blogger beware: the goosebumps blog

2011-11-13T18:42:00.000-08:00

While Blogger Beware is on hiatus, have you considered exploring Shuelogy?

The Grim Prophecies of RL Stine Are Coming True

2011-10-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

(Courtesy of Blogger Beware reader Jane)

More Tales to Give You Goosebumps

2011-05-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

More Tales to Give You Goosebumps: Goosebumps Special Edition #2

Back Tagline: Reader Beware-- You're In For Ten Summertime Scares!

Official Summary: Is Matt's summer camp being taken over by an evil patch of poison ivy? Will Eric escape from his tank, now that he's been turned into a fish? Can Tara help the terrified voice she hears inside a beautiful seashell?
Find out in these ten creepy Goosebumps short stories perfect for reading around the campfire or under the covers!

As I'm sure you all remember from the last time I talked about these books some thirteen years ago, the first Special Edition Goosebumps gift set came exclusively packed with a logo-branded Itty Bitty Book Light. I had assumed that the exorbitant price of the hastily-compiled short story collection did little to help coat the pill of one of the earliest (and nowhere near last) cash-grabs in the history of the series. So even in retrospect it's somewhat surprising that the set sold well enough to warrant a second entry. Following in the true Goosebumps-fashion of when in doubt, recreate an existing product, this set's special feature is unbelievably another Itty Bitty Book Light. Surely kids aren't that dumb, right? Well, they made four more gift sets after this one, so add that to your Gen Y denunciations, American Media.

the Werewolf's First Night

How to write your very own Goosebumps short story:

Step 01
Name your main character (Sex unimportant, must be twelve years old)

Brian is twelve years old.

Step 02
Quickly introduce, then separate the parents from the protagonist

Brian's parents have signed him up for a day camp that appears to employ no counselors and only a handful of other kids enrolled. So basically they've signed him up to join a gang.

Step 03
Have protagonist jump to conclusions that eventually turn out to be false

Everyone at this camp is a werewolf.

Step 04
In stunning twist, have false conclusion bring about the actual conclusion, which must either be as or less credible than the perceived conclusion

No one at this camp is a werewolf. Except for Brian, who is a werewolf.

P.S. Don't Write Back
David Stevenson is having a great time at Camp Timber Lake Hills. He's keen on his bunkmates but not so keen on their grumpy camp counselor, Sam. Sam likes to tease David about how few letters he receives. And by few, I mean zero. And by tease, I mean mock. And by David, I mean David. Finally though, one day David has reason to wag his tail and wail when Sam announces that the camp's secretary found a letter addressed to him at the bottom of a drawer. But the letter's contents put a damper in this camper, as his mom has only written to tell him that they won't be visiting him on Visiting Day. Uh, is it even legal for them to refer to it as that, then? The note ends with the titular postscript:

Love,
Mom and Dad
PS: More Tales To Give You Goosebumps

This news bothers David, as he's a kid and the world revolves around him. Take comfort in knowing that at least this story revolves around you, David. David gets another letter the next day announcing that after camp ends, he is going to be sent to live with his Great-Uncle John. David's now very confused, as his life is starting to resemble a terrible Hallmark special: Great-Uncle John is 87 years old and probably not the best guardian for a child. Or is he? Watch Welcome to Gramp's Nightmare next Sunday at 8/7c, only on ION.

David sneaks into the offices to phone his mother (remember, this is a Goosebumps camp story, so the phones are OFF LIMITS) but is interrupted by Sam. On his way out, David notices a mistake in the letter addressed to him: It's for David Stevenson from Camp Timber Lane Hills. He's at Camp Timber Lake Hills, Camp Timber Lane Hills is across the lake. So the Lake is across the lake from the Lane in the hills, which sounds like the start of a Danny Kaye routine.

David comes up with a brilliant plan: Since the letters were obviously meant for a camper with his same name and family across the lake, he'll sneak over in a rowboat and deliver them. But the flaw in his reasoning is made clear when he encounters the other camp's David Stevenson and discovers he's some dead kid or something. David Alive shows the zombies some what for before quickly retreating back to his camp.

Upon arriving back, he makes the terrifying discovery that the camp across the lake burned down thirty years ago. He then checks the postmark on his letter and notices it's from 1964. Okay, so I get the first letter being stuck in a drawer, but where did that second letter come from? USPS is inefficient, sure, but not to the extent that they go so far bad that they circle back and inadvertently become efficient from a plot perspective. So, what I'm saying is, enjoy getting dumped at your uncle's, dude.

Something Fishy

In case you're convinced this one deserves more than my glib YouTube response, feast on this:

"Please don't flush me! Please don't flush your only son, Mom!"

You Gotta Believe Me!
A parable of class consciousness, Red Labor Stine has finally produced a work fit for the fit to work. A young child, free of technological ties to mass media, uses his spare time to survey the night sky for potential threats to the homeland. One night, the intrepid child spies colored lights in the sky. Upon investigating crop-circles at a for-profit farm, the boy is met with disgust from the bourgeois landowner and instructed to leave "his" land. The boy tries to tell his parents of his experience over breakfast the next morning, but his father, distraught from the news of local plant shutting its doors on the unionized workers, speaks only to his son of "Another defeat for the workers." The child respects his father's compassion for his brothers, but presses the importance of the alien threat.

That night, in the spirit of communal ownership, the boy "borrows" his father's camera in order to snap photographic surveillance of the aerial invaders. The child snakes back to the farm and witnesses the alien crafts land in the fields of the bougie baddie, who luckily is spotted from his living room window, enraptured by the false comforts of television. The boy overhears the plans of the alien race to enslave the common man via mass televised signal the following night. The boy is caught by the creatures and feigns hypnosis to buy his freedom. After the aliens release him, he takes $140 worth of aluminum foil on credit from the local capitalist merchant and creates a giant foil screen to scramble the signal and foul the aliens' plot. His plan is successful, proving that there ain't no party like the communist party cuz the communist party stops aliens.

Suckers!
The only thing worth mentioning about story, other than it being one big "Oh cool, I've seen the Blob and Creepshow 2," is that it takes place on "Black Island."

Dr. Horror's House of Video
Ben Adams is a huge horror fan, so he's spent his entire summer vacation indoors watching scary movies. As the story opens, he's watching a flick about a plant that lifts its victims "Up Up Up". I dunno, a plant that gets people high... who'd ever believe that?

But all bud things must come to a spent and his mom eventually boots Ben out of the house. Like many have done in his situation before him, Ben goes to the video store. Only this is no ordinary video store... it's Dr. Horror's House of Video? It's no surprise that the owner is stuck running a video store, as I could have told him that a doctorate in horror has about as much real job market value as an undergraduate degree in broadcasting.

Things go from sad to sadder when it is revealed that Dr. Horror is an amateur low budget horror filmmaker. Dr. Horror shows him a scene from his latest opus, Lizardman, but Ben gets dragged off before he can finish watching. But one cannot watch only part of a part-lizard, part-man movie, so Ben races back the following day to finish viewing the film. The store is closed but Ben goes in anyways, since breaking and entering in the Goosebumps world is about as frowned upon as MDMA use in Skins. Ben finishes the film but now finds the front door locked. Luckily there's a back door... leading right to Dr. Horror's makeshift garage studio. Rather than being upset that Ben's broken into his closed business, Dr. Horror Swanbergs him into starring in the new Lizardman sequel. But first he must call his parents to get permission for a strange doctor to tape him doing various acts in his garage.

Unfortunately, before Ben can Gerwig out for Dr. Horror, the entire cast of the General Mills Breakfast Brigade descends on the boy and is suddenly dawns on him that hey, wait a minute, slasher-style horror movies only serve to fuel misanthropic misogynistic angst on the part of the viewer by feeding into their basest fantasies borne out of social rejection.

the Cat's Tale
Marla is upset that her family packed up and moved from NYC to River Falls. She misses taxis. She misses her friends. She misses Friends. She misses the total lack of anything resembling legroom at the Film Forum. But at least River Falls has thunderstorms! Apparently it never rains in NYC, which will be news to NYC.

Marla's family takes advantage of the storm to start exchanging spooky tales, but like RL Stine, Marla has no interest in telling scary stories. She'd much rather prefer for a large black cat to jump through the open window and attack her. She's in luck! Marla begs her parents to let her keep the cat and they relent. Marla jumps at the opportunity to shower her new pet with attention but her attention is diverted when her new pet jumps into the shower with her. No, I'm not going to make that joke. Stop looking for it.

Turns out the cat is trying to steal Marla's life before it runs out of its nine lives or something. And there's cat whispering.

Shell Shocker
Tara and Tommy are arguing about who has rightful claim to a beautiful seashell found washed ashore at the beach. Tommy only wants it to listen to the ocean, even though Tara knows you can't really hear the ocean inside a shell. Tara desperately wants the shell as her own and envisions an elaborate reception awaits her subsequent arrival at school with the shell in tow. And yet somehow she finds time to make fun of her brother for being stupid?

