Joe Hill

This exceptional new thriller from Joe Hill is essential reading for 2015 and perfect for fans of Justin Cronin's The Passage. In a world overtaken by a deadly and dramatic new virus, Harper is determined to live long enough to deliver her baby. But when all it takes is a spark to start a deadly blaze, she's going to need some help from the mysterious fireman.

The Fireman

Nobody knew where the virus came from. FOX News said it had been set loose by ISIS, using spores that had been invented by the Russians in the 1980s. MSNBC said sources indicated it might've been created by engineers at Halliburton and stolen by culty Christian types fixated on the Book of Revelation. CNN reported both sides. And while every TV station debated the cause, the world burnt. Pregnant school nurse, HARPER GRAYSON, has seen lots of people burn on TV, but the first person she saw burn for real was in the playground behind her school. But when she realises she has become infected, she is determined to find a way to survive - at least long enough to see her child born. No matter what is left of the world for them to live in. With the epic scope of THE PASSAGE and the emotional impact of THE ROAD, this is one woman's story of survival at the end of the world.

Very good. It was recommended by a friend several years ago, but it took awhile to find a secondhand copy. A chunk, but engaging; I kept putting it down, as I found it too nerve-wracking! 

Jan Jackson

Wynter

I couldn't wait until October to start my horror reads. I'm the kind of person that turns Halloween into a month-long celebration, but this time the spooky bug bit me even earlier. On with my very first Joe Hill. 

I have to mention right off the bat how incredibly heavy the influence of Hill's father - Stephen King, - is in his writing. The Fireman might as well be written by the Master of Horror himself. The style, the characterization, the plot elements, the ending - all are incredibly familiar to me. That is not to say that Joe is not a writer in his own right, but these similarities are hard to ignore. Hill is also continuing his father's tradition to weave spiderwebs between his own works and paying homages to King's famous books. 

In this case, The Fireman is often compared to The Stand: the pregnant main character, the deaf boy named Nick, the Something-Something Man as a creepy villain, the cult-like congregation of survivors, and a mysterious plague about to bring the end to humanity. But I am surprised to find myself preferring The Fireman more. Perhaps, it's because Joe Hill's work is more contemporary, and his pop-culture references are easier to relate to. There are lots of mentions of The Walking Dead, Captain America, Game of Thrones, Donald Trump, and J.K. Rowling, among others. (Note: Potterheads, let it be known that Hill is your bird of a feather.)

So why four stars? Just as with some of Stephen King's work, I found The Fireman be a bit too long in places. By the time I was done with the Marlboro Man and his Contamination Crew, I thought the book would be coming to a wrap, only to find out there is more to the story. How many faux-climaxes can one book have? Then The Fireman kind of spends almost his entire presence in the book mangled up and narrowly escaping death, while (view spoiler)[still dying in a pretty lame way in the very end (hide spoiler)]. Harper is a rather likable protagonist, but she lets others walk all over her a bit too much. Nobody is that saintly. I wish she lost it a bit in some situations and stopped being so perfect and forgiving. 

I think a lot of negative reviews focus on how The Fireman does not stand up to Hill's previous works. Maybe because I have nothing to compare this book to, I had no expectations to interfere with my enjoyment of it. I loved it, and I am definitely going to read more of Joe Hill.

Nobody knew where the virus came from. FOX News said it had been set loose by ISIS, using spores that had been invented by the Russians in the 1980s. MSNBC said sources indicated it might've been created by engineers at Halliburton and stolen by culty Christian types fixated on the Book of Revelation. CNN reported both sides. While every TV station debated the cause, the world burnt. Pregnant school nurse, HARPER GRAYSON, had seen lots of people burn on TV, but the first person she saw burn for real was in the playground behind the school. With the epic scope of THE PASSAGE and the emotional impact of THE ROAD, this is one woman's story of survival at the end of the world.

Cristian Garcia

I love Stephen King. I had no idea he had a family of writers. Joe is the first one I have read apart from the father. I can properly tell he writes delightfully. The Fireman, reminded me so much of the X Men, Lord of the flies or The Walking Dead; all of them share the same idea: What would happen if humankind is reduced to its bare minimum? How would we react after an apocalypse? What would be the biggest challenge: the threat that killed us or ourselves?
In this case, Hill has put together a page turner. It took me a week to read almost 800 pages. The rhythm of the characters was intense. Hill opened up several circles that were properly closed in a very unexpected ending.
Definitely, a book that you’ll enjoy.

Nast Marrero

Whenever I get to a Joe Hill book, I end up turning pages as a madman eager to learn how will this characters overcome the adversity. This is a beautiful piece full of humanity’s fails, courage and tenderness.

From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Heart-Shaped Box comes a chilling novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man known as the Fireman. The fireman is coming. Stay cool. No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe. Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child. Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged. In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.

A Novel

Kelsey Lynn

This book may be an example of 'it's not you, it's me'. Other than some inconsistent writing and somewhat lackluster characters tge only realy problem with this book was that I was hoping it'd focus more on the fall of socoety and less on the character drama.

 It's odd, for being a book all about characters, the characters were weak, and their personalities changed depending on the situation. The book unfortunately lost my faith rather early, when a character established as being loving great and amazing, and absolutely no hints to otherwise, suddenly is the opposite, all for the sake of a villian for the book. 

