By Joe Hill

Gollancz, out now

Four short novels each featuring an unusual meteorological event.

The portmanteau title for this highly enjoyable collection of four short novels perhaps suggests more of a link between the stories than is present – each, however, is standalone, and very different in tone and style. Like Joe Hill’s earlier work, they demonstrate the writer’s ability to create mood and character in just a few paragraphs, and draw the reader quickly into what can often be an outlandish situation.

The quartet are presented in a different order to the way they’re described on the dust jacket, starting with Snapshot (an earlier version of which appeared in Cemetery Dance last year). Centred around an unusual camera, it’s another contribution to the many tales that take a look back at growing up in the 1980s, although perhaps with slightly less rose-tinted spectacles on than we’ve had in some media in recent times. It’s a coming of age story that also has much to say on the subject of memory, and the powerful effect that its loss has, not just on the person suffering from it, but also on those around them.

Loaded is the most powerful of the four novels, a true life horror story made all the more so by the news coming through as I was reading it of the latest massacre in America in Sutherland Springs. The last line and the image that Hill creates in your mind will stick with you for a very long time to come. It’s not a polemic on the subject of gun control, much more an all too realistic account of how such shootings can happen.

Aloft is very different in tone, heading into sci-fi/fantasy territory. Not quite as engaging as the other three stories, it has some intriguing imagery but I suspect this idea might have better been told as a short story.

The book ends on a high note with Rain, which Hill comments in the afterword is almost a parody of the world-ending apocalyptic tale that he told in The Fireman. There’s lots of subversion of tropes, and “you’re not going to quite believe that this is happening but bear with it” moments that characterise such stories… and some razor-sharp nailing of a certain person’s constant retorting to Twitter!

It’s not often that I find myself reading a book of this length in one sitting – or, unfortunately, have the time to do so – but Strange Weather kept me turning the pages, needing to know what happened next. It’s further evidence, if any were needed, of Joe Hill’s excellent narrative and characterisation skills, and I look forward to his next novel eagerly.

Verdict: An excellent collection of stories to keep you engrossed as the evenings draw in. 9/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order Strange Weather from Amazon.co.uk