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Twittering from the Circus of the Dead
Come one, come all. The show's about to begin. Step right up for the Circus of the Dead: where YOU are the concessions. #CircusoftheDead
160 pages, ebook
First published August 6, 2013
About the author
Joe Hill
443 books26.7k followersJoe Hill's debut, Heart-Shaped Box, won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. His second, Horns, was made into a film freakfest starring Daniel Radcliffe. His other novels include NOS4A2, and his #1 New York Times Best-Seller, The Fireman... which was also the winner of a 2016 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Horror Novel.
He writes short stories too. Some of them were gathered together in his prize-winning collection, 20th Century Ghosts.
He won the Eisner Award for Best Writer for his long running comic book series, Locke & Key, co-created with illustrator and art wizard Gabriel Rodriguez.
He lives in New Hampshire with a corgi named McMurtry after a certain beloved writer of cowboy tales. His next book, Strange Weather, a collection of novellas, storms into bookstores in October of 2017.
He writes short stories too. Some of them were gathered together in his prize-winning collection, 20th Century Ghosts.
He won the Eisner Award for Best Writer for his long running comic book series, Locke & Key, co-created with illustrator and art wizard Gabriel Rodriguez.
He lives in New Hampshire with a corgi named McMurtry after a certain beloved writer of cowboy tales. His next book, Strange Weather, a collection of novellas, storms into bookstores in October of 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 327 reviews
December 20, 2018
This one is for readers who like gruesome horror stories (bonus if you're a fan of Joe Hill). It's free online at Nightmare magazine. I'm not into Twitter (I don't need any more electronic time-sucks in my life) or the horror genre, but this one grabbed me in the end ... in a gory, creepy way.
A teenage girl, Blake, is on a family vacation, and she thinks it's hell (she doesn't know from hell, but just wait). She spends all of her time online, madly tweeting about this terrible vacation she's on and the awful things her parents and brother are doing. The whole story consists solely of tweets.
The story takes a good long while to get rolling, and seriously, I'd unfollow anyone who tweets as often and relentlessly as Blake does. (There are a few subtle hints at What Is To Come that I appreciated.) But on the long drive home her dad decides to stop at a rather odd circus in some out-of-the-way spot (I think they were in Utah, lol; maybe I'd better watch out). And then ... well, read it for yourself, if you like horror and .
It was written in 2010 (maybe that explains why Hill uses "twittering" rather than "tweeting"?) but was reprinted in Nightmare magazine's May 2016 issue. One of my co-reviewers at Fantasy Literature stumbled onto a link to it on Twitter, lol.
Content advisory: Significant gore and some language.
A teenage girl, Blake, is on a family vacation, and she thinks it's hell (she doesn't know from hell, but just wait). She spends all of her time online, madly tweeting about this terrible vacation she's on and the awful things her parents and brother are doing. The whole story consists solely of tweets.
The story takes a good long while to get rolling, and seriously, I'd unfollow anyone who tweets as often and relentlessly as Blake does. (There are a few subtle hints at What Is To Come that I appreciated.) But on the long drive home her dad decides to stop at a rather odd circus in some out-of-the-way spot (I think they were in Utah, lol; maybe I'd better watch out). And then ... well, read it for yourself, if you like horror and .
It was written in 2010 (maybe that explains why Hill uses "twittering" rather than "tweeting"?) but was reprinted in Nightmare magazine's May 2016 issue. One of my co-reviewers at Fantasy Literature stumbled onto a link to it on Twitter, lol.
Content advisory: Significant gore and some language.
March 18, 2018
Do you have TYME2WASTE? Then read TYME2WASTE's tweets either written by a teenage girl who was on a road trip with her family OR by an overly enthusiastic social media manager of THE CIRCUS OF THE DEAD.
Joe Hill's horror short story is told through a series of tweets which starts as the generic ranting of a teenage girl, but takes a bloody U-turn when her family decides to catch a circus show. It's a great idea: a modern approach to character POV. At the same time, it's short, gory and not too effective.
Read it here-----> http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fic...
Joe Hill's horror short story is told through a series of tweets which starts as the generic ranting of a teenage girl, but takes a bloody U-turn when her family decides to catch a circus show. It's a great idea: a modern approach to character POV. At the same time, it's short, gory and not too effective.
Read it here-----> http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fic...