 This happened a lot, and honestly made me confused by the end of who was who at times, suddenly characters were younger than I thought and characters rarely mentioned were suddenly major players. On top of this, romances developed at disney level of speed. It made for weak characters and weak plot development. 
 The main character was an attempt at tge 'whiskey in a teacup' aesthetic, but it translated as her being super sweet one second and the next second sge was cursing a lot, cause I guess that's how to write a lady as strong? I don't know. 
 This book also suffers from a pet peeve of mine, and that's when books overly reference things. I get it, she's a bit of a nerd, but lines like 'and suddenly Tyrion for Game of Thrones was standing in front of me' or ' it was just like mary poppins' and just and overload of it. I can't stand this in books, I feel like it immediately destroys the shelf life. In 20 years are people going to resonate with those reference as much as they do now? Some modern readers (unfortunately) probably don't even resonate with the mary poppins references. I find it's just not a good way to develop scenes and characters by referencing pop culture, it can totally be handled differently, still estavlished she's up on pop culture without the book screaming 2017. 
 Finally, the pacing was weird. For being a 700 plus page book, 700 pages worth of stuff did not happen. Waaay too much explaining of certain characters and moments with little to none where it mattered. Luckily it read quickly, I started in at the beginning of the month, but really did focus till this week, and honestly finished 100 pages in almost ever short sitting. 

 This book just wasn't for me, but I can see how it might be for others. So I tried not to judge it too harshly, but I'd have a hard time recommending it.

StaticWaffle

After having previously read Joe Hill’s NOS4A2 and loving it, this book was a huge disappointment. I didn’t feel nearly as attached to the characters or that sense of tension Hill created in the previous book.

My main problem with this book was that it felt like Hill couldn’t decide what he wanted this book to be about. There were a myriad of characters, many more interesting than the main character (who I’ll talk about later). At times, I really wished the story was being told from another perspective.

The plot and conflict were basically just your average dystopian novel. The book was really predictable and I honestly wasn’t surprised by anything (except maybe some really violent moments that felt like they were only added to try to elicit emotion). A lot of the book droned on and was boring. There were many sections that should have been cut out and honestly I probably would have enjoyed the book a lot more if they were. The ending was the most interesting part and I wish we had gotten to see more of what happened after that instead of other parts of the book.

The main character, Harper, was the main reason I found this book so dull. She had the same reaction to everything. Sometimes some really horrible things happened to her, but as a reader they never felt emotional or horrible because Harper barely reacted to them. A lot of times it was like she’d already moved on by the next chapter. 

I wouldn’t recommend this book. Hill has written better.

Emily C Peterson

Tae Thompson

I have no idea why it took me so long to get to this book or to finish this book but it is one of my favorite books of all time and now I am can officially say that I am a Joe Hill fan

b.andherbooks

After the colloquially named "Dragonscale" infects nurse Harper Willows, she is forced to hide from the uninfected. Unfortunately Harper is also pregnant, her husband has gone crazy, and she is less and less able to stay hidden in her own home.

Fearing for her safety after a scary attack by her now ex, Harper is rescued by a kid, a teenager, and a British fireman who take her to seeming safety at Camp Windham. Here Harper becomes part of the community, learns how to control her dragonscale, and finds out the scary truth of human nature.

Utterly compelling and amazingly narrated by Kate Mulgrew, I was captivated for the entire story. A very long audiobook, but totally worth the time.

Zach Spencer

Every time I go to review a book I say to myself "I need to be more harsh and stop giving them all 4 and 5 stars!". And yet, here's another great book. This one really stirred up some heavy emotions for me, especially around the halfway mark. I'd give it 4.75 out or 5. Enjoy!

Jessica Nottingham

Well now, Joe Hill has thrown me for a bit of a loop with The Fireman. It fascinates me that he has managed to write an entirely different sort of book than I expected, and yet it still has me entirely enraptured. This book was excellent, and further proves to me that Hill's books will always be an auto-add to my reading list.

If you want to know a secret about me, I'm thoroughly intrigued by the concept of group think. The fact that people have the ability to completely lose themselves in fanaticism is terrifying and yet fascinating. Hill already had me sold with the idea of the Dragonfire sparking the end of the world. When he took it a step further, into the territory of cult behavior, I was helpless to look away.

Better still, are the somewhat paranormal elements that play a part in this story. Harper's story already had me hooked. A pregnant woman, burning from the inside out, caught up in a place where the people aren't at all who they seem. Then she was introduced fully to John, the fireman, and everything took on a whole new sheen. There was no possible way I was going to be able to resist this story. It grabbed my emotions by the reins and pulled. Hard. I was immersed from beginning to end.

Let's be honest, I already knew I was going to enjoy this book. What really impressed me was how much I enjoyed it, despite it not being at all what I expected. I was anticipating horror. I got that, for sure. Just not quite in the manner I was expecting. Hill is teaching me that sometimes the horror that people can create is often much more terrifying than any monster could ever be. Long story short, this was great. It needs a spot on your reading list.

Traci Wilbanks

Morgane

Abigail Sealey

paperandfiction

Brittany Lane

Eva Ströberg

From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2, Horns, and Heart-Shaped Box comes an unnerving novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes Stay cool . . . No one knows exactly when or where it began. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one . . . Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that tattoos its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks—before causing them to burst into flames. Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse treated hundreds of infected patients before contracting the deadly virus herself. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper now wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their once-placid New England community collapses in terror. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger, a man wearing a dirty yellow firefighter’s jacket and carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known simply as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged. . . . The Fireman is coming.

The Fireman

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