as I am a fast reader, especially with short stories! This collection however managed to stop me in my tracks at times and I just had to put it down and read other stuff only to pick it back up later and read one or two stories only to repeat the process… (at the time of writing this review I still had a few stories left to read)

The weird thing is that I had already read some of the stories in the collection as ebooks and most of them I liked very much but rereading them made me realise that they worked better before… (By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain is one of those).

No, this will not make me hate Joe Hill’s work! I am still much looking forward to a new novel by him… (when?) but I think this collection might not be his best work…

And not to end this review in a bad note I want to point out the stories I did like very much:

Throttle (the perfect hommage to Matheson)

In the Tall Grass (reminds me of Children of the Corn somehow)

Thumbprint (I had read the comic and loved it instantly)

Twittering from the Circus of the Dead (how allegorical can it get: either you’re a ‘zombie’ hooked to your phone or you become one after a bite)

I know, as readers, we expect very much of writers sometimes and not all the work of one writer can be hits… and my opinion is just one of many… I’m convinced that so many people who read this collection will be huge fans… I certainly hope so!