The Fireman by Joe Hill

(Sorry about the delay in posting! I was out of town for a few days)

From Goodreads/Front Flap:
From 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 and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man, known as the Fireman.  

Stay cool, the fireman is coming.

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 Trychophoton. To everyone else it's Dragonscale, a highly contagious spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks - before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe. 

The synopsis goes on for a bit longer, but for the sake of brevity and suspense, I cut off the last few paragraphs.

I read this book near the end of July to beginning of August; it was my first Joe Hill novel (full name: Joseph Hillstrom King - son of Stephen King, horror novel god - Hill cut off the last portion of his surname to distinguish himself from his Dad) and this is my unadulterated review: love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, LOVE this book. It was so amazingly good and well-written and wonderful and I can't wait to read it again. Sigh. Have I mentioned that I love this book? Because I do.

 Right from the get-go, Hill sets up his world, a post-apocalyptic, man-vs-man-vs-nature-vs-self world that is atmospheric and has just enough of a chilling tone that doesn't turn you off, and is scary without being overly scary or overly dramatic. Hill is a very good writer, his writing is not difficult to follow, but he does not make it too easy for the reader either. I found his characters to be compelling and dynamic, well-rounded, and every one of them (even the douchebag husband of the main character - thankfully not in the book for very long) had something interesting to contribute.

This was my first pleasure foray into the horror genre. I picked this book up at Chapters on a whim and I'm glad that I did. I really enjoy the cross-over genre of apocalypse with horror, but sadly, I don't think many of those books exist outside of this and maybe Cormac McCarthy's The Road, so if anyone has any apocalyptic horror novels like this or The Road, let me know! I love this genre!

Hill covers the bases of the apocalyptic horror genre well, also incorporating issues such as trust and loyalty. Who are we supposed to trust? Are we supposed to trust no one? There are certain characters that instantly are suspicious and Hill doesn't fall into the tired cliche of having an obvious villain, playing back into the man-vs-man theme. Have I mentioned that I love this book?

All in all, this was an amazing book, and I highly recommend it, especially to fans of the apocalyptic horror genre. It's well worth your time. I had a really great time with The Fireman, and I am giving it a 5/5.
I will be sure to check out more of Hill's works once I have money (I bought my textbooks for school and sheeesh they're not cheap).

(Side-note: I read Ulysses! I don't think I'll do a conventional post like this one and Dubliners, but more a "thoughts on" post, because I could go on for days about Ulysses and create entire blogs devoted to nothing but Ulysses. Expect that post in a couple of days.)