Tara wins and when she humors her brother, she hears a dim voice from within the shell crying out to be saved. Tara believes the voice and follows its directions towards an out of the way cave where she is promised the biggest seashell in the world if she helps the being trapped in the smaller shell. And so it goes, as Tara is tricked into traveling deep within the cave and is greeted with her prize: the giant shell. And inside, of course, is the giant hermit crab, who snatches her in its claws as the little voice from within the smaller shell cries out to his mother that he's tricked yet another victim. So, okay, this one was actually pretty good.

Poison Ivy
Leave it be.

the Spirit of the Harvest Moon
Jenny and her family camp out at a friendly nearly-abandoned lodge deep in the woods. Their first night in the cabins, Jenny hears a ghostly voice call out her name. The next day she is warned that the lodge is haunted and should the ghost catch her on the night of the harvest moon, she will be forced to live a year as mist. This is some threat, because I didn't want to see the Mist for two hours, so I certainly wouldn't want to be it for a year. She tries to laugh off the warning, but the friendly cabin hand tells her if she thinks she can escape the wrath of the spiritual delinquents, she's got another thing comin'!

Harvest moon night arrives and Jenny becomes convinced that Tyler, the twelve year old son of the cabin owners, is actually the spirit he warned against. Her suspicions seemingly prove accurate when Tyler starts banging on her door, demanding she come a little bit closer and hear what he has to say. Luckily, her dog, Bravo, chases after the boy and scares away the spirit for good. Only, turns out he wasn't the spirit at all, as the dog then turns to Jenny and spookily intones, "Roll that ethereal being footage." I guess his bark was worse than his sprite?

Here's to a Blogger Beware season that's all summer, no bummer!

Look Back in Languor

2011-05-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

So, everyone wants a retrospective on the Series 2000 books. It's probably my fault, as I'm sure I at some point promised such a thing to be forthcoming. But I meant that in the same way I say, "We should really hang out some time, and not in that way people say 'Let's hang out,' but really hang out" and then we don't ever hang out. So we should retrospective, right? Well, here's the rub: I can't remember, like, all of these books. Either I read them again, which is never going to happen ever in a million evers, or I do this: Write down everything I can remember about each book, from memory, without checking. Results may vary.

01 Cry of the Cat
Okay, I remember a couple things from this book. One, a cat gets decapitated with a bike. Two, there's a cat tornado made of cats. When those are your one and two, who needs a three?

02 Bride of the Living Dummy
I recall Slappy giving some girl a "love tap." I also recall that because Blogger sux, I can't edit that entry without messing up the "FUCK THIS BOOK" text rainbow.

03 Creature Teacher
Um, there's a teacher who's also a monster that eats children if they don't perform well at a talent show. Very realistic commentary on something. Certainly not education. Almost surely not talent shows or monsters or eating, either.

04 Invasion of the Body Squeezers: Pt 1
I think this is the one about hugging.

05 Invasion of the Body Squeezers: Pt 2
Or is it this one?

06 I Am Your Evil Twin
Probably not this one. I do vaguely recall there being a truck with a scientist in this one, though. This seemed like a much funnier idea when I thought I'd remember anything at all about these books.

07 Revenge R Us
Lite R ally R emember nothing about this one.

08 Fright Camp
Okay, this is the one where the kids go to a camp that's run by a Wes Craven-type character. And there's a raccoon-type animal on the cover. It's probably a raccoon.

09 Are You Terrified Yet?
No idea what this is. So, no.

10 Headless Halloween
I don't remember a single thing about this one, either. Like, I can't even picture the cover right now. Possibly this book doesn't exist. Get Trump on the horn.

11 Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls
This is the one where the kid gets tricked into switching bodies with a dead person in the graveyard and then the zombies run around in the streets with axes, chopping up car windows and setting fires. This one, oddly enough, was a relevant commentary on education, talent shows, monsters, and eating.

12 Brain Juice
Finally, one I actually remember. Some kids run afoul of aliens who want to make everyone dumb or smart or something. Okay, so "remember" is relative. I at least can recall the existence of this book.

13 Return to Horrorland
There's a news crew that wants the kids from the original to go undercover at the park, but then it turns out the crew is actually in cahoots with the park or the government or something. Let's build an entire series around that

14 Jekyll and Heidi
I think remembering this one is cheating since surely it's a Jekyll and Hyde story?

15 Scream School
Kid who pranks another kid is a dead kid. Book sets up unlikely hoax involving a movie set or something. Drop Dead Fred was on the cover. Next.

16 the Mummy Walks
How is it that I can recall the Celery Stalks at Midnight, which I haven't read in twenty-two years, but I can't remember anything about this book I read a couple years ago?

17 the Werewolf in the Living Room
Awful werewolf story, even by Stine's standards, that takes a weird turn two-thirds through with the main character being kidnapped by some sort of carny.

18 Horrors of the Black Ring
I remember this entry being really funny. Is that narcissistic of me? To be fair, I can't even remember what I wrote for most of these, much less what the source material was.

19 Return to Ghost Camp
Gay camp story, and no, that's not redundant.

20 Be Afraid-- Be Very Afraid!
Oh man, this is the most ridiculous Goosebumps book ever. So much so that I actually remember parts of it, with its time travel and card playing and Jumanjing. Glad I wisely resisted a My Sister Sam joke in this entry, that's what I recall most fondly.

21 the Haunted Car
Kid loves cars we've heard of slightly less than a car no one's ever heard of.

22 Full Moon Fever
Awful werewolf story, even by Stine's standards, that takes a weird turn two-thirds through with the main character being greeted by a werewolf in the living room.

23 Slappy's Nightmare
Slappy must do good deeds for some reason. Turns out another dummy is counteracting his good deeds with bad ones. Stretches believability with premise that more than one sentient doll could be gallivanting around someone's house without anyone noticing.

24 Earth Geeks Must Go!
Earth geeks went.

25 Ghost in the Mirror
Let's Get Indefensible!

Well, there's only one way left to salvage this retrospective:

Series 2000 #25 Ghost in the Mirror

2011-04-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

Goosebumps Series 2000 # 25 Ghost in the Mirror

Brief Synopsis
Jason is constantly being tormented by his older sister, Claudia. One time she tied a string to a dead rat and made Jason think it was alive (Claudia somehow thought she came out the winner on that prank). Another time she threw cooked spaghetti in between his sheets and he freaked out because he thought they were snakes. Snakes. Yes Jason, shoestring snakes, that's a perfectly logical conclusion to reach. She even torments him by mocking the fact that he still has to sleep in modified baby furnishings because his family can't afford to upgrade his bedroom set. This is just adding insult to injury, though, as suffering through Tiny Furniture is certainly punishment enough already.

Several weeks later, Jason's parents surprise him with some new wares they picked up at a garage sale: A battered dresser with a couple jammed drawers and a large antique mirror. Jason admires the new additions but finds himself uncomfortably drawn to the mirror, despite possessing neither a digital camera nor a MySpace account.

Somewhat inexplicably, Jason calls his friend Fred over to come see his new mirror and dresser. These new acquisitions lack much drawering power for Fred, even after Jason brags about how the mirror reflects the posters on his wall. What is the proper reaction from his friend supposed to be, exactly? "Holy shit, dude, you mean that mirror is a mirror?!"

As though looking at second-hand furniture wasn't exciting enough, the book kicks it into high gear with a couple pages of the two boys playing a video game called "NBA Basketball." I guess there might be a way to make a long description of someone else playing a video game interesting, but we'll never know with lines like this:

The crowd on the screen cheered. The score changed.

For some reason, Fred wants to leave all this excitement and go home. On his way out, he mentions that he spied something weird moving in the mirror. On the floor in front of the glass, Jason spies a yellowed sheet of paper with a threat penned in "old-fashioned-looking, fancy writing." Calligrapher beware, you're in for a scare! Jason blames his sister, who denies having written the note, but uses the opportunity to trick him into seeing a ghost, which causes Jason to let out a cry and spill his Coke on the carpet. RL Stine apparently forgot what he was writing almost as fast as his readers, because in the next paragraph Jason's using a mop to clean up the spilled soda. The reader is tragically deprived of several pages of detailed cleaning, even though it would be about as or more exciting than the video game play by play which preceded.

As disinterested as Jason's best friend is in the mirror, at least man's best friend gets something out of it: Jason finds his dog, Buzzy, barking at the mirror. A dog barking at a mirror is awarded an entire chapter. When the dog later starts growling and attacks Jason by trying to tear out his throat, we're given a couple paragraphs. Because that clearly is nowhere near as interesting as a video game about basketball.

