I don't know what n is this year, but it's embarassingly low. I
intend to do better.
Anyway, I read King Sorrow by Joe Hill. I enjoyed it—much like his father, Joe tends towards producing books that I find compulsively readable, even if both tend to do it in doorstop increments. The premise was interesting, the characters were likeable, and since he's part of the same early 70s clade as I, the feel of the time where the story starts—1989—felt familiar.
That said, I was a little surprised to see it on the lists of notable books of 2025 for both Vulture and the New York Times because so much of it felt like he was almost plagarizing himself.
The things that I noticed most were those that matched the first thing of his I read—and that I have re-read several times—Locke & Key.
At a high level, the entire plot of "young friend group becomes wrapped up in ancient evil" is the same. Gwen reads a lot like Kinsey (or maybe Vic from NOS4A2). Donna's characterization bears more than a little resemblance to Jordan Gates, especially at the end of the book. There's other stuff, but it's late and my intention isn't to be exhaustive, which would involve spoilers—just to note that it feels like familiar territory.
Familiar territory isn't intrinsically bad—I mean, I read and loved 40+ Discworld novels, and those all have that feel of being in familiar territory because it's a series—that's a feature, not a bug. And you could make an argument that a lot of these are just elements you're likely to find in stories in a particular horror-adjacent genre.
But still, Joe's only got 6 works on this scale—5 novels and Locke & Key—and the others feel more diverse in their elements. I just hope that the next one treads some new ground.