In a genre still dominated by the reputation of Stephen King, Joe Hill might be the biggest name in horror literature this century.

Since bursting onto the scene in 2005 with his short story collection “20th Century Ghosts,” Hill has laid down an unbroken streak of ghoulish tales that expose the terrors of the modern world — from unfettered capitalism to the effects of PTSD on returning veterans. And he’s one of the few horror writers to regularly get screen adaptations, including the new Netflix production “In the Tall Grass,” which was co-written with King, Hill’s father. It begins streaming Friday, Oct. 4.

That story is one of the highlights of Hill’s new short story collection, “Full Throttle,” which goes on sale Tuesday, Oct. 1. The title reflects the relentless brutality of his work. Full of unhappy endings and an unflinching look at society, Hill calls to mind Harlan Ellison at his absolute best, with a penchant for cruel characters learning hard truths.

One of the highlights of the book is “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain,” which is about a group of kids who discover the corpse of that lake’s legendary monster, Champ, a rumored creature similar to the Loch Ness Monster. Of course, no one in the story believes what the kids find.

It’s a story inspired by Hill’s own experiences. During a phone call, Hill says his parents fled the United States for the United Kingdom in a rage following the pardoning of President Richard Nixon. Hill recalls that some of his earliest memories are of him begging his dad to take him to see the Loch Ness Monster.

Hill no longer believes Nessie lurks in the loch, but he does hold out hope for Champ.

“I think it’s eels,” Hill says of Nessie. “Eels grow to prodigious size in Loch Ness. Champ, though … I’m not saying there is a monster, but a ferry hit something (in Lake Champlain) and people on it saw something. And frankly, I do have a vested interest in spooking, outlandish bulls—.”

The only science fiction tale in the book, “All I Care About is You,” has a young girl renting a coin-operated best friend for her birthday as she rages against her invalid father and disappointing life.

Hill has a penchant for homunculi that strive to be loved by human society that mistreats them. He showcased the motif with his inflatable boy in the critically celebrated tale “Pop Art,” and the strange cloud woman in “Aloft,” which was part of his novella collection “Strange Weather.” In “All I Care,” Chip, the automaton, is seemingly indestructible as well as the perfect playmate. He gives a reader a glimpse at a creation that could truly be able to fill the holes in our hearts no matter how ragged those wounds might be after reality sticks and twists a knife in them. The story has a lesson, though, and it’s that even a perfectly matched being cannot change a person who has no desire to change.

“I think those characters are fun to write,” Hill says. “They want to be us, but we crush them.”

One of the scarier stories in “Full Throttle” is “Mums,” one of two written especially for the collection. In it, a young boy lives with his parents, who are part of the Patriot movement and sequester him from society. It’s a tale of right-wing paranoia and gun worship, the sort of thing Hill also wrote brilliantly about in his novella “Loaded.”

Hill’s monsters are often human, even when a true monster does (or maybe doesn’t) show up, and Hill shows his tight grasp of what makes people into banal but dangerous madmen.

“I think the national crop is paranoia,” Hill says. “I wanted to really get inside the minds of people like this and like the president. People for whom every conspiracy theory is just automatically true and they operate off that belief. They arm up against those beliefs.

“I could have written about mass shooters, but I was more interested in the ‘normal’ guy. He’s out there grilling on Sunday. He’ll lend you his lawnmower without a thought. And then on a Friday after a few drinks, he’ll take the gun out of the safe, point it at his wife, and ‘joke’ that if she ever leaves him he’ll kill her and her children with that gun.

“That’s way scarier than vampires.”

Joe Hill: Author appearance. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 1. Copperfields Books, 140 Kentucky St., Petaluma. Free. www.copperfieldsbooks.com