By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain

by Joe Hill

Little Gail London and her friend Joel Quarrel are out on a cold and lonely morning at the end of summer, when they make the find of the century: a dead plesiosaur, the size of a two-ton truck, washed up on the sand. With the fog swirling about them, they make their plans, fight to defend their discovery, and face for the first time the enormity of mortality itself… all unaware of what else might be out there in the silver water of Lake Champlain.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fantasy, Fiction, Ebooks, Monsters, Paranormal

30 pages, Unknown Binding

First published April 29, 2014

About the author

Joe 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.

Reviews

[Shelby *trains flying monkeys* · Rating 3 out of 5]

*somewhat spoilery* Because...beer

Gail's mom has a hangover so she wants the loud girls of her's out of the house. Gail heads down to the lake near their home and meets up with her buddies, Joel and his brother. They realize that the large rock they have been playing on is not really a rock.

There have been mumblings around their town about a monster that lives in the lake. An American version of the famous monster?


Gail and Joel are going to be famous! They bet their pictures will get in the paper. They bet they will become rich.


I know..I did not spoil anything. But to be on the safe side I posted the warning. Because....whiners


I'm highlighting my friend Richard reviles censorship's review because it makes me smile every day that he is back on the internet with us.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gail irritates her hung-over mother by playing a robot. When she is sent out of the house together with her three sisters they go to the beach to play. There they find a mysterious carcass of a strange creature. Is it a dinosaur? Then some of the kids are missing. The story was a bit too long for my taste. The whole introduction up to the discovery of the animal was long winded. Then the horror itself was a bit too meagre and short for me. It was an okay story but definitely nothing extraordinary.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK... First things first, when I read the title of this story, I can't help but think of By the Shores of Silver Lake. Both have a precocious young girl with sisters as a narrator. And a lake with silver water, supposedly. And, if I remember correctly, a friend who is a boy that is also kind of a boyfriend but not really a BOYFRIEND - but in the Little House series maybe that comes later. (It's been about *coughcoughmumble* years since I read the Little House series.)

What the Little House series DOESN'T have is a rotting amphibious dinosaur corpse hidden in the mist by the water's edge. Which clearly makes Silver Water here the winner over Silver Lake, if you ask me. I mean, I know you didn't... but if you had. That's what I would answer. Just sayin'.

One of the things that I love about Joe Hill's writing is the way that his stories have this ethereal otherness right there in the middle of the everyday. I also like the sense that it exists in its own time. It could really be any time in the 20th or 21st century. We have a little girl, I mean a robot with teakettles for feet, who is sent out of the house by her harried and hungover mother, and who climbs onto a boulder to play with her friend Joel, only to later realize that the "boulder" is the mid-section of the aforementioned dinocorpse. They've heard stories of the "monster" that was hit by a boat, and heard stories of a reward for anyone that brings the creature back... so they are convinced that they'll be heroes for having discovered it.

I love the duality of this story, how you can interpret it as a little girl playing pretend, and her close friend playing along because that's what they do... or you can interpret it as literally true that there's a dead creature washed up on the beach. You can choose to believe that the imagination of these little kids ran away with them... but there are unanswered questions if you go the "They must be making it up!" route.

I also love the adultness of this story. It's narrated by a little girl, so she doesn't question things in the way an adult would, but just accepts things as she believes them to be true. Like where did her friend REALLY get his black eye? Playing pretend for real, or maybe Dad got a little rough? The girl appreciates her friends "adult voice", which to me sounds a little too much like a domineering male voice, and tells me that he's got a role model in that regard at the very least.

The end of the story is rather abrupt, as lots of Joe Hill stories are, and we're left with a sense of loss... of friendship, of childhood, of freedom, perhaps, and trust, for sure. Because parents never believe in the unbelievable, do they? They may humor you, if it's dark and scary and they're tired and just want to check under the bed ONE LAST TIME so everyone can just go to sleep already... but in the light of day, when it comes to a 16 foot long creature? Maybe not so much.