April 1, 2020
Absolutely outstanding story in twitter style. Tweet by tweet the author is leading the reader to a climax of horror. A family is having a trip to Colorado. The girl doesn't like the trip and is constantly using her smartphone for tweets. When they go back home things get extremely eerie in the Circus of the Dead. Is it real or just dark fantasy? I wouldn't want to go to that circus. Great idea, great execution, great read! Absolutely recommended. One of the most innovative horror stories I came across for a very long time!
July 26, 2016
Let's get something straight, if I have any friend who I'm following, and they decide to tweet like she did, meaning almost every fucking minute, I'd either mute or unfollow that person. That is not how you use Twitter, neither should you keep us updated on Facebook by posting a useless status every hour.
Joe Hill did something new with this short story. He changed the format and made the whole novella into a twitter feed, and the execution wasn't that bad. The problem would be that the novella was too short to be enjoyed. I'm going to be honest and say that I usually don't enjoy novellas. I can name the very few that really impressed me. It's a tricky thing executing them, and the plot was underdeveloped for me. He could've added in more scenes, and made it added a bit of suspense. I didn't get scared while reading this, not even a little.
He did add some gory scenes, but like I said, nothing was enough. It was I think 2-3 tweets that mentioned some gore, and I wasn't even impressed. The format alone didn't save this from mediocrity. Am I getting tired of the horror genre, or maybe I've been making bad picks?
3/5 stars. Nice idea to use the Twitter format, but the plot was not that great. I also didn't care about the characters, so that's another downside. Another mediocre read from Hill. It's looking bad for you, Mr. Hill, but I'm willing to read a couple more of your short stories and your other 2 novels. Really hoping for redemption.
Joe Hill did something new with this short story. He changed the format and made the whole novella into a twitter feed, and the execution wasn't that bad. The problem would be that the novella was too short to be enjoyed. I'm going to be honest and say that I usually don't enjoy novellas. I can name the very few that really impressed me. It's a tricky thing executing them, and the plot was underdeveloped for me. He could've added in more scenes, and made it added a bit of suspense. I didn't get scared while reading this, not even a little.
He did add some gory scenes, but like I said, nothing was enough. It was I think 2-3 tweets that mentioned some gore, and I wasn't even impressed. The format alone didn't save this from mediocrity. Am I getting tired of the horror genre, or maybe I've been making bad picks?
3/5 stars. Nice idea to use the Twitter format, but the plot was not that great. I also didn't care about the characters, so that's another downside. Another mediocre read from Hill. It's looking bad for you, Mr. Hill, but I'm willing to read a couple more of your short stories and your other 2 novels. Really hoping for redemption.
February 20, 2017
This whole short story is made up by tweets as you probably have understood. The young woman is (I thought it was a boy at first until the tweets made me realize that I was mistaken, in my defense, Blake is a masculine name in my opinion…) on a trip with her family and she isn't pleased and her tweets reveal just how unhappy she is. It was quite fun reading the tweets and waiting for the penny to drop for the young woman and her family that the circus perhaps is for real?
November 15, 2015
@TWITTERING It was just a family road trip to Colorado for snowboarding and skiing.
8:47 PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING The trip home turns disastrous when they stumble upon the #CircusoftheDead
8:51 PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING Stopping and taking a break sounds like a plan. Might as well take in some entertainment.
8:54 PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING The special effects are amazing but something is definitely off.
8:56 PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING Nobody takes it seriously. Those aren't real zombies after all. Zombies don't exist.
8:59 PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING Nothing goes according to plan. Not when you stop at #CircusoftheDead
9:06PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING #CircusoftheDead Creepy. Gruesome. Eerie. Full of startling horror.
9:10PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING #CircusoftheDead All too brief. Abrupt. Inconclusive.
9:11PM - 6 Aug 13
8:47 PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING The trip home turns disastrous when they stumble upon the #CircusoftheDead
8:51 PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING Stopping and taking a break sounds like a plan. Might as well take in some entertainment.
8:54 PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING The special effects are amazing but something is definitely off.
8:56 PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING Nobody takes it seriously. Those aren't real zombies after all. Zombies don't exist.
8:59 PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING Nothing goes according to plan. Not when you stop at #CircusoftheDead
9:06PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING #CircusoftheDead Creepy. Gruesome. Eerie. Full of startling horror.
