This is the debut collection of stories by Joe Hill, which immediately put the author on a par with such luminaries of the mysticism genre as Howard Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King. Fourteen stories, each of which will keep you in suspense along with their heroes. After all, as Joe Hill himself said in an interview with Locus magazine: “A lot of people in my stories are unhappy. I like to write about people who are bad in some way—they make bad moral decisions, treat their friends badly, and lie to themselves. Many of the stories are about bad people trying to fight their way back to goodness...” The collection was awarded the Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Award, and its author received the William L. Crawford Award for best debut author in 2006 . The short story “Voluntary Imprisonment” was awarded the “World Fantasy Award”. “Better than at home” was brought to the author by “A. E. Coppard Long Fiction Prize. The stories “The Black Telephone” and “Hear the Locusts Sing” were nominated for the 2005 British Fantasy Award.