Or hockey. Fred and Jason are passing around the puck in their video game when Fred takes a break to look at himself in the mirror. That's when the two boys notice that the mirror is reflecting Buzzy, even though he's not in the room. So much excitement makes Jason thirsty, so he excuses himself from his room to grab a Coke to spill when he returns to find Fred has vanished. While looking around the house for his missing friend, his parents tell him they rented "an old Hitchcock movie," which is good, because renting a new one would be some feat. They assure him that it's a "scary" one, but Jason wisely opts out of watching Topaz.

Jason checks back in his room again and hears something in his closet. Upon opening the door, a red-eyed creature leaps out at him, causing him to respond, "Oh no, not an esoteric representation of the impermeability of death in Thai culture!" Turns out it's just Sister Claudia Who Can Recall Her Past Halloween Costumes, as she has just slipped on a mask to spook the easily spookable Jason. Okay, in all fairness, if I'm already in an emotionally vulnerable state and someone jumps out of my closet at me, I'd probably spill the metaphorical Coke too.

As he drifts off to sleep that night, Jason can hear the odd barks of his dog, locked up in the garage so as to prevent more throat-attacks/Coke-spillings. Jason is soon distracted by another noise though, that of Buzzy's whimpering, which is coming from inside the mirror. Despite being terrified, he does not spill any further Coke.

Fred reappears at school the next day, only, like Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn before him, he's... different. His sports abilities go from Lane to Kobe Bryant and this newfound prowess leads Jason to jokingly suggest that he's "possessed." In an intense moment that nearly causes Jason to spill his Gatorade, Fred gets very exorcist-off and tells Jason to never say that. It's then Fred's turn to spill some choke, as he knocks Jason to the ground and begins attacking and pummeling his friend's face until his nose bloodies.

That night, Jason is awoken by heavy breathing that appears to come from the mirror. Things take a turn for the What. as Jason spies a mysterious cloud-like figure emerging from the mirror. The being grabs Jason and tries to take him into the mirror or something. Jason passes out and wakes up on his bedroom floor. He then meets his ghost, who tells him that he just died of fright and should therefore come with him into the mirror.

Before Jason can walk through the mirror, he's stopped by the bark of his dog Buzzy and the pleas of his friend Fred. Jason wises up and resists entering the now-black mirror. His ghost grows angry and tries to push him into the mirror. When that doesn't work, the ghost turns itself inside out and reveals, well, let's let Jason take this one:

"You lied to me! You're not my ghost! You're a monster!"

The book seriously turns into an acid trip at this point. The weird monster thing tries to drag the kid into the mirror and he resists as long as he can, grabbing a small hand mirror from within the dresser in the process. He throws the smaller mirror in front of the larger one while falling into the big mirror and suddenly the reflections of the reflections of the reflections (c'mon folks, you've seen a mirror before) multiply his monster threat from one to hundreds of monsters all primed to slaughter Jason. Jason backs away as quick as he can and falls back through the mirror again. This probably makes a lot more sense if you're on acid while reading, too.

Jason watches for a little while as the monsters attack each other before hollering for his parents. Because horrible mirror creatures need more victims? His parents arrive and, wouldn't you know it, the monsters are nowhere to be found in the mirror. Jason proves that there were monsters in the mirror by walking into the mirror and injuring his shoulder as he bumps up against the solid glass. His parents chastise him for spilling the awoke.

The next morning, Jason is shocked to discover that Buzzy has apparently burst out of his holding cell in the garage. Riding past Fred's house, he's even more shocked to spy that all of the windows on Fred's home have been shattered. And the rule of threes applies as Jason is finally shocked to discover Fred in the driveway, holding a large car over his head. There are people inside the car and Jason pleas with his friend to quit before he spills the folk. Getting nowhere, Jason speeds away from the scene as a cadre of cops arrive, guns drawn.

That night at dinner, Jason pledges to go back inside the mirror one more time to rescue Fred and Buzzy, who he reasons are stuck inside the mirror. At no point during dinner does his family bring up the fact that his best friend was just swarmed by cops after literally holding up a family. Once in his room, Jason swiftly enters the mirrorworld and falls off a mirror cliff into a mirror hall where he meets up with Fred and Buzzy, neither mirrors. The three journey into a long mirrored corridor until they come upon the mirror that looks out into Jason's room. The two boys try breaking the mirror but have no luck. Jason gets out the magical small mirror from earlier and trains it on Fred, producing multiple Freds to push together on the mirror. This still doesn't work. In frustration, Jason trains the mirror on the mirror and it burns a hole large enough for the three to escape through. Once inside the "real" world, Fred quickly runs home, leaving Jason alone to face off against... Jason. Jason spills the croak on his doppelganger by pulling out his eyes. He then hurls a lamp at the mirror, shattering it into a thousand pieces. The whole family enters upon hearing the noise and Claudia chastises that Jason will get seven years bad luck for spilling the broke.

But the Twist Is
Jason's cleanup is interrupted by a snake-like creature who emerges from the dresser and spills the provoke by asking Jason if he got his warning note.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship
Jason and his sister Claudia, who spills her joke halfway through Jason spilling his Coke.

Questionable Parenting
Jason's parents debate whether they should send Jason to a doctor for help with his delusions, but reason that since he doesn't have a fever, he must be fine.

Questionable Frightening
Early in the book, Claudia points to a closed window and shouts out a warning to Jason about hornets, to which he predictably freaks out. To be fair, maybe he though someone had brought a DVD copy of The Green Hornet into his room, which would certainly threaten the well-being of even the bravest among us.

Late 90s Cultural References
Jason has some sweet WWF posters on his wall-- it's eventually revealed to be the wrestling one, but for a while there I was having fun picturing this kid bragging about having some kick-ass panda pix up in his room.

Out of Context Text Alert
But I could hear the steady breaths at my side...
"Hunnnnh... hunnnnh... hunnnnh..."
I shut my eyes tightly, as if trying to shut out the terrifying sound. My hands suddenly felt cold and wet. I wiped them on my pajama bottoms. Chill after chill swept down my back.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending
Ch. 12/13:
We've traced the bark, it's coming from inside the mirror!

Great Prose Alert
"Did you watch the wrestling show on cable last night?"

Conclusions
No one moved away or got married. Kind of a lame series finale.

No need to spill the heartbroke: Thanks to a fan at Scholastic who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, Blogger Beware has a set of Horrorland books ready to go. See you next week, gang.

Series 2000 #24 Earth Geeks Must Go!

2011-04-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

Dr. Cass Tatum, Notes on my psychiatric session with Troy Steele, 04/11/2011

After entering my offices, Mr. Steele attempted to sit in my leather-backed plush chair. After gentle prodding, Mr. Steele was persuaded to sit on the couch facing opposite me. Upon being prompted for his current emotive state, Mr. Steele simply waved a pipe feyly in the air and made vague dismissive tones. I asked him to kindly return my pipe to the side table where he found it. He declined and attempted a poor René Magritte reference. I had been warned to watch out for such referential behaviors and countered with a quick, "Pipe down." This quip silenced the young roustabout and allowed us to begin.

I began the session-proper by engaging Mr. Steele in some simple background questions. After some particularly evasive and antagonistic answers (Q: Where did you go to school? A: Oh, I went to the University of I Hope You Die of Poisoning), Mr. Steele began to open up about his continued absence from the internet. Mr. Steele had previously been the proprietor of a popular web-site, Blogging Anywhere, and it was his continued absence from this internet journal that had prompted several of my patients to mention his plight in passing. However, as our discussion progressed, Mr. Steele proved less interested in questioning the limited mental acumen required to mock cheap books written for small children and far more invested in discussing his current difficulty in writing a new update. After several minutes of feverish plot description of the book in contention, I paused our session to fetch a tape recorder. So fantastical and confounding were the words coming out of Mr. Steele's mouth, I knew for certain that I would not be able to do justice to the madness unless I could transcribe it directly.

Doctor: Sorry about that. Now you were saying that in the-- I thought I asked you to please not play with that pipe. It's been in my mouth, you know.

(The patient then heaved pipe across the room. I later found it wedged between the leaves of one of my many office ficuses)

Patient: Why do you leave things that have been in your mouth just lying around? That's disgusting. I thought doctors were hygienic?

Doctor: I'm not that kind of doctor.

(Patient holds up empty pill bottle)

Patient: So, I'm not going to be able to get this filled while I'm here?

Doctor: Mr. Steele, you were telling me about this children's book that was difficult for you to read. Would you mind telling me about it again, for the sake of posterity?

Patient: Well, I guess posterity's never done anything to cross me, so sure. So it's called Earth Geeks Must Go, and right away we're introduced to this kid named Jacob, who tells the reader that he's just an ordinary kid. He goes through a lot of trouble at the beginning of the book to convince the reader that he's ordinary and boring and not even remotely interesting. Well, other Goosebumps characters convinced me of that without going through nearly as much work. Jacob gets an eh for effort though and opens the book by describing himself as nondescript-- which in retrospect is some feat, really-- and listing the dull things that he's into, which are bland enough to double for the Facebook interests of anyone who graduated from state college with a business degree. But despite all this front-loaded detail, Jacob shortly finds that once his first day of school arrives, he can't remember anything about himself. He finds himself in a strange classroom in a strange school being taught strange lessons in a strange language, a scenario that could only be described as--

Doctor: Heteromorphic?

