Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

I'd read Joe Hill again, and would probably actively look for his next book.  That being said, 10 years from now, if he's written a dozen books, I doubt this will be in my top five by him.

The plot's good, it moves along, has some neat scenes, but for whatever reason, I didn't find it particularly compelling.  I had no difficulty putting it down after a chapter, or in the middle of a chapter and then picking it up again.  Hard to say exactly why, except that somehow there didn't seem to be enough of an engine driving the plot.  And some of the scenes that should have been engaging, exciting and tension filled, seemed to go a little bit flat.  Part of that is the plot choice to involve the use of hypnosis combined with a first person perspective, so it necessarily seems a little remote.  The other part of it was that the protagonist seemed a little too well protected.  Although I got a sense of danger to other characters, I was never really in fear for the protagonist.

But I think in the end, that those aren't significant complaints.  It was well written, I enjoyed reading it and I'd pick up another by him.

I do want to comment briefly on his pedigree as Stephen King's son.  I really admire him for not using the Stephen King name to sell himself as an author.  However (and I recognize this is unfair because I knew of the relationship before starting his books), I think even without being told I would have guessed this book was either by Stephen King under a pseudonym, or by a really big Stephen King fan writing some sort of pastiche.

The plot moves in a similar way, it's resolved in a similar way, Stephen King's favourite indicia of bad guys are present, as are his favourite types of guardians.  Even the voices inside people's heads are strongly remniscent of Stephen King.  It's not a complaint for me... I really enjoy Stephen King, and I don't find many horror authors who I enjoy, so someone who writes like him is great as far as I'm concerned.  When discussing this book in conversation I was asked "so it's like reading classic Stephen King?".  My answer had to be "no".  It's much more like reading modern Stephen King... something within the last 10 - 15 years. 

Perhaps that's the reason for my lack of enthusiasm, I am setting Joe Hill up against Stephen King and finding Heart Shaped Box passable as a Stephen King novel, but not in the top ten.  That's probably unfair, and I'd have to acknowledge that as a new author I've just discovered, I found the writing excellent, and have quickly added him to the list of authors I'll look for in the bookstore or the library.

Next up will be Barry Eisler's Rain Fall, and after that, perhaps the new Robin Cook novel.