20Th Century Ghosts: Featuring The Black Phone And Other Stories

A superb collection of short stories from an award-winning author.

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.

'Each of these chilling tales arrests you from the opening sentence and leads you - trustingly, thanks to the simple mastery of the story-teller - into a place of gulping fear.' - DAILY MAIL

'[An] inventive collection . . . brave and astute.' - NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

'Hill's best stories veer away from the well-trodden creep shows and back alleys of genre writing into more dangerous territory: suburban basements, ball fields and schoolyards.' - WASHINGTON POST

'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.' - SCI-FI NOW

'Fully developed characters with complex emotional lives enhance the 14 stories in Joe Hill's extraordinary collection ... There's not a false note or disappointing effort in this volume.' - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

'The collection of short stories ranges from creepy to sweet, with an impressive arsenal of tactics to attack your psyche.' - BOSTON GLOBE

'[Hill] displays consummate skill in a variety of genres . . . Amusing, moving, horrifying-Ghosts runs the full spectrum.' - USA TODAY

'Alternately sad, scary, strange and at times even sweet, these tales will haunt you long after you've read them.' - PARADE

'One of the best [horror] collections of the year. Hill is a relative newcomer who consistently creates creepy, very disturbing stories' - LOCUS

'The selections range from the mundane to the surreal, with a strong emphasis on the kind of horror tale perfected by Ray Bradbury, Peter Straub and Stephen King.' - SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

'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

SPECIFICATIONS:

Author:Joe Hill - Джо Хилл

Publisher:Orion

Language:English

Publication Date:2008

Number of pages:400 pst

Format:Paperback

Width:131 mm / 5,2'

Height:197 mm / 7,8'

Weight:314 g

ISBN:9780575083080