9:10PM - 6 Aug 13
@TWITTERING #CircusoftheDead All too brief. Abrupt. Inconclusive.
9:11PM - 6 Aug 13
November 1, 2016
A teenage girl shares her family vacation via twitter. What starts off as a typical roadtrip turns into a nightmare as they come across "The Circus of the Dead".
This was a super quick read. In about 15-20 minutes Joe Hill gives you what I'd call a modern campfire tale. I couldn't help imagining it as though it were an TV episode of one of my childhood favourites "Are You Afraid of the Dark". While the idea of using twitter as a modern template for a teenage girl was pretty dead on the mark it separated any real horror for me, which is probably why I was envisioning it as a sort of tween short horror. I think younger readers will thoroughly enjoy this short, and it's interesting, and quick enough for older Hill fans to have a go at it. Just don't expect the chills that usually go with Hill's writing!
This was a super quick read. In about 15-20 minutes Joe Hill gives you what I'd call a modern campfire tale. I couldn't help imagining it as though it were an TV episode of one of my childhood favourites "Are You Afraid of the Dark". While the idea of using twitter as a modern template for a teenage girl was pretty dead on the mark it separated any real horror for me, which is probably why I was envisioning it as a sort of tween short horror. I think younger readers will thoroughly enjoy this short, and it's interesting, and quick enough for older Hill fans to have a go at it. Just don't expect the chills that usually go with Hill's writing!
August 31, 2019
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Nice!
I've never read anything by the Prince of horror (this only makes sense to people knowing who Joe Hill is) but I like zombie stories and wanted to check out Joe Hill's writing anyway so ... here we go!
The entire story is told through Tweets by the protagonist. We're starting off with a long line of tweets detailing the family life, the MC hating their mother etc. YA stuff. But it gets more interesting REALLY soon as the family goes to watch a show in the titular circus. And it all goes deliciously gorey from there.
Maybe the allure is not knowing if this is a show or actually real. I know which I believe but it's great that every reader can draw their own conclusion.
Wonderfully macabre.
You can read it for free here: https://bookfrom.net/joe-hill/43818-t...
I've never read anything by the Prince of horror (this only makes sense to people knowing who Joe Hill is) but I like zombie stories and wanted to check out Joe Hill's writing anyway so ... here we go!
The entire story is told through Tweets by the protagonist. We're starting off with a long line of tweets detailing the family life, the MC hating their mother etc. YA stuff. But it gets more interesting REALLY soon as the family goes to watch a show in the titular circus. And it all goes deliciously gorey from there.
Maybe the allure is not knowing if this is a show or actually real. I know which I believe but it's great that every reader can draw their own conclusion.
Wonderfully macabre.
You can read it for free here: https://bookfrom.net/joe-hill/43818-t...
August 22, 2019
A delightful twitter-hell story, rather short, angry, and delicious. :)
Nom nom nom. Oh, and it's pretty funny, too. I can absolutely see myself in this family. :) Road trip!
Nom nom nom. Oh, and it's pretty funny, too. I can absolutely see myself in this family. :) Road trip!
August 12, 2013
This short story is told via the tweets of a teenage girl.
I don't tweet, so when I discovered that this was to be the format of the story, I was not impressed.
However, as I continued to read, the story reeled me in.
A family is traveling towards home, coming back from vacation, when they see a sign for the Circus of the Dead. Who could let such an opportunity pass by? The family attends this circus which is startlingly realistic. Maybe TOO realistic.
I loved the originality of this story which combines the technology of today with the fantastic story telling abilities of old. Highly recommended!
(read 8.9.13)
I don't tweet, so when I discovered that this was to be the format of the story, I was not impressed.
However, as I continued to read, the story reeled me in.
A family is traveling towards home, coming back from vacation, when they see a sign for the Circus of the Dead. Who could let such an opportunity pass by? The family attends this circus which is startlingly realistic. Maybe TOO realistic.
I loved the originality of this story which combines the technology of today with the fantastic story telling abilities of old. Highly recommended!
(read 8.9.13)
July 15, 2017
This is a story made of Tweets! A young lady, obviously obsessed with Twitter, tweets us all the way through a family trip that ends berserk—quite a ride for a quick-read. It took me like 20 minutes to finish reading!
I recommended this for people looking for a short suspense.
I recommended this for people looking for a short suspense.