Patient: Exactly. Things only get worse when he goes to eat lunch and all his new classmates start shoving their food into their armpits.

Doctor: What.

Patient: Yeah, and that's one of the major plot hinges, too. Everyone else in the school is shoving food into holes in their armpits and they actually get physically ill when they spy Jacob trying to put a sandwich in his mouth.

Doctor: Is it possibly meant to be some sort of anorexia commentary?

Patient: Bulimia maybe, because you'll definitely want to throw up after a few pages of teethed-armpit-eating. But luckily Jacob catches the eye of a short-banged classmate who isn't shoving food under her arm and they sneak outside to discuss what's going on. Turns out this girl, Arlene, also eats normally and she too can't remember how she got to the school. While trying to figure out what's going on, the two kids are attacked by scores of gross hairy bugs called Splatters. While the two roll around trying to fend off the attack, a gaggle of their new classmates gather around and fend off the insects' assault with high pitched singing. See, here's where I'd make a reference to a musician with an unusual or unappealing voice.

Doctor: Why?

Patient: Because people like feeling smart enough to get pop culture references that are even remotely obscure, which lends my site an esoteric vibe that all so-called outsider comedy thrives on. Also references are way easier to write than real jokes.

Doctor: So, for instance, if you were to say that the two kids were anxious to thank Judy Holliday for coming to their rescue--

Patient: Exactly. See, this stuff writes itself.

Doctor: But it obviously doesn't if you take so long to write an update.

Patient: Well, see, the problem is rarely the books, no matter how terrible they are. The problem is that I feel like I've already done all I can within the format I've established. There's only so many times I can say the same thing. I mean, do you realize that there are like eight books all about an evil ventriloquist dummy?

Doctor: I'm confused, I thought these were books for kids. Why would kids want to read about ventriloquism?

Patient: And that's the least of the series' problems. All these Goosebumps books follow a clear formula of artificial threats mixed with ludicrous actual threats, coupled with a dozen or more recurrent conventions that I studiously document every entry. And then, every once in a while, the author will just throw in some weird garbage that unfolds for six or seven pages before being revealed to be a dream. RL Stine loves non sequitur dream sequences like Tumblr users love Skins. Ack, see, I can't stop!

Doctor: I guess in a sense even your being here is a reference, since you were referred to me!

(The patient proceeded to give me a stern, disapproving glare)

Doctor: Sorry... So, you were saying that the entries themselves are hard to write?

Patient: No, that's not it. It's just that I kind of feel like all of the nostalgic glee that used to fuel my earlier entries has been replaced with easy tomato-lobbing-- I didn't read these more recent books when I was a kid, it's hard for me to figure the appeal this new series has for anyone, and thus making fun of something that obviously sucks seems like something less than a challenge.

Doctor: So, if it's not fun anymore, why not quit?

Patient: "Quit"? That's your advice? You are a terrible doctor, unless you are an addiction specialist, in which case you are a wonderful doctor. No, not only am I not going to quit, I'm going to go back to a regular update schedule. I just have to figure out a way to not bore myself writing these updates. And if that means that occasionally I have to do a self-indulgent meta entry, then so be it.

Doctor: Well, would anyone even want to read that?

Patient: Of course! There's a reason why everyone's favorite M. Night Shyamalan movie is Lady in the Water.

Doctor: Uh, actually--

Patient: Anyway, we got sidetracked there for a moment. Let's talk about those gross bugs.

Doctor: Oh right, I forgot all about that.

Patient: Don't sweat it, I forgot all about it while I read it. Anyway, from what I can recall, what happens next is the two kids are approached outside the school by a disheveled-looking man in a raincoat, and afraid that he wants these Earth geeks to come, the kids hightail it away from him. The two struggle to remember where they came from and Jacob vaguely recalls one of the houses around the block looking familiar. Once inside the house, the two start watching TV and learn that the planet they are on is under invasion by "Earth Geeks." Oh, and I forgot to mention, instead of creating a unique and interesting alternate reality, Stine just makes this world slightly weirder than our own and smudges words.

Doctor: What does that mean, he smudges words?

Patient: Well, instead of signifying a new language, he merely presents familiar-sounding words with their letters smudged-- things like "trelth grade" and "double meener." It's really snucking flupid.

Doctor: I snee mut you did mere.

Patient: Anyway, uh, how we doing on time?

Doctor: We could wrap this up anytime. I do have a sandwich waiting for me in the fridge, but, you know, it's in the fridge, so it's not like it's going to go bad.

Patient: Unless the fridge breaks.

Doctor: Why would you say that?

Patient: Huh?

Doctor: Why would the fridge break?

Patient: I don't know. I was just making polite small talk.

Doctor: What do you know about the fridge? What did you do to it?

Patient: Nothing, jeez! Can we get back to my session?

Doctor: You'd like that, wouldn't you? While we talk and talk, the fridge gets less and less... fridge...ed...er. Very clever, getting me to talk about children's books when my sandwich is in peril. Now, if you're excuse me.

(Several minutes pass)

Doctor: Okay, well, I'm sorry about that. Go ahead and continue, please.

Patient: Look, I'll level with you: I'm not really here for psychiatric slash therapeutic slash whatever kind of doctor you are-ic care. I just parked in your garage while I went to go see Hanna across the street and didn't realize that the theater didn't validate parking.

Doctor: You're aware that an hour session here costs way more than it would cost to validate parking, aren't you?

Patient: Well, it would, if I had any intention of ever paying you.

Doctor: I've really got to stop opening sessions with the parking validation. Okay, fine, but can you do me a favor and let me know how the story turns out. Call it morbid curiosity.

Patient: Well, she shoots Cate Blanchett.

Doctor: Not the movie you saw, the children's book!

Patient: That was the book. Like I said, Stine's a master of the non sequitur.

After our session ended, I sought out the rest of the story online, in the form of a Wikipedia entry on the novel. It was from there that I discovered that the strange dirty man was really the father of Jacob and Arlene, and that these "Earth geeks" had been taken to this new planet by those gross insects and armed with a secret bomb. Jacob diffuses the bomb and unleashes a screeching siren that kills the bugs. The weird people on the new planet hail the "Earth geeks" as heroes, but this is not enough for the family and they travel in an experimental rocket ship back home, only to discover upon arrival on "Earth" that everyone has lizard heads. This is then followed in the Wiki entry by the word "BOOBS" repeated sixty times. That Stine really is the master of the non-sequitor!

I'll get right on that, Boss

2011-04-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

"You're 2 1/2 years late on your regular update schedule, Bloggie B"

The Horror, The Horror(land)

2010-12-31T12:32:00.000-08:00

Why do people on the internet still outbid me on Goosebumps books? Don't they know I'm a celebrity

Series 2000 #23 Slappy's Nightmare

2010-10-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

Goosebumps Series 2000 23 Slappy's Nightmare

Front Tagline: Sweet Screams!

Brief Synopsis:
The book begins with a depiction of a rowdy theatre audience "eager" for ventriloquism, so already this is one of the more fantastical Goosebumps adventures. A dummist with the unlikely name of Jimmy O'James attempts to share his ventriloquy with the audience, but wouldn't you know it, his dummy Slappy interferes with the ventriloquist's plans for boring the audience by entertaining them with insults, threats, and physical violence. Slappy has lots of gross and insulting things to lob at the kids in attendance and the audience members are more than willing to lend him their ear. Literally. Slappy bites into a child's ear mid-performance and refuses to let go for several paragraphs as the child howls out in pain. When Slappy finally lets the kid's ear go, the child slumps down onto the stage in an unconscious heap. Then Slappy, who's being led offstage by Jimmy, leaves the audience with a siren song of his own: A screeching whistle that leaves all other kids in attendance clutching their heads in agony, with one girl crying out

"It feels like there's a knife in my ears!"

Hey, enjoy the free WAVVES concert, kid.

Backstage, Jimmy O'James raises a good point unanswered by this book: Why would Slappy sabotage the reputation of his only outlet for exposure? Slappy argues that his new brand of cartoonish offensiveness and contempt for the audience will be revolutionary, and O'James reminds him that the world already has one Sarah Silverman too many. Slappy tries to come up with a new unfunny way to say someone is ugly before being alerted by O'James to the small wooden box in the dressing room. Slappy opens the carton to reveal a doll identical to himself. Slappy then actually gives a compliment-- to himself, for looking so good. O'James tells Slappy that he went to the same evil toy maker who created him and got another doll named Wally. Because when you're stuck with one horrible thing, a good solution is to double it. O'James reveals that the evil sorcerer / toy maker / other ridiculous identifier revealed how to channel Slappy's evil into another dummy.