[Richard Derus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Little Gail London and her friend Joel Quarrel are out on a cold and lonely morning at the end of summer, when they make the find of the century: a dead plesiosaur, the size of a two-ton truck, washed up on the sand. With the fog swirling about them, they make their plans, fight to defend their discovery, and face for the first time the enormity of mortality itself… all unaware of what else might be out there in the silver water of Lake Champlain.

My Review: Childhood's end. Abusive and/or neglectful adults versus damaged children. A completely unexpected and seemingly impossible discovery sets each against all, and no one comes out unchanged.

Sound familiar? It should. It's an evergreen plot for a reason. It explores no new territory, mostly because it doesn't need to. This iteration of the evergreen is told in the voice and from the viewpoint of three kids trapped in a world of hungover parents. Their mutual discovery of the dinosaur, apparently dead, causes little Gail to look inside for what she wants to have in this life. What she decides has a poignance that Hill reveals but doesn't linger over. Not for nothing is Hill the son of novelists!

Thirty well-spent minutes.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Char · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Joe Hill's work, but I was disappointed with this short story. I can't go too much into why without spoilers. His prose was wonderful as always, and the characters memorable. I just felt I was left...wanting.

[Magdalena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this short story, but it was to short, this would had been a great beginning for a real novel instead it ended when it just started to get interesting...I would have loved to have Gail return as an adult, searching for closure to the traumatic experience she had at the lake.

Review also posted on And Now for Something Completely Different and It's a Mad Mad World

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up.

A good tale that brought two ten-year-old friends to an amazing discovery. Emotionally potent, I felt that the novella had quite a lot of promise, but could have used some extra details to beef up the story. The ending packed quite a punch, but could have benefited more from additional facts regarding the lives/homes/families of the main characters.

[Niki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing to write home about.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nostalgic tale of childhood including parents, siblings, fantasies, friendship and play in very few pages. The lines between fantasy and reality are fuzzy, as they are when you're little. It's childhood's last day though, with the discovery of a dead dinosaur on the shore of the lake. The shortest coming of age tale I've ever read.

[Melki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some kids find a washed-up "dinosaur" but their plans for fame and fortune are for naught. Predictable, but well written.

Don't mess with Champ, kiddies.

[♥♡¢σσкιє♥♡ (Krystle) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I smiled almost the entire time I was reading this short story. Gail and joel were too adorable for words. They were just two innocent children who were best friends. The author captured the spirit of how it feels to be a child who has not a single care in the world and knows that everyone she loves will always be there for her. And then he rips that innocence away from her in the last few pages of the story. I teared up big time at the end, but I have to admit, this was a beautifully written short story.

Side note:

The certain somebody who suggested I read this story could have warned me about the sad ending when I was gushing to him over the phone about how adorable the kids in this book were! Darn you, Jonathan! :P

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good short story about kids that find a creature along the shore of Lake Champlain. This didn't feel like typical Joe Hill, more like something from Neil Gaiman. The story itself was solid and dialogue driven, with the tension coming more from the threat of parents' wrath and sibling rivalry than from whatever was in the lake itself.
While this was sold as a single, I may have to find the Ray Bradbury anthology in which it was originally included, especially if the rest of the stories are this good.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Hill settings are always descriptive and put you right there. Another good story, but wish it was longer.

[~Madison · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was cute, adorable and whatnot and the characters felt more real to me in 30 pages then what any other author can write in a 5 book series but i wish it had more horror.
It felt like a filler story but it was good!

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mommy has a killer hangover, and sends her loud and bickering girls out of the house to have some peace and quiet. It's a cold and misty end-of-summer day that will mark Gail's end-of-childhood, and she decides to head down to the lake, where she meets up with a friend... until they realize that the boulder they'd been playing on isn't actually a rock. Their discovery lets them spin out the possibilities their future holds, but also makes them confront mortality... but is it really happening, or are they just playing pretend? We are shown from the very first sentence that Gail has a lively imagination and gets invested in her made-up stories... and yet assuming it's all make-believe leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and this blurry line between reality and fantasy is what makes the story work. A rather unusual one from Hill—it reads like something that could've been written by Gaiman or Bradbury (whose story The Fog Horn must've been a very direct influence).

—————

This story is also published in Joe Hill's collection Full Throttle. You can read my full review here.

