Joe Hill's Horns

[friendlybohemian]

I bought Horns by Joe Hill when it came out, but right now I'm in the middle of the paperweight (although a great read) that is Stephen King's Under the Dome. I'm curious what people who have read Horns think of it...Does it live up to his short story collection (20th Century Ghost) and his first novel (Heart Shaped Box)?

[DKT]

Haven't read it - I have so many books I think I'll just wait until the paperback comes out - but also eager to hear what other people think.

Under the Dome is good, then?

[Sandikal]

I stumbled across a copy at the library a few weeks after it came out.  It's quite different from "Heart-Shaped Box", but it's just as good.  I thought it was very touching and had some very unexpected twists.  It wasn't scary like "Heart-Shaped Box", it was more psychological.  I'd even hesitate to call it horror.  Overall, I thought it was excellent and can't wait for his next novel.

I'm not a big Stephen King fan.  I can count the number of his books I've read on one hand.  I had heard a lot of good things about it, but decided not to check it out when I picked it up at the library.  I'm an avid reader, but that tome is HUGE.  Instead, I used an Audible.com credit and listened to it on Audiobook.  At 34.5 hours, it took forever to get through it, but I thought it was very good and the 34.5 hours went very quickly.

[friendlybohemian]

@DKT Under the Dome is great. I'd call it more of a psychological sci-fi novel with horrific elements, than a straight forward horror novel though.

[DKT]

Cool. I'm not personally bothered by cross-genre stories, it's actually something of a plus in my book.

You both are making me really want to check Under the Dome out (I already wanted Horns) and the size of the thing has terrified me, too. Checking it out on Audible is...an intereting propistion

[Chuk]

If anything I think I liked Horns better than his other two books, and I really liked those.

Under the Dome is pretty good, too, one of those big sprawling King things with a portrait of a small town, including the small evils, and how everything explodes under pressure. Kind of felt like Needful Things in some ways, but I think King's a better writer now.

[Sandikal]

Cool. I'm not personally bothered by cross-genre stories, it's actually something of a plus in my book.

You both are making me really want to check Under the Dome out (I already wanted Horns) and the size of the thing has terrified me, too. Checking it out on Audible is...an intereting propistion

The surprising thing about the Audible download is that it's only one credit.  Most audio books of that size and price are two credits.  If you haven't taken advantage of one of those free audio book offers that a lot of podcasts advertise, "Under the Dome" would be the perfect one to choose.