Slappy doesn't like the sound of this siphoned sorcery and tears off Wally's head. He then tries to do the same to O'James before being rudely interrupted by a pair of sisters with the even unliklier surname of Boonshoft. Georgia Boonshoft is quite interested in O'James abilities, but her boor of a sister, Stella, has red hair, so of course she's a terrible human being. The two unpleasant girls trade insults so efficiently that they effectively render Slappy more redundant than any sorcerer's spell ever could. Jimmy excuses himself from their sniping and casts a spell on Slappy requiring him to commit three good deeds within a week or face death. He warns Slappy that he'll be watching and then gives the cursed doll to the two girls as a gift. Well, secret monitoring of two preteens by an entertainer can only turn out well.

If only the Biblical warning against casting girls before Stine had been heeded. Unfortunately, once again, the abusive doll is going to be placed in the hands of some young female victims. Only this time it's different, as he's going to be a better man. Yeah, I've seen this Tyler Perry movie and it doesn't end well (for the viewer, at least). Thankfully however, Slappy does not offer pandering relationship advice while dressed as an elderly black matron, but he does try his best to try his best.

His first attempt at a good deed finds him cleaning up Georgia's room while she sleeps. If kids don't want to clean their rooms in real life, why would they escape into a book that depicts such an action in great detail? And of course, after all of Slappy's hard work, he awakes to discover someone has undone his good deed and wrecked the place. Georgia of course blames Stella, who angrily denies having caused the damage. Slappy doesn't back off as easily, as he takes Stella aside and threatens her with a reverse-puppet:

"The next time you ruin my good deed, I'm going to stick my hand so far down your throat, you'll have splinters in your stomach!"

Stella runs to tell her mom. Slappy overreacts and resigns himself to having to kill all three now that his secret is out. Frailty, thy name is wooden. Fortunately, the parent in this book behaves the exact same way as every other parent in every other Goosebumps book, several of which Slappy himself should already be familiar with, and he is able to put his murder-spree on pause.

The next morning, Mrs. Boonshoft tells Georgia of poor Mrs. Kramer's daughter, Maggie, who is now confined to a wheelchair, and how much a ventriloquism show would cheer her up. With a subtlety befitting the family's namesake, Stine takes a plotline featuring a character in a wheelchair pretty much exactly where you'd expect. Maggie gets pushed down a hill and hits a van. Well, now disabled women are getting targeted. This is getting specific!

Even though she distracted by a squirrel, Stella insists Slappy must have pushed Maggie's wheelchair. Hey, I like watching some squirrels too

But even I don't such jump to such insane conclusions quite so freely. Slappy knows he didn't push the girl and decides that since Stella is trying to ruin his good deeds, he'll have to kill her. I know it's difficult to see the flaw in the logic here, but try.

Mrs. Boonshoft too is now convinced that Stella pushed the girl in the wheelchair, and around this point I realized that it's pretty hard to even figure which of the girls is the protagonist before it dawned on me that it's supposed to be the doll. Uh, if I wanted to sit through a work of fiction celebrating an insufferable asshole, I'd watch As Good As It Gets, and I would not watch As Good As It Gets.

Slappy enacts his devious plan to kill a preteen girl. He sneaks into Stella's room, only to be greeted with the swing of an axe across his head. Stella chops Slappy to splinters and the doll reacts by... waking up. That's right, this book has a dream sequence from a doll. ARE YOU FUCKING WHAT.-ING ME?

In a twist worthy of RL Stine, Slappy then enters Stella's room and is hit over the head with a metal baseball bat. I don't really know much about sports, but now that's what I call a Slam Dunk! Stella claims she thought the walking dummy was a burglar. What is a 20" burglar going to get away with besides shoes and any valuables left on the bottom shelf of bookcases? While the girls argue, Slappy debates whether or not killing Stella would take up too much time. Given that his track record with killing people still stands at zero, he's probably right to reconfigure his time management.

Slappy gets another chance to not kill Stella when Georgia takes him across the street to babysit two-year-old Robby. Later that night, Slappy overhears a strange sound from Robby's room and discovers his blanket tied around his neck. Slappy first pauses to delight in the infant's accidental strangulation, because it's been a couple pages since I've read something really horrible, then proceeds to do a good deed by untangling him. Slappy walks away knowing he finally did his first good deed. Unfortunately, when Robby's parents arrive home, they find their son hung up in the drapes. What personal issues was the author of this book working through, exactly?

Slappy, faced with sabotage yet again, tries to figure out why Stella is behaving like him. He admires her work, but reasons that it's not normal for a kid to act like an evil ventriloquist doll. I don't think this counts as an epiphany, because duh. Slappy reasons that yes, he does have to kill her so that he may live. After all:

Evil is live spelled backwards.

I don't think that counts either.

Slappy decides to smother Stella in her sleep. His plan is interrupted by the victim, who snaps a Polaroid of the dummy in action. Unfortunately the blurry photo looks like Slappy is at worst short-sheeting her bed. Stella freaks out and starts kicking Slappy all over the room as her sister and mother watch with a mixture of confusion and embarrassment.

Mrs. Boonshoft asks Georgia to lock Slappy in her closet, but Georgia reminds her mother that she's taking Slappy to school with her tomorrow. I've heard of Show and Tell, but Show Her Hell? Hahahhahahaa sorry, I let Slappy write that one for me. It's no worse than the over abundance and over indulgence of the jokes Georgia practices with her dummy, such as

Q: Why are you so bad?
A: Because I'm made of naughty pine!

That's so funny I forgot to Lagerstroemia.

Georgia is nervous about performing her act for her classmates during their lunch, as only last week the school jazz band received a great response at the same venue. A great response from middle schoolers to a jazz band during lunch has to be indifference, right? Also, how could something that could never exist get any response at all? Nevertheless, Georgia begins her act and receives mostly awkward silence from the eating audience. Slappy isn't really paying attention to Georgia even though her hand is inside him, as he's just spotted Stella's trademark purple hat and knows she's there to sabotage him yet again.

Slappy loses it and then loses Georgia's hand as he leaps off her and into the crowded lunchroom. This effectively freaks everyone out and the walking dummy pursues the purple-hatted figure only to discover that it's Wally, the identical dummy from earlier. Because a ventriloquist dummy and a twelve-year-old girl are roughly the same build. Also, the purple hat is definitely an additional faux pas, as Slappy/Wally are definitely not a Winter with that complexion, gurl!

Slappy and Wally start to argue in the lunchroom's kitchen, and Wally cops to all the nefarious deeds. He did it because he wanted to live. Slappy starts to reply with a biting comment about him being stupid or ugly or fat or Polish or a woman, but before he can get it out, Wally gets his anger out by slamming Slappy's head against the tile floor. Slappy evades his grasp and jumps up on-top of the stovetop and pushes a boiling pot of soup onto Wally. Wally writhes around in pain as the boiling concoction scalds him, which makes less sense the more you think about it, and if you think about it at all you've already devoted more time to the plot point than Stine.

Georgia runs into the kitchen and sees Slappy is alive. She steps between him and Wally and demands to know what's going on. Slappy responds by grabbing her midsection and hurling her into a wall. He then throws a vat of spaghetti at her. That's something less than amore.

Georgia finally stands up for herself and grabs each of the dolls. She carries them across the kitchen and throws them into the trash compactor. Now that's what I call taking out the evil ventriloquist dummies!

But the Twist is
Slappy wakes up. He is greeted at the airport by Jimmy O'James, who has with him Slappy's two children. Slappy spins the top on the kitchen counter and the book ends before the reader can discern whether it fell or kept spinning.

Speaking of Spinning
You can spin on my dick for ending a book with "It was all a doll's dream," whoever actually wrote this.

The Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship
There isn't any, because boys don't play with dolls, and any boys who read about dolls will turn gay halfway through the book.

(I kid, but I do wonder if the off-putting violence towards the female characters in the Slappy books is there to compensate for the lack of perceived masculine interest in books with no male characters. But, in that case, why not have Slappy's owners be occasionally male? Or would that screw up the next Mad Lib-crafted Slappy adventure?)

Questionable Parenting
Mrs. Boonshoft really took her husband's name?

Jessica Valenti Alert
Slappy attacks another female victim by telling her she's "hisssstory."

Not Worth the Wait Alert
http://www.bloggerbeware.com/2010/10/series-2000-23-slappys-nightmare.html

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending
Ch. 7/8:

Jimmy O'James tells the girls to wait outside his dressing room for a moment, as he has a big surprise for them. Really, the resolution of this being an evil doll is still something of a relief.

Great Prose Alert
The toy maker that made you was an evil sorcerer. There's no other way to describe him.

Conclusions
Slappy? More like crappy! I'VE STILL GOT IT, FOLKS!