May 17, 2016
Wow, who knew you could tell such a story through tweets! Love Joe Hill!
August 6, 2023
My first Joe Hill was this genuinely terrifying short story which was included in The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology and I've devoured a few Joe Hill novels since then, trying without luck to reach the dizzying "oh gross!/oh shit!/oh noooooo!" peaks this story delivered.
(Also, The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology is a pretty great horror anthology, which is not something I get to say as often as I'd like.)
Written at a time when Twitter was newish--clearly, as we hadn't settled on the verb for it yet--this story is told entirely in tweets by Blake, a typically over it teenager who has not been enjoying her family's standard summer road trip across America’s hidden byways. Then comes the day they pick the wrong hidden byway. It sounds like written in tweets is a precious gimmick. It's not. This story scared the shit out of me.
And that is all I'm going to say because I love you dear reader and you deserve to have the shit scared out of you too. And you can (as of this writing) read it for free on Nightmare magazine's site:
https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fi...
(Also, The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology is a pretty great horror anthology, which is not something I get to say as often as I'd like.)
Written at a time when Twitter was newish--clearly, as we hadn't settled on the verb for it yet--this story is told entirely in tweets by Blake, a typically over it teenager who has not been enjoying her family's standard summer road trip across America’s hidden byways. Then comes the day they pick the wrong hidden byway. It sounds like written in tweets is a precious gimmick. It's not. This story scared the shit out of me.
And that is all I'm going to say because I love you dear reader and you deserve to have the shit scared out of you too. And you can (as of this writing) read it for free on Nightmare magazine's site:
https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fi...
January 3, 2019
Gonna barf. So sad and gross. Horror is NOT my thing. 2, effective but I’m gonna have trouble sleeping tonight, stars.
June 6, 2016
An interesting concept but sadly didn't really do the trick for me.
December 20, 2018
Well, that was a fun little snack for my lunch break.
Scary short (very short) told through twitter post format, thanks for the heads up on this one Tadiana!
Scary short (very short) told through twitter post format, thanks for the heads up on this one Tadiana!
April 10, 2018
Told in a teenager’s tweets, this is gruesome fun and when (eventually) she re-evaluates her family relationships, quite touching.
This review was under 140 characters ! (Apart from this bit)
(And also this bit: thanks Jool for recommending this! )
This review was under 140 characters ! (Apart from this bit)
(And also this bit: thanks Jool for recommending this! )
December 11, 2020
A stylistically unique story, but I rolled my eyes when I started it—it's presented as a very typical teenage girl's ranting twitter feed, including time stamps and mobile client used, but boy, did it reel me in by the end!
The girl's on a family vacation, she's hated every minute of, and has gotten into multiple fights with her mom, who thinks that she spends entirely too much time online, so she keeps tweeting every minute to piss her off even more in that petty way teenagers have. The hellish vacation's finally over, and there's only a ridiculously long cross-country drive left to get through... but the dad takes a wrong turn somewhere, and since they've now tacked on a hundred mile detour somewhere through the Arizona or Utah desert, it is decided that they pull over for a roadside circus show... and our teenage girl will soon find out what it is to have a truly hellish time.
The format choice ended up being surprisingly effective, but the story is quite a few years old, and it shows in little details that already date it, like the fact that tweets are still limited to 140 characters... and who calls it "twittering" these days?
—————
This story is also published in Joe Hill's collection Full Throttle. You can read my full review here.
The girl's on a family vacation, she's hated every minute of, and has gotten into multiple fights with her mom, who thinks that she spends entirely too much time online, so she keeps tweeting every minute to piss her off even more in that petty way teenagers have. The hellish vacation's finally over, and there's only a ridiculously long cross-country drive left to get through... but the dad takes a wrong turn somewhere, and since they've now tacked on a hundred mile detour somewhere through the Arizona or Utah desert, it is decided that they pull over for a roadside circus show... and our teenage girl will soon find out what it is to have a truly hellish time.
The format choice ended up being surprisingly effective, but the story is quite a few years old, and it shows in little details that already date it, like the fact that tweets are still limited to 140 characters... and who calls it "twittering" these days?
—————
This story is also published in Joe Hill's collection Full Throttle. You can read my full review here.
