What Are You Reading? Part Deux

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Mar 12, 2010
6,538
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Texas
I read HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt and Bird Box by Josh Malerman. They were both based on imaginative original ideas (as far as I know).

HEX is a horror novel and I absolutely loved the first half of the book. I liked how the author let the reader experience the story without first explaining it. It was quite chilling. I thought the second half of the novel dragged a bit though. Olde Heuvelt changed some things for the English translation and he also changed the ending. I think I would have preferred the ending in the original Dutch edition.

Bird Box is a post-apocalyptic story with monsters rather than zombies (YAY!). If someone looks at one of the monsters, they go crazy so everyone wears blindfolds when they're outside. It's a great story but I thought the back and forth between time periods was unnecessarily annoying.
 

carrie's younger brother

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Mar 8, 2012
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NJ
I finished Joe Hill's Strange Weather over the weekend. Loved it! This man really excels at short stories/novellas. I didn't much care for his last book, The Fireman, as I thought it went on way too long and lost its way. Not the case with the 4 novellas in Strange Weather. They are tight, well-thought out stories with full characterization. Joe even alludes to the fact in the Afterword that this format is more his thing. I also find Joe's imagination very unique; none of his stories are ever predictable. I would venture to say his is a bit more literary and imaginative than his dad in many ways. Kudos to Joe Hill and Strange Weather!
 
Mar 12, 2010
6,538
29,004
Texas
I finished Joe Hill's Strange Weather over the weekend. Loved it! This man really excels at short stories/novellas. I didn't much care for his last book, The Fireman, as I thought it went on way too long and lost its way. Not the case with the 4 novellas in Strange Weather. They are tight, well-thought out stories with full characterization. Joe even alludes to the fact in the Afterword that this format is more his thing. I also find Joe's imagination very unique; none of his stories are ever predictable. I would venture to say his is a bit more literary and imaginative than his dad in many ways. Kudos to Joe Hill and Strange Weather!

I started Strange Weather this weekend and I've only read the first story so far. I loved it... even though it made me cry :( You're right about it being a tight well-thought out out story. It's the best thing I've read in a long long time.
 

carrie's younger brother

Well-Known Member
Mar 8, 2012
5,428
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NJ
I started Strange Weather this weekend and I've only read the first story so far. I loved it... even though it made me cry :( You're right about it being a tight well-thought out out story. It's the best thing I've read in a long long time.
So glad you agree! The other 3 stories are all very different so don't let that throw you. Just stick with them.
 

MarkS73

Well-Known Member
Nov 24, 2014
350
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Netherlands
I read HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt and Bird Box by Josh Malerman. They were both based on imaginative original ideas (as far as I know).

HEX is a horror novel and I absolutely loved the first half of the book. I liked how the author let the reader experience the story without first explaining it. It was quite chilling. I thought the second half of the novel dragged a bit though. Olde Heuvelt changed some things for the English translation and he also changed the ending. I think I would have preferred the ending in the original Dutch edition.

Bird Box is a post-apocalyptic story with monsters rather than zombies (YAY!). If someone looks at one of the monsters, they go crazy so everyone wears blindfolds when they're outside. It's a great story but I thought the back and forth between time periods was unnecessarily annoying.

I loved Bird Box, great book. Hex i thought, went off the rails after the first half. Another problem was that i didn't really connect with any of the characters. After all the hype surrounding this book i really had high hopes for this book but i was a bit dissapointed...
 
Mar 12, 2010
6,538
29,004
Texas
I loved Bird Box, great book. Hex i thought, went off the rails after the first half. Another problem was that i didn't really connect with any of the characters. After all the hype surrounding this book i really had high hopes for this book but i was a bit dissapointed...

Did you read HEX in the original Dutch edition? I'm dying to know what someone thinks about the original ending :)
 
Mar 12, 2010
6,538
29,004
Texas
Yes, but the current Dutch version has the same ending. The original version was released in 2013, for the English translation he created a different ending but that also became the new Dutch version. As i understand it the rewritten version is much better...

I've found very little about the original ending online :(

I think the witch never became the sympathetic character she became in the English version and the villagers didn't become the homegrown monsters. The witch was the monster throughout to the end.

I want to read Olde Heuvelt's short story The Boy Who Cast No Shadow but I can't find it on amazon. I think maybe the English translation is only available as an ebook in the UK :(

(from Goodreads)
The Boy Who Cast No Shadow won the prestigious Paul Harland Award for best Dutch story of the Fantastic in 2010. Mr. Olde Heuvelt tells us he wrote it in a four-day rush in between two chapters of a novel which was giving him uncontrollable screaming fits at the time. "To me," he adds, "it's a story about being different and coming to terms with the fact that that ain't such a bad thing. With this story I humbly paid homage to Joe Hill's Pop Art, which I think is the best short story of the 21st Century."

Pop Art is one of the short stories in 20th Century Ghosts and its the only book by Joe Hill I haven't read. I'm not big on short stories but I should probably give it a try :)
 

ghost19

"Have I run too far to get home?"
Sep 25, 2011
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Arkansas
I haven't read Gone with the Wind either. I believed you :p until I read your spoiler lol

I think I must be the only person who didn't like Titanic :(
OH NO YOU ARE NOT MA'AM...lol I wanted to run out into oncoming traffic after I saw this at the theater. My ex-wife was openly weeping as we exited the theater, I wanted the three hours of my life back that had just been stolen. Still can't listen to Celine Dion and I'd never been so happy to see closing credits in my life.
 

carrie's younger brother

Well-Known Member
Mar 8, 2012
5,428
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NJ
Started Daphne DuMaurier's short story collection The Birds & Other Stories. The title story is of course the source of Alfred Hitchcock's movie of the same name. The fact that they share the same name and that birds run (fly) amok are about the only things they share. The story is much different but just as good and equally thrilling. I'm not done with it yet but what a master DuMaurier is at creating a palpable sense of suspense!
 

VampireLily

Vampire Goddess & Consumer of men's souls.
Jul 25, 2013
1,469
8,829
New Jersey
Started Daphne DuMaurier's short story collection The Birds & Other Stories. The title story is of course the source of Alfred Hitchcock's movie of the same name. The fact that they share the same name and that birds run (fly) amok are about the only things they share. The story is much different but just as good and equally thrilling. I'm not done with it yet but what a master DuMaurier is at creating a palpable sense of suspense!


i always wanted to read that...maybe that'll be my next after i finish IT again.