Excellent 'I Live In Your Basement!' Adaptation Now Playing at a Theatre Near You

2010-07-17T13:47:00.001-07:00

Summer Internship Opportunity

2010-05-08T18:50:00.001-07:00

High profile pop culture exploiter seeks highly motivated, nostalgia-addled readers for unpaid summer blog reading opportunity

Responsibilities
* Checking the site once a week for regular updates
* Asking trivial questions in the comments section. Ex: "What was Hannah's opinion of ice cream in The Ghost Next Door?"
* Saying every update is either the best or worst entry yet

Qualifications
* Proficiency in Lisa Frank and Snick
* Ability to make snap judgments while wearing snap bracelets a plus
* Has some cotton candy-flavored Bubblicious they're willing to share

All interested respondents please forward your resume, completed Art Instruction School brochure, Cash4Gold envelope, and Land's End catalog request form to comicalfalseemailaddress@wrylypunnedurl.com

Series 2000 #22 Full Moon Fever

2009-12-22T18:19:00.000-08:00

Series 2000 22: Full Moon Fever

Front Tagline: Hairy Halloween!

Brief Synopsis

+

Slightly Less Brief Synopsis
On the list of things I don't want to do, "Write about Full Moon Fever" falls just below "Write Full Moon Fever." Just. There's a spooky cabin in the woods, Halloween trick-or-treating, and a peculiar moment where the sibling subjects of the book are served a plate of snack cakes for dinner by Grandpa John. All show potential as good Goosebumps material and/or grounds for a CSPI protest.

Unfortunately, about thirty pages in, Stine transforms his preteen characters into hideous beasts at the hands of a neighborhood witch. And so what could have been a decent book quickly devolves into fantasy child abuse redux, this time with fur. But this Fur has no bangs to ease the bitter pill of its execution. No, this book carries on for another eighty pages with exchanges like this, which is disgusting enough in context to resist invoking an Out of Context Text Alert:

I could go for a tasty dog right now, I thought, feeling my stomach grumble.
I imagined the soft fur against my tongue, the warm meat sliding down my throat.

And squirrel slurping, earthworm eating, rat repasting, human arm harm, etc. These little beasts raise quite a repulsive ruckus. Forget the kids getting abused and the animals getting eaten, where's the public watchdog for the poor reader who has to slog through this garbage? There's whippings, children being carried around in mini dog kennels, heckling, and various other examples of unpleasantness. The book doesn't even have the guts to make the kids werewolves, because that would at least require some restraint in terms of following the made-up werewolf rules of previous Goosebumps entries.

In order to pad the page-length, there is also an extended sequence involving a disguised character named Wolf that makes the List of Adrian Messenger look competent retroactively. Add to this the world's longest and least-likely visit with grandpa and an ending line that instructs the only sane response to and subsequent way to recover from the book:

Curse bar.

Perhaps you find this somewhat abridged review to be unfair. Perhaps you think I owe a full-on summary of a book where the twist ending involves a character misreading the names of various candies. I disagree. I'm nearing the end of my run of this series. Guys and dolls, if you have any doubts as to how I feel about nearing that milestone via this book, allow me:

Ask me how do I feel
Ask me now that we're nearing the ending
Well sir, all I can say is if I were a check you'd be paying

From the moment Stine killed tonight
That last hope I had for a save
Boy, if Goosebumps were dead I'd fight
To make it stay put in the grave

Ask me how do I feel, little me with my quip-happy blogging
Well sir, all I can say is if I weren't great I'd be quitting!
And if I were this book I'd start stopping my reading
Or if I were Scholastic I'd know when to stop printing

Ask me how do I feel from this "Do Not Do" lesson I'm learning
Well sir, all I can say is if I were a bridge game I'd be folding!

Yes, I knew my morale wouldn't last
From the woeful way the book looked!
Boy, if this were a meal I'd fast!
Only if I were a fish I'd be hooked!

Ask me how do I feel, ask me now that the moment is coming
When if I were Vegas I'd know there's no payout for sucking
Ask me how to describe the whole damnable outlook
Well, if you were a car wash you'd cost five dollars, book.

MERRY HAPPIDAYS, EVERYONE!

Series 2000 #21 the Haunted Car

2009-12-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

Goosebumps Series 2000 21: the Haunted Car

Front Tagline: Ghosts, start your engines! (What.)

Brief Summary
Mitchell is a bit of a car fanatic. The shelves in his room hold multiple model cars, racing posters adorn his wall, and he once even mistakenly rented Separate Tables. Mitchell is such a neutral when it comes to the automobiles that he claims he can identify any car just by closing his eyes and listening, a skill he brags about picking up from reading a lot of car magazines. I'm sure the editor of Shiny Bikini Babes Leaning Against Cars Magazine feels pretty validated for running that monthly Sputter Sputter Pop Vroooom Pop Vroooom Swishhhhhhhhhh Swishhhhhhhh Swishhhhhhh Vroooooooooom column now.

Unfortunately, all the car knowledge in the world fails to prepare Mitchell for being a character in a Goosebumps book and he is tricked by his seven year old brother, Todd, into thinking a bag of laundry is a ghost. Todd is convinced that ghosts exist, and Mitchell is convinced that ghost cars probably don't make noises he can identify with his eyes closed so why even bother considering their existence. Suddenly, the two boys hear a crash from the basement. It doesn't sound like any car Mitchell's ever read about, so the two go down to investigate. The origin of the noise in the basement was indeed not car-related, so I don't even know why I'm bothering to relay it. Nevertheless, a poorly-constructed bookcase their amateur handyman father built had collapsed. Todd insists ghosts were behind the damage, but their father disagrees, as he knows it's the poor craftsman who blames his ghouls.

Mitchell's dad announces a trip to the hardware store, which means Mitchell and his brother get to ride in the flyest hoopty on the block: Their dad's "puke green" '85 LaBaron. Clearly the trio are in for a spooky trip to the hardware store, as stormclouds ominously begin to permeate the skies. While the damp weather may hamper Todd's plan of suggesting their father ghostride the whip on the way, the jaunt is not entirely uneventful: The brakes go out and the car rams into a tree. Like most who experience a horrendous Crash, the response of Mitchell's father is to vomit. Mitchell smartly waits until about twenty seconds have passed before he pesters his father about getting a new set of wheels.

Mitchell spots a totally awesome classified ad for a car with no model or manufacturer name. He thinks it sounds great even though it is literally the only car in the entire book to not be labeled by model and manufacturer. His reasoning for being smitten with the write-up is basically one step above the stereotype of the teenage girl who goes to a car lot and picks out her ride based on the color. Plus, how can Mitchell possibly gauge how good of a car it is without closing his eyes and hearing it first?

Mitchell and his father go to see the advertised car. The seller, Mr. Douglas, who is dressed like a train conductor, interrupts his breakfast to show his visitors the car. The amazing white sportscar is locked in the garage behind six padlocks. Mr. Douglas claims the extra precautions are due to the bad neighborhood, but it's not like the retiree doesn't have the time to devote to Gran Torino-ing the 'hood. What else has he got to do to pass the time besides age?

Mr. Douglas giddily shows off the sports car. Mitchell thinks the blue auto looks like a Corvette, only with twice as many seats and without the hassle of being a totally awesome Corvette. Father and son admire the car, which appears flawless. The vehicle has less than a thousand miles. Surely there must be something wrong with the car for this shifty man to be so insistent on selling it. But since Mr. Douglas tells them there's nothing wrong with it, they believe him. Because who is more trustworthy than someone trying to sell you a car?

Mr. Douglas insists the two go for a test drive. However, the old man refuses to ride along, as he hasn't finished his breakfast. Yet the two don't get very suspicious when the man just stands still as a statue on the front lawn, watching them drive around in the car. They're even less suspicious when the man reveals another twist: If they buy the car, they have to take it with them right away. And then the car cost five thousand dollars. It's a good price and while the man is "one weird dude," to quote Mitchell, they take the bait regardless. While Mr. Douglas goes inside to get the bill of sale and title ready, Mitchell does cartwheels on his front lawn. I guess the neighborhood wasn't quite dangerous enough.

That night, Mitchell can barely get through dinner without talking about the car. His parents bar him from even mentioning the car due to the fact that he has homework due. They don't buy that his math teacher assigned him slope-interecept problems that can only be solved by plugging in for X and Y while sitting in a car either. Nevertheless, Mitchell decides to sneak out to the car anyways. He figures no harm can come from sitting in a motionless car, and in any other book series, he'd be right. But this kid goes and gets himself locked in the car. Oh and the car talks to him or something.

A mysterious waif happens along and lets Mitchell out of the locked car. Marissa Medding, the girl, claims she just moved in the neighborhood and ominously points to the requisite Old Abandoned House as her new digs. Then Todd comes out and glitches the Girl Talk by blackmailing Mitchell into letting him sample the car. After much arguing and Marissa-disappearing, the two brothers reluctantly head back into the house, where the two then confuse their dad getting electrocuted for a ghost.

