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    Dark Carousel: A Story
    Unavailable
    Dark Carousel: A Story
    Unavailable
    Dark Carousel: A Story
    Ebook52 pages54 minutes

    Dark Carousel: A Story

    By Joe Hill

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Joe Hill, "the best horror writer of our generation” (Michael Koryta), returns with a brand new short story.

    A balmy summer night in 1994. Four teenagers out for an evening of fun on the boardwalk take a ride on the “Wild Wheel” – an antique carousel with a shadowy past – and learn too late that decisions made in an instant can have deadly consequences. What begins as a night of innocent end-of-summer revelry, young love, and (a few too many) beers among friends soon descends into chaos, as the ancient carousel’s parade of beasts comes chillingly to life to deliver the ultimate judgment for their misdeeds.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 3, 2019
    ISBN9780063000636
    Unavailable
    Dark Carousel: A Story
    Author

    Joe Hill

    Joe Hill is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Fireman, NOS4A2, Horns, and Heart-Shaped Box; Strange Weather, a collection of novellas; and the acclaimed story collections Full Throttle and 20th Century Ghosts. He is also the Eisner Award–winning writer of a seven-volume comic book series, Locke & Key. Much of his work has been adapted for film and TV, including NOS4A2 (AMC), Locke & Key (Netflix), In the Tall Grass (Netflix), and The Black Phone (Blumhouse).

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    Reviews for Dark Carousel

    4/5

    174 ratings13 reviews

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    • 5/5
      No spoiler review.
      Joe Hill is a master storyteller in his own right. I never want to compare Joe Hill to his dad, but there is something within the dna of this entire family that has created masters at telling stories. Creating characters you can't help but feel you know, and placing them in scenarios that are unbelievable but within you they open the "But what-if box" and then they own you until the story ends. I just got owned for 30 minutes stuck in a car, in an ice storm in Maine...Everything faded away there was just this creepy story and it was wonderful.