[Kit★ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazon sends me update emails about new releases from authors of freebies I've downloaded, but when it's an author I've actually paid to read, they never let me know something new's out! What is up with that? I had to find out about this new short story on a 'currently reading' thread in a group. Of course I rushed over and got it, will read it real soon.
Will get my review up later today!
Ok, so I lied, and forgot to come back and do my review. Shucks, now I'll have to just read it again... ;)

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just re-read this (aloud this time) to my friend Lisa... despite the kinda sad ending I view this story as a tale of the imagination found in little kids of the age before the VCR/DVD player/internet. It seems that kids don't play-make-believe as much anymore. Our techno-age seems to have squashed that from the youth of today and *that* is why I find this story so sad...

read 7-13-2014
re-read 1/3/2015

[Asheley T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two young kids are playing outside by the lake when they discover a huge dead beast of some sort on the shore. There had been rumors about a monster in the lake, and here was proof. Gail and Joel spend the story debating what it is, how to announce the monster's death, would they be believed, etc. It's very short and has a fairly abrupt ending, but I think Joe Hill captured the wonder and imagination of kids so beautifully here.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Childhood is a dark place sometimes, a place of endless imagination that feels so real it is almost palpable, a place of the hope and trust and faith we somehow seem to lose as we grow older, both frightening and strangely comforting. This story took me back to a particular summer day of my youth: riding bikes down the hill with the little boy next door, the wind in my hair, the sun on my skin. And while we found no monsters in the lake that day, the feeling was the same. With raw words and visceral storytelling, Joe Hill always makes me remember...and I love him for it. I love him for every word.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really nice story.

Even though it's a short one, it's got mystery and well.. a monster. The downside is that it's too short. I'd like to read more about it or the characters. It definitely has that Joe Hill vibe and Locke & Key is one of my all time favourites so no surprises there. Need to read all of his works.

If you're a fan of Joe Hill you should read it.

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a sweetly sad story. I wish it was longer, and we knew more about what happened next.....

[RedRedtheycallmeRed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short story that pretty aptly describes the language and imagination of kids. The ending was unsettling.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

this story was pretty cute and uproariously funny... the beginning pages made me laugh quite a lot, just picturing these four girls doing their imaginaryland little kid stuff was epic! the creature-y thing was quite the enigma too... rock and rope and want-it-to-be-real or actually actual... Joe Hill does the makebelieve world of children superbly here... i wonder how much of this type of imagination-bred fun and folly is lost with children being given smartphones, game consoles, and TV babysitters ad nauseam... the tale ends rather sorrowfully, and a tad abruptly too, but i think the ending fits the "what happened here, really?!?" vibe perfectly well...

[James Biser · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of a group of young people on an outing on the shores of Lake Champlain. Two of them come across “Champ” — the dinosaur-like creature that hypothetically lives in the lake. It is a good thrill story. I only gave it four stars because I was not crazy about the young people and their interactions.

[vk chompooming · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a solid short story, but for me, Silver Water needed more character development and more story

[ElphaReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

(originally reviewed at elphareads.tumblr.com . See full review there)

4.5 Stars

I decided that it was high time that I dust off the ol’ Kindle, as it had sat neglected for some time and I felt that it was in need of a revisit. I am pretty sure that the problem is that I like the feel of an actual print book in my hands more than I do my eReader, but that being said, what can I get on my Kindle that I would have a harder time getting print versions of? Short stories from one of my favorite authors, Mr. Joe Hill. While he has a collection of short stories in 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS (read it, it’s amazing), some of his newer ones are available as stand alone ditties on the Kindle. You can’t really be surprised that I had to get a couple for myself. The two I picked about a month ago were called TWITTERING FROM THE CIRCUS OF THE DEAD and BY THE SILVER WATER OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN. I sought out CIRCUS OF THE DEAD. SILVER WATER was more of a happy accident. But funnily enough, the happy accident I liked more than the deliberate choice. Let’s get down to it, because I have a lot of feelings about these stories.