That night, Mitchell dreams about the car. He then takes a quick break to wake up, note that he dreamt about the car, and then go back to dreaming some more about the car. He also dreams that Marissa goads him into crashing the new car. Todd sagely interprets his brother's dream to be a sign the next morning. Well, it was already a sigh on my part, so he's close.

Despite the nefarious dream and strange locking of the previous night, Mitchell still harbors his auto-erotic fixation. He goads his father into going for another nighttime ride, this time to buy some milk. But this brief trip does not do a body good. On the way back, torrential rain begins to fall. Unfortunately Mitchell's father can't find the button to turn on the windshield wipers. He directs his son to look for the car's manual in the glove compartment. But the glove compartment is empty except for a single sheet of paper with two words written on it:

I'M EVIL

Mitchell is terrified, but, like, who cares if a piece of paper is evil?

The next night, Mitchell's friends Steve and Allan come to visit. I guess his friends Ed and Sullivan were unavailable. The two convince Mitchell to show them the new car with little to no prompting. Todd tags along and all four pile into the car, shut the doors behind them, and whaddaya know, the doors lock again. Suddenly the interior of the car gets colder. The boys can see their breath and the windows begin to frost. Stine shows remarkable restraint here. I mean, there's no "We know you said your new car was cool, Mitchell, but this is ridiculous!" No "I know we came over here to chill, Mitchell, but this is ridiculous!" No "I asked for them in my grocer's freezer, Mitchell, not a roadster's freezer!" Perhaps if the boys had come closer to death inside the icy car we'd have been treated to a pun. Marissa, exhibiting the most convenient of timings yet again, pops up and opens the car door-- but not before Mitchell hears the faint sound of a girl laughing. Todd runs inside to warm up and his two friends leave, convinced that Mitchell was playing a mean trick on them involving the air conditioner. Marissa expresses exaggerated concern over the danger of faulty car locks.

Todd wakes Mitchell up from a dream about, let's assume, cars, to tell him that the car is haunted. Mitchell tells him he's crazy and to go back to bed. Giving it some thought, Mitchell then goes down to investigate if the car is haunted. It's haunted. Mitchell shows little apparition, as when a girl's voice tells him to climb inside the car yet again, he does. In a familiar act, the car locks and drives off with him inside. There's little joy to be found in this ride, as the ghostly car with a girl's voice drives poor Mitchell onto the railroad tracks. The train narrowly misses hitting the car and the girl's voice laughs menacingly. Mitchell continues to go where the spirit moves him, all the while begging her to stop. I don't know what he specter to do, but she merely replies to all his pleas with "I'm so evil." This Ghostmusters very little else in response, but before I can come up with another ghost pun, the car poltergeists home.

Mitchell's dad is furious when he sees his son pull into the driveway, as he hates oil stains. Also the whole 12-year-old stealing a car thing. Mitchell's dad grabs his arm and violently pulls him from the car when he returns from his phantasm voyage. He continues to take thing a shade too far and squeezes his son's arm hard while laying into him for the theft. Before he can face more of his father's wraith, Marissa pops up again and tries to smooth things over with Mitchell's parents. But they simply can't phantom what possessed their son to do such a Okay, I've run out of ghost puns.

Mitchell tells his parents that the car is haunted. They don't believe him enough and Marissa believes him too much. Mitchell gets grounded for life and there's no Uncle Eddie-style silver lining to the whole thing. He mopes around the house for a while before Todd drops the bombshell: Not only does he believe Mitchell's story about the car being haunted, but he knows who the ghost is: Marissa. Mitchell is somehow shocked at this news. People who've never even heard of a book had this figured out before Mitchell.

Mitchell thinks Todd is crazy and to prove it he calls Marissa's house. But the operator can find no listing for the Meddings! Oh my God, does this mean that every person with an unlisted number is secretly a ghost?

____________________

Mitchell and Todd sneak across the street to peek into the Old Abandoned House and discover it is old, abandoned, and a house. But there aren't any Marissa ghosts hanging around. Mitchell decides he'll pay Mr. Douglas, the car's original owner, a visit. Upon seeing the boy at his door, Mr. Douglas insists that he's very busy doing nothing and can't be interrupted. Before he can close the door though, Mitchell sees a picture in his living room. It's of Marissa, with the words "In Loving Memory" written on the frame. I don't know why this is a shock, I thought it was already well-established that Mr. Douglas has a hard time letting go of things that happened in the past.

Mitchell chooses dinner time to tell his parents the big news. But they're more interested in pizza than the ghosts their son has apparently seen. This is actually more Qustionable Son-ing than anything, because hello, pizza time. Mitchell gets sent up to his room to eat his pizza alone. As though one could ever be alone when they're with pizza. But this coupling soon turns into a ménage à trois when the phone rings and who do you think is on the other line. No, not more pizza, it's Marissa. Mitchell tells her he knows her big secret and she demands to know what he's going to do with it. Eat it, he says. No, not the pizza, she says, the secret. He hadn't thought far enough beyond the pizza and hangs up on her.

After pizza time draws to a close, Mitchell's entire family informs him that they're getting picked up to enchant sick Cousin Ella with a visit and he's not invited. That's right, he's all alone with the haunted car in the driveway. So, here's a thought: If you're scared of the car in the driveway, stay upstairs. But man, this kid doesn't even wait until the family's ride pulls out before climbing into the haunted car. The car locks behind him. The interior lights come on. He's not alone inside.

A blonde girl is in the passenger seat, wearing all black. He assumes it's Marissa. The blonde figure has taken the form of a rapidly decaying ghost, described in disgusting detail that I'll not relay here. Ugly deady tells Mitchell she's evil some more times in case he forgot and then sends the car rapidly careening down the city streets. The ghost transforms into a vapor and wafts into the car, speaking to Mitchell from the speakers. She tells him that she died in this car and now it was his turn. She was only fourteen when she took the car on a joyride and died in a crash. Ever since, she's been lonely and desperately wants some company. Mitchell, far from being flattered, continues to beg her to take him home. She agrees, as he can just as easily die in front of his house. She causes the engine to rev up and the car careens forward. Mitchell can tell that she intends to crash the car through the living room. As the car gets closer though, both can tell something is happening in front of the house and the car slows down.

Orange flames have engulfed the house. Mitchell gleefully tells the ghost that if it hadn't been for her kidnapping him, he'd have died in the fire. Praise be to ghost a bad thing, as she materializes and howls in anger. She accidentally did good, not evil, and will now be punished in the afterworld. She then tears herself apart. Really. It's gross. His parents run up to the car and pluck him from the vehicle. He tells them all about how the ghost saved his life. They don't believe him, but they're sure glad their son is a recalcitrant repeat offender.

But the Twist is
Todd asks Mitchell if the ghost was Marissa and he tells her that of course it was. Then he sees Marissa, standing on the front lawn. He yells at her for being evil and a ghost and not pizza until she grabs him by the arm like a rag doll and forces him to follow her away from the crowds of people.

It dawns on Mitchell that perhaps ghosts can't grab humans. Marissa reveals that the ghost was her evil twin sister, Becka. Marissa's father, Mr. Douglas, went sick with grief and wanted to be rid of the car his daughter died in as soon as possible. One afternoon while hanging around the empty car in the garage, the decaying ghost of her sister appeared to her and laid out the whole scheme. Marissa tells the hurt Mitchell that she tried to figure out how to tell him and that once he said on the phone that he knew what was going on, she didn't have to drop the g-bomb. Marissa starts crying and Mitchell tells her how her sister accidentally saved his life. She smiles a little and he tells her he's lost interest in cars.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship
Mitchell and the conveniently-located Marissa, who appears halfway thru every crisis in the book.

Questionable Parenting
Fantasy child abuse, meet real child abuse. With all the aggressive arm grabbing on display here, it felt a little bit like a child's novelization of the Haunted Career.

Oh cool
I've read Christine too. Nah, not really.

Know Your Audience Alert
Todd crosses his arms over his X-Files t-shirt and ominously proclaims that "The truth is out there."

RL Stine Shows He's Down With the Kids
Mitchell sits transfixed in the passenger seat while his father demonstrates how power steering works.

Late 90s Cultural References
You Don't Know Jack, The X-Files, haunted cars

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending
Ch. 11/12:

"I'M EVIL" ... "I'M EVIL"

Yeah, and repetitive.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending
Ch. 11/12:

"I'M EVIL" ... "I'M EVIL"

Yeah, and repetitive.

Great Prose Alert
Our front lawn glistened wetly.

Conclusions
Even though it took me forever to get around to writing this update, this is the best entry in the Series 2000 line yet. Oh man, Laffy Taffy time:
Q: Since it seems that ghost stories are the only thing Stine writes well, why aren't all of the Goosebumps books about ghosts?
A: BECAUSE HE'S AFRAID OF BEING LABELED A GHOSTWRITER

How to Steele a Million

2009-09-23T17:47:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, I missed a milestone:

In celebration of surpassing a million hits, I guess I should update soon, huh? After all, there's plenty of VRRRROOOOOOOM at the top

Series 2000 #20 Be Afraid-- Be Very Afraid!

