Books: Strange Weather by Joe Hill (2017)

Strange Weather is a collection of four short novels, or novellas, by Joe Hill. 

“Snapshot is the disturbing story of a Silicon Valley adolescent who finds himself threatened by “The Phoenician,” a tattooed thug who possesses a Polaroid Instant Camera that erases memories, snap by snap. In Loaded, a mall security guard in a coastal Florida town courageously stops a mass shooting and becomes a hero to the modern gun rights movement. But under the glare of the spotlights, his story begins to unravel, taking his sanity with it. When an out-of-control summer blaze approaches the town, he will reach for the gun again and embark on one last day of reckoning. In Aloft, a young man takes to the skies to experience his first parachute jump. . . and winds up a castaway on an impossibly solid cloud, a Prospero’s island of roiling vapor that seems animated by a mind of its own.. On a seemingly ordinary day in Boulder, Colorado, the clouds open up in a downpour of nails—splinters of bright crystal that shred the skin of anyone not safely under cover. Rain explores this escalating apocalyptic event, as the deluge of nails spreads out across the country and around the world.”

Each of these tales have disturbing images, with Loaded being the only tale that does not feature some sort supernatural or science fiction aspects. That one is simply a depressing story of someone who has obviously lost his mind –via PDST or just slowly going insane- but is still able to get his hands on weapons. Its politics, while obvious, is not disrespectful. But through Hill’s pen we see the cycle of destruction that guns have caused through the years. 

I enjoyed Snapshot, with its Twilight Zone feel (along with making remember a story written by Joe Hill’s dad long ago called The Sundog). It’s subplot of dementia marked with a camera that steals memory is fairly scary and well thought out. Rain is typical end-of-the-world tale, though Hill is able to make the story move fast –something rare in the genre. It could also be sort of a parody of the genre as well, considering the fantastical way he brings the Earth's destruction. Aloft, for me, is the weakest entry and more Twilight Zone than Snapshot. Its message of coming to grips with what one wants, and what one can and cannot have is fairly universal, and I felt while certain elements worked -Aubrey Griffith Is a well crafted protagonist-I could not accept the whole premise to begin with.Plus, I kept seeing a movie version of this story, with an actor sitting in a greenscreen room pretending to play with CGI clouds that would be added months later.