A twelve year old girl named Gail is spending summer with her family in a house of Lake Champlain. Gail is still in the whimsical imaginative days of her childhood, which annoys her family, but she has a good friend named Joel who lives nearby. Why Gail and Joel are out exploring one hazy and foggy morning, they discover the body of a plesiosaur sea reptile, who they think has to be the famed Lake Champlain monster Champ. While they try to decide what to do, and dream of how famous they will become, Gail learns a hard lesson about growing up, mortality, and the dangers of our surroundings.

I just really loved this one. It has a very dark and fantastical element to it, of course. I mean, it’s about Champ the Lake Champlain Monster after all. But even more so it is about the pains of growing up and losing one’s innocence. I had to go back and re-read the last scene a couple of times, and after I did I felt like I had been punched in the feelings place a few dozen times. First of all, the atmosphere is creepy and melancholy both at once, on a foggy morning on the lake, with children looking for adventure while their parents are too hung over to really care about what they’re doing. The slight dysfunction in both families is hinted at, but never really thrown at the reader too hard. Hill writes sadness and grief and trauma so well, and not knowing what really happened, but knowing that Gail will never be the same, just made my heart ache for her. Honestly, I want more. The only reason this didn’t get a five star rating from me is because I want a novel that shows the kind of person Gail turns into, how her trauma and loss has shaped her, and I want her to revisit the Lake with not necessarily a mission of revenge, but with a need to understand what happened. Ugh, that last scene, that last LINE….

I’m overcome with emotions regarding this short story.

[Jorge Castanos · Rating 4 out of 5]

By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain es un relato de Joe Hill que vio la luz por primera vez en el 2012, en una antología que rendía homenaje al conocido autor Ray Bradbury. El libro tenía el nombre de Shadow Show: All-New Stories In Celebration of Ray Bradbury.

Esta historia no puede tener mejor nombre, ya que se desenvuelve casi en toda su totalidad por las aguas plateadas del Lago Champlain.

Gail y Joel son dos niños que hacen un gran descubrimiento: encuentran un dinosaurio muerto en las orillas del lago.
Mientras éstos buscan la manera de notificarles a sus padres sin alejarse del cadáver, ambos niños hablan sobre qué harán luego de entregar al monstruo; ¿pedir recompensa? ¿venderlo al museo? ¿hacer cadenas con los dientes?

Es una historia guiada más por un diálogo preciso y una atmósfera misteriosa.
A muchos podría parecerle una historia para niños con toques de misterio.
Los personajes están delineados de una manera exquisita y rica en detalles a pesar de la corta longitud del cuento (unas 80-100 páginas).

Es una historia inteligente, tierna y emocionante con un giro en las últimas páginas. Se puede leer de una sentada y no veo motivo alguno para no recomendar esta buena historia.

By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain me gustó mucho, tanto así que quería más.

Salió a la venta como Kindle Single el 29 de abril por un cómodo precio de 0.99 centavos por Amazon.

Me encantan estos pequeños cuentos de Joe Hill; debería planificarse y lanzar uno mensual

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great little story about "Champ", a cryptid allegedly living in Lake Champlain. But it's actually a story about childhood and the tender beginning of affection between a girl and a boy.
It has a little inkling of The Body (Stephen King's novella), and it shows that the accurate and rather likable description of children must run in the King's family.
It's short and you can read it in no time. I can't see no reason not to do it.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Nessie

Well, it's the latter part of the 1800s and Gail and Joel, best buddies and neighbors (you know, they might get married someday) make a find along the shore of Lake Champlain that even P.T. Barnum might be willing to pay big bucks for.

What they first assume is a boulder turns out to be much more wondrous than that. Now they just need to make their plans on what to do with their discovery and they need to figure out how to convince their parents that what they've found is real.

It's what they don't plan for that makes for a super ending to this short horror story.

Author Hill has done a super job of capturing the voices of the children in this tale. And the dynamics between siblings.

[Dusty Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short story was originally featured in Shadow Show, a tribute anthology to Ray Bradbury. It's another Joe Hill classic though I felt like the ending was a bit underdeveloped. The characters were great, though, and even without the promise of a lake monster the story would be enjoyable. Joe Hill is obviously a kid at heart as evidenced by this story, NOS4A2, Horns, and Voluntary Committal. His portrayal of children is authentic and touching.