      I'm ashamed its taken me this long to delve into more of Hill's short stories, as a fan of all his novels and comics, why did i deprive myself of his short stories? I'll never know the answer, but now I have a slew of stories to read, characters to know and nightmares to explore.
      Read this story, you wont be disappointed.
    • 5/5
      More fun than the movies.
    • 4/5
      Another masterful work of art from one of my favorite authors working today. Joe Hill channels his father, Richard Bachman, Ray Bradbury and many other legends of the craft in this stupendous collection of stories delving from the scary real world to the supernatural. Even with a small lull in the middle, the first few stories and the last few kept me reading and yearning for more. The audiobook had a delightful menagerie of narrators that enhanced the tales and a few of the stories had me literally creeped out as I listened. I can’t wait for more of Mr. Hill’s work.
    • 4/5
      “I am not going to be killed and eaten by a wolf on an English train.”Or stomped to death by a carousel horse come to life? Then you’d better not open this book?Of the thirteen tales within, I had read three before, "Throttle", "In The Tall Grass", and "You Are Released", and I enjoyed all three very much! And I LOVED "Late Returns" the best of the new stories for me! In fact, there were only three stories I didn't like, so I'd say that this book is a dang good read! I also liked how Hill gave us two stories with a different "style" or look. One is written like up and down staircases, and the other looks like a Twitter feed. Pretty cool to look at, and good stories to boot! Thanks Joe!“And you’re not an envoy from the Lord? You’re not an angel?”“Nope. Just a librarian.”
    • 3/5
      There were some standouts and some mediocrities in this volume of short stories by Joe Hill. His horror stories were pretty eccentric - I mean, I guess many horror stories are, but some of these were kind of over the top. Still, it was, for the most part, an enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      Joe Hill is one of those rare authors who seems equally adept at short fiction (see the previous 20th Century Ghosts (HarperCollins, 2007) as he is with full-length novels (my favorites being his debut Heart-Shaped Box (William Morrow, 2007) and The Fireman (William Morrow, 2016). He's also had award-winning success with the Locke & Key comics series and a number of his works have been adapted for movies or television. It's all rather irritating for those of us who struggle to master even one of these creative art forms. Despite these personal peeves, I always look forward to new work from Hill, and his latest story collection does not disappoint.The stories in Full Throttle (William Morrow, 2019) run the gamut from thriller to suspense to supernatural to indescribable, and kept me turning pages to the very end. The collection hits the ground running, so to speak, with the opening story, "Throttle" (co-written with the author's paterfamilias Stephen King) which sees a gang of aging biker thugs being terrorized by a truck driver carrying a grudge. And from there, we're off to the races. Not all of the stories have supernatural elements ("Throttle" doesn't, for instance) but the ones that do are very effective. The standout for me in this sub-genre was "Faun". I thought I knew early on where this hunter-and-the-hunted story was going; I was delighted and horrified to be so wrong. Other stories have a sweetness to them, like "Late Returns," about a bookmobile driver who keeps encountering patrons from the past. And "You Are Released," the final story in the collection, offers a high-altitude look at how the world ends — with both a bang and a whimper.Bonus content comes at the end, where Hill has written notes describing his inspiration and influence for each of the stories. And don't skip the About the Author section, where you'll find a bonus micro-story titled "A Little Sorrow."The StoriesThrottle — See above.Dark Carousel — Four teens carelessly cross paths with a carousel operator, only to find themselves on the run from the ride's supernatural spirits.Wolverton Station — A wolf of Wall Street meets his match on a British train.By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain — The childhood wonder of discovering a legend is true, and the childhood frustration of not being believed by adults.Faun — See above.Late Returns — See above.All I Care About Is You — Money can't buy you love? Don't tell that to this teenager of the future.Thumbprint — The sins of the desert visit an ex-soldier in Maine.The Devil on the Staircase — A poetic fable about the true costs of selling your soul.Twittering From the Circus of the Dead — Predictable but enjoyable modern zombie tale.Mums — A boy digs up dirt on his dad. As I read, I wasn't sure if this was a tale of the supernatural or mental illness, and I'm not sure it matters. It's compelling either way (though please note, Mr. Hill, it's Iowa State University with the ag program, not the UI Hawkeyes).In the Tall Grass — This one gave "Faun" a run for its money as Story Raising the Most Hairs on the Back of My Neck. Forget everything you thought you knew about the children of the corn; here, the Kansas prairie strikes back.You Are Released — See above.
    • 5/5
      I don't much care for Hill's novels, but, in my opinion, he is a brilliant writer of short fiction, and I wish he wrote more of it. This is a dynamite collection. I thought every tale was top-notch, and this book deserves a space on your shelf right next to Hill's other classic collection **20th Century Ghosts**. It's difficult for me to choose a favorite among the stories here, but there are three that really knocked me out: "Late Returns" is a ghost story of sorts, not particularly scary, but wonderful and moving and a great love letter to libraries and librarians everywhere. "Mums". This tale is a great example of how ambiguity can work wonders for a short horror story. It's original to this collection, and I loved it."In the Tall Grass". This is a collaborative effort between Hill and Stephen King, and it's a textbook example of what both writers do best. It's scary, grotesque, and quite disturbing. A masterpiece.
    • 5/5
      Everything short story in this collection is perfect. Literally. Every. One. As a librarian I ADORED Late Returns; a story about a bookmobile that happens to service ghosts intent on returning their overdue books. All I Care About is You didn't grab me at first, but two pages later I was sold and the ending threw me for a freaking loop. The world building in that short story is masterful and I read a whole novel set in that world! Faun was like Chronicles of Narnia meets Oz with a dark twist and characters who aren't very moral (karma bitch!). I could go on and on about how much I loved each story, but really, do yourself a freaking favor and read this book. The stories are dark, trippy, fantastical, amazingly well written, and impossible to put down or guess the ending to. I even loved the intro; Hill talks about all the influences he had while writing the book from Ray Bradbury to his father, Stephen King, to Lawrence Block and monster movies; Joe Hill credits a lot of amazing creators out there for helping inspire his unique style. It's a love letter written to the greats that us mere humans are lucky enough to get to read. An amazing collection and one I'll revisit again and again. Joe Hill's writing is only getting better and I can't wait to read what he writes next!!
    • 4/5
      Reads very much like "son of Stephen King," in a good way. There are bits I just can't stomach--"In the Tall Grass," soon to be seen as a series on Netflix, is the example that springs immediately to mind, gag--but I did admire them all, and several are memorable. Hill (of the Kings) hits the right note again and again in the dark triumph of the hunted fantastical beings in "Faun"; the tragic father-son relationship of "Full Throttle"; the sweetness of "Late Returns," reminding me of a similar vibe in Stephen King's Dr. Sleep; the clever artistry of "The Devil on the Staircase"; the surprising sensibility of "All I Care About Is You"; the weirdly satisfying dissonance of "Mums"; the breathtakingly hard protagonist of "Thumbprint"; and the compassion of "You Are Released." There was one story, "By the Silver Waters of Lake Champlain," that I couldn't finish--at first it seemed the one that would be most like my "thing," but somewhere toward the middle I found my mind wandering away. I didn't read "Twittering from the Circus of the Dead" past the first sentence, which was structured as a tweet. The whole story, I could see, was told in tweets. I smirked at the first tweet, then grimaced, and flipped through it to the next story. I find the stories actually told in Twitter threads to be scary and grotesque enough--and funnily, it looks like Hill agrees with me, as the accompanying story note points out: "Truth is, here in 2019 it's clearer than ever that social media won't save us from zombies--it's turning us into them." Cheers to Joe Hill for resisting the hordes and sticking to good, human craft.
    • 4/5
      A really strong collection, with no clunkers at all; "You Are Released", "Late Returns," and "Mums" were especially haunting and thought-provoking.
    • 4/5
      My favourite stories in this collection are "Dark Carousel" and "Faun." I also thought the reference to NOS4A2 in "Dark Carousel" was great: "The cat was a gift from Manx, who runs Christmasland in Colorado."
    • 5/5
      I think it's safe to say that Joe Hill is one of my new favorite writers. After completing Strange Weather last year, I was very excited to tackle Full Throttle. It took me awhile to get to it, but it certainly does not disappoint. Every story is gripping and full of a sense of mystery and adventure. The additional social and political commentary that runs in each tale is will what make his stories so special when they are absorbed by fans in the future. Although I have enjoyed many of Joe's full-blown novels, I think I may enjoy his short stories even more. He's able to pack an incredible punch over 30-40 pages that always leaves me stunned in the end and craving more. For me, "Mums" and "In the Tall Grass" are the most devastating, but all of them are worth the time! Keep it up, Joe! Can't wait to read what's next.
    • 5/5
      This story was everything I enjoy and look for in a good short story. Highly recommended, fun read