2009-06-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 20 Be Afraid-- Be Very Afraid!

Front Tagline: There's a new beast on the block...

Brief Synopsis:
Connor Buckley and his friends are bored. So bored. The reader knows they're bored because Connor keeps saying he's bored, over and over again. Sometimes he switches it up and puts it in the present tense:

Bor-rrring.

Sometimes he gently reminds the reader of his boredom:

Did I mention we were bored?

And sometimes he tells us something we could have already guessed:

We were so bored, we were turning stupid.

Connor decides to quell his boredom by dragging his friend Emily Zinneman to neighborhood grouch Mr. Zarwid's yard sale. Costa-Gavras would be proud, as the book is a celebration of "Z"-- besides the characters' last names, the book's action also inspires more than a few ZZZZs in the reader. Hey maybe the book should have been called Z Afraid-- Z Very Afraid! Wait, no it shouldn't have, that's a horrible idea.

At the yard sale, there's nothing but a bunch of junk and tattered clothing-- Be Frayed-- Be Very Frayed! The lack of anything worth stealing doesn't stop Mr. Zarwid from accusing the children of trying to steal something. Connor decides to teach the old man a lesson for falsely accusing him of stealing by stealing something. They've stopped turning, they're there.

The pilfered item is a deck of cards-- though as anyone who has ever been to a garage sale knows, you never ever buy something that contains multiple removable parts like cards or puzzles. Though maybe there can be an exception made for stealing them? The cards are medieval themed, but less Round Table Medieval and more Empty Lunchroom Table Because All the Losers Who Would Have Sat There At the Empty Table Are Reading Those Really Thick Fantasy Novels In the Library During Lunch Period Medieval. Man, six months gone and I still got it! Yes, there are dragons and elves and other creatures competing for space in the dork deck. But wouldn't you know it, the faux-Magic deck is, um, magic.

All the trouble starts when Connor, Emily, and Kyle sit down for a game of Be Afraid. It's like any other game of cards until an excitable dwarf magically appears in their kitchen. Could have been worse, it could have been an excitable Dorf:

As more cards get played, more terrible things happen. Drawing a Knight card produces a group of havoc-wreaking knights... in their neighbor's yard. So, really just a mild inconvenience for the players at that point. In a terrifying scene lifted directly from the very similarly-themed Robin Williams film, one of the kids draws the dreaded Enema Bulb As Clown Nose card. Before more fantastical hijinks can occur, Connor's parents come home and start needling him about the damage done to the house next door. Connor decides not to tell his folks about who caused the mess, though as big Hoosiers fans, surely his parents would have believed a story about an angry Knight.

Mr. Zarwid shows up in a Gorton's fisherman jacket and tells Conner he knows what he did last summer: Not steal his deck of cards, because he saw Connor steal his deck of cards just yesterday. Connor denies it and I'm sure that's the last we'll see of that gruff neighbor!

That night Connor has a dream involving the card game. Like all dreams in Goosebumps books, it is so retarded that it would literally break the internet were I to summarize it. I think someone turned into a dragon or something. That's as close as I'm willing to get. The next morning Connor finds "hundreds" of muddy footprints all over his room, which even within the already tenuous logic created within the world of this book makes no sense and is never mentioned again.

Connor comes down to the kitchen the next morning to find his friends waiting for him. He may have missed out on breakfast but he still manages to waffle when he discovers his pals want to continue the dangerous card game. He tries reminding them about how knights destroyed his neighbor's house but they chalk that up to a coincidence. At no point is the excitable dwarf brought up. Those of you who are concerned about whether or not these characters will continue playing a card game can rest easy as the kids keep flipping over cards, inadvertently summoning a dragon outside. The dragon smashes some cars and tosses back a few knights the kids somehow send in to handle the situation. As things look their direst, Conner gets a brilliant idea: He'll just put all the cards back into the deck. Finally, a horror novel willing to tackle the terror of 52 Pickup.

Once the dragon disappears, the kids swear off playing mythical-creature-conjuring games for good. Connor proclaims that he'll only play Go Fish from that point on. Although, based on how Zarwid was dressed, maybe Connor's already in the middle of a magical version of that card game too. The children decide to give the deck back to Mr. Zarwid. However, around this point they also decide to look at the deck again and subsequently discover that Mr. Zarwid too has a card. He's dressed as a wizard and one of the trio realizes, "Hey, 'Zarwid' is an anagram for 'wizard.'" Wait, does that mean "Drab Barf Aid? Aye, If Ever!" is the real title we're supposed to take away from this book? Connor keeps the card in his shirt pocket in case he ever has to stop a really really really really really really really really weak really bullet.

On the way over to Mr. Zarwid's house the next morning, the kids pass his unopened newspaper in the driveway. Now, I understand why the paper is unopened: The guy's a wizard. He can probably summon the news on his own. But why is he subscribing to a newspaper that he doesn't have to read? ***SPOILER ALERT*** I guess the reason newspapers are floundering all over the country is because all the wizards have already been murdered by plucky child bandits.

The house seems empty, so of course the children break into it and then subsequently appear shocked when Mr. Zarwid interrupts their B+Eing by being mildly annoyed at their trespassing. Instead of embracing the kids for their assorted crimes, Mr. Zarwid throws their cards at the children and transports them into the magical world of Fake Medieval Times. Nary a serving wench is in sight, but plenty of made up things are around them in the dark, made-up world. The kids are very upset at being thrown into another world, but I don't know why they're surprised by their tormentor's actions. I mean, I always knew Mr. Wizard had something malevolent going on:

The kids walk around and discover a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view. No one to tell them no, or where to go, or say they're only dreaming (Although...). But after an exciting action sequence involving hay, they do meet up some creatures called Jekels who want to eat them. Now, it's been a long time since I was in sixth grade, but I don't recall being taught anything about cannibalistic creatures that don't exist. However, Kyle keeps chiming in with facts about their new mythical overlords. So the reader gets bon mots like "Jekels always kill their food before they eat it"-- which admittedly sounds like common sense for creatures both real and imagined, but still. The Jekels ask the kids if they are sorcerers, and Connor corrects them-- They're not sorcerers, they've been conjured into the Jekel's world by a sorcerer. A, this answer doesn't go over very well with the Jekels and B, can you by this point see why it took so damn long for me to actually bother reading this thing?

The Jekels serve up a steaming hot cup o' poison to Connor as a test. If he drinks the poison and dies, he's telling the truth about being a "kid." If he floats, he's a witch. Before Connor can be poisoned, a dragon shows up and distracts the Jekels. The cup of poison is jostled away from Connor's mouth. Connor licks his lips afterwards, begging the question: Why would anyone ever lick their lips after narrowly avoiding a poisoning?

The kids make their escape and run through a cornfield. I know what you're thinking to yourself: "How am I supposed to suspend belief long enough to accept that someone who looks like Olivia Wilde would ever go through the work of becoming a doctor?" But you might also be thinking: "Why are there cornfields in made-up medieval land?" And the answer to at least one of these thoughts is, there aren't fields of corn stalks. No, there are fields of Stelks.

Stelks.

Creatures called Stelks.
Who look like stalks.
And are well-known by Kyle.

Stelks.

If you, like me, think this would be a good time to stop reading the book, I have good news for you: The book ends here. Sort of. See, and this is what some of you were warning me against, on page 86 (Which is too clever to have been intentional) the story grinds to a halt with the following bolded text:

YOU FINISH THE STORY.

And now the book gets really half-assedly meta as the reader is introduced to another male-female platonic duo, Mark and Amy. Mark has just read the first 86 pages we read and is very upset at being forced to use his imagination. In what might be the single stupidest moment in the history of literature, Mark discovers an entire pack of cards hidden behind the back flap of the book's dust jacket. "Stelks" sounds pretty damn clever now, doesn't it?

Amy and Mark decide to play the card game he just read about. To the surprise of (God willing) no one, these two are also transported into the made-up medieval world. They get caught in a net and are almost shoved into an oven until Mark grabs one of their aggressor's dogs and threatens to throw it into the fire. Man, now that's what I call a frankfurter! These kids escape and meet up with the other kids Mark had previously only read about. Mark mournfully laments the fact that he wasn't reading any other book.

A massive group of mythical beasts start chasing the quintet of kids and the children eventually find themselves led on a death march towards a steep cliff. As they near the end of their journey, Mark remembers reading about how Connor put the Wizard card in his pocket. Since they can't put the cards back in the deck to take them home, maybe they can break the spell and beat the wizard by destroying his card. Um, don't they realize that nobody beats the Wiz?

Before Mark can destroy the card, it gets picked up in a gust and