February 22, 2015
Great short story in the format of reading Tweets from a high-school aged girl that is full of your typical teen-angst and is driving across the country with her parents and younger brother. Along the way, they stop at the Circus of the Dead in the middle-of-nowhere Utah. The circus uses realistic zombie characters chasing what appears to be actors pretending to be victims. Hmm...I'm sure you can see where this is going. I didn't think I'd like the format of a story being told by Tweets. But, it actually isn't hard to get used to and it's a fast read. I think I was done in 15 minutes. Great little story that I highly recommend when you need a fast read.
5 out of 5 stars
You can also follow my reviews at the following links:
https://kenmckinley.wordpress.com
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5...
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TWITTER - @KenMcKinley5
5 out of 5 stars
You can also follow my reviews at the following links:
https://kenmckinley.wordpress.com
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/A2J1...
TWITTER - @KenMcKinley5
August 8, 2013
This story was way too short and underdeveloped. The Twitter-type writing style was annoying. Original, but annoying. After the brilliantly written NOS4A2 this was disappointment from Hill. I want my 99 cents back.
January 31, 2014
Mini Review:
This is a short one at 53 pages. Hill tells the entire story about a dysfunctional family's vacation through a series of tweets. It's not going to knock anyone's socks off but it's certainly original.
A fun experiment.
This is a short one at 53 pages. Hill tells the entire story about a dysfunctional family's vacation through a series of tweets. It's not going to knock anyone's socks off but it's certainly original.
A fun experiment.
June 27, 2019
Imaginative and fun. A little on the easily predictable side but thought it was really well done with the format and reveal. Gruesome and engaging story.
August 9, 2013
I'd give this 3.5 if I could. The story is clever and chilling, and God knows that I've used social media to ignore boring situations from time to time. It's a little short, but that's not exactly a surprise. My only real issue is that Hill didn't quite nail the voice of a teenage girl using social media. That one's a tough sell though and would probably be impossible to read through, so A for effort.
October 20, 2014
Cool little horror story told through the tweets of the protagonist. Cool concept....love these Joe Hill short stories.
June 12, 2018
i dislike social media a lot... OK, i hate social media... anyway... this story is funny and gross and seemingly dead-on about Twitter and all that kinda of thing and the people who use it, comment on it, and that's the genius of it... no idea how Joe Hill feels about tweetering or twitting or whatevertheabsolutefuck people call it, but the story works... do people actually die? is there really a Circus of the Dead? is this a Rob Zombie film promo? is this the first live-tweetered fake death, or the first fake-tweetered live death? OK, i'm being stupid, but i thought this was a fine piece of tongue-in-cheek terror... digital doom... computer creepiness... socialmedia screamfest... OK, i'm done... do people smoking hash actually play tag??
April 5, 2018
This is a quick novella by horror writer Joe Hill. And I mean this IS horror. All this book consists of is a series of tweets by the teenage daughter of a family on vacation. What happens to them is horrific, and she tweets everything that is happening - and I dare you to read it.
August 6, 2013
This is a tweeted account of a family vacation by a less-than-impressed teen-aged girl. The vacation takes a nightmarish turn when the family wanders off of their scheduled path and decides to stop for a break to see a show at the Circus of the Dead.
4 STARS
4 STARS
September 1, 2016
This was a fairly good story that was way too short. The Twitter-type writing style was annoying, at best
May 8, 2017
Decided to do a quick read of Joe Hill's while waiting for my flight. I don't know what it is about short stories that just.don't.do.it.for.me. This one was interesting as it was told strictly in twitter format - a girl tweeting about her family's road trip that led them to the Circus of the Dead. (I do love that he says twittering instead of tweeting though 😁) It did go full circle and I liked the premise for the most part but once I was done, I just thought "well there's that". Did I like it? Yes. Did it actually complete without leaving me hanging? Yes. Was I wowed? Not really. But I can appreciate how it was written and it just gives me one more reason to never go to the circus. Point made! 👌🏻
September 13, 2019
This is a very short horror story told completely through tweets. A teenage girl is tweeting throughout her family vacation despite it driving her mum mad. Things really pick up when her family arrives at the circus of the dead. We then see an increasingly disturbing series of events unfold, and we the reader catch on a lot quicker than the characters, which makes their actions even more nerve wracking.
This a a quick read, 15 minutes and you will be done, that is available to read for free online at Nightmare Magazine.
This a a quick read, 15 minutes and you will be done, that is available to read for free online at Nightmare Magazine.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 327 reviews