A short life of the author
Joseph Hillstrom King (b. 1972) was born on 4 June 1972 in Hermon, Maine. He is the second son of Stephen King and Tabitha King, and he deliberately concealed his parentage for the first decade of his career — publishing as Joe Hill to ensure that his work would be judged on its own terms. The strategy worked: by the time his identity became public in 2007, he had won the British Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award.
Life and Career
20th Century Ghosts (2005) — a short story collection — won the Bram Stoker Award and announced a writer of genuine originality. Stories like “Best New Horror,” “Pop Art” (about a boy whose best friend is an inflatable boy), and “Voluntary Committal” (about an autistic savant who builds impossible structures from cardboard boxes) demonstrated a range that went far beyond conventional horror.
Heart-Shaped Box (2007) — about an aging rock star who buys a ghost online — was his debut novel and a bestseller. Horns (2010) — about a man who wakes up with horns growing from his head and discovers that everyone around him will confess their darkest thoughts — was more darkly comic. NOS4A2 (2013) — about a vampire who abducts children to a nightmarish place called Christmasland — is his most ambitious novel, a 700-page epic that creates its own mythology.
Locke & Key (2008–2013) — a comic series co-created with artist Gabriel Rodríguez, about three siblings who discover magical keys in their family’s ancestral home — is widely considered one of the finest horror comics ever made. It was adapted by Netflix (2020–2022).
The Fireman (2016) — about a plague that causes spontaneous human combustion — and The Black Phone (a short story adapted as a successful 2021 film starring Ethan Hawke) are his most recent major works.
Major Works and Themes
Hill writes about families under siege — by supernatural forces, by grief, by their own dysfunction. His horror is character-driven and emotionally grounded; his prose is cleaner and more controlled than his father’s; his imagination is equally fertile.
The comparison to Stephen King is both unavoidable and instructive. Hill inherited his father’s narrative gifts — the ability to create compelling characters quickly, the instinct for pacing, the understanding that horror works best when it’s rooted in recognisable emotional reality. But his prose style is distinctly his own: more compressed, more literary, less discursive. Where King builds through accumulation, Hill builds through precision.
Locke & Key deserves separate consideration. The series — six volumes, published by IDW — is one of the most structurally ambitious horror comics ever conceived. Each magical key unlocks a different power (one opens your head to remove or add memories; another turns you into a ghost; another transforms you into an animal), and the system of keys becomes both a fantasy premise and a metaphor for the ways children process trauma. Gabriel Rodríguez’s art is essential to the series’ success — his clean, slightly cartoony style creates an unsettling tension with the darkness of the material.
Hill’s short fiction is arguably where his range is most visible. “Pop Art” — about a boy whose best friend is an inflatable plastic boy — is one of the most affecting stories about childhood friendship written in the last twenty years. “Abraham’s Boys” reimagines Van Helsing as an abusive father. “Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead” — about two former lovers who meet again on the set of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead — is a piece of literary realism that owes nothing to the horror genre.
Critical Reception and Legacy
Hill’s strategy of concealing his parentage is now the best-known thing about his career, but it served its purpose: by the time the secret was revealed, he had already won multiple awards and established a critical reputation independent of his father. He is now regarded as one of the two or three most important horror writers of his generation, alongside Paul Tremblay and perhaps Victor LaValle.
The Netflix adaptation of Locke & Key (2020–2022), while commercially successful, was widely criticised by fans for softening the series’ darker elements. The film adaptation of “The Black Phone” (2021, directed by Scott Derrickson, starring Ethan Hawke) was more successful critically.
Key Works
- 20th Century Ghosts (2005, stories)
- Heart-Shaped Box (2007)
- Horns (2010)
- NOS4A2 (2013)
- Locke & Key (2008–2013, with Gabriel Rodríguez)
- The Fireman (2016)
- Full Throttle (2019, stories)
Collecting Hill
20th Century Ghosts (2005, PS Publishing, UK) — the true first edition — was published by Pete Crowther’s small press in a limited hardcover run. Fine copies bring $300–$800. The US edition (William Morrow, 2007) is more widely available at $30–$80.
Heart-Shaped Box (2007, William Morrow) — his debut novel — brings $50–$200 for fine firsts in dust jacket.
NOS4A2 (2013, William Morrow) brings $30–$100. Subterranean Press published limited signed editions of several Hill titles, which are the premium collectibles.
Locke & Key — the IDW single issues are collected, particularly first printings of issue #1 (2008). Complete first-printing runs are difficult to assemble. The IDW hardcover collections are more practical for collectors.
Hill signs generously at conventions and events. Signed copies are available; signed limited editions from Subterranean Press are the top-tier collectibles.