Hill, Joe: Strange Weather

This will be an award-nominated collection of award-nominated novellas:'Snapshot, 1988' (the only title in the collection which will be previously published) , tells the story of an adolescent in Silicon Valley who finds himself threatened by The Phoenician, a tattooed thug who possesses a Polaroid Instant Camera that swipes memories. The audio edition would be read by Wil Wheaton.In 'Aloft' a young man takes to the skies to experience parachuting for the first time . . . and winds up a castaway on an impossibly solid cloud, a Prospero's island of roiling vapour that seems animated by a mind of its own. The audio edition would be read by Joe Hill.One autumnal day in Boulder, Colorado, the clouds open up in a downpour of nails, splinters of bright crystal that tear apart anyone who isn't safely under cover. 'Hard Rain Gonna Fall' explores this escalating apocalyptic event, as clouds of nails spread out across the country and the world. Amidst the chaos, a girl studying law enforcement takes it upon herself to resolve a series of almost trivial mysteries . . . apparently harmless puzzles that turn out to have lethal answers. The audio edition would be read by Kate Mulgrew.Finally, in 'Loaded' a mall security guard heroically stops a mass shooting and becomes a hero to the modern gun movement. Under the hot glare of the spotlights, though, his story begins to unravel, taking his sanity with it. As a storm of locusts bears down upon his small mid-western town, he reaches for the gun again, and sets out upon a last day of reckoning. The audio edition would be read by Stephen Lang.Beautifully written, they'll form a stand-out collection as well as a great stand-alone stories with appeal for the mainstream as well as the genre reader, and will keep Joe's sales as well as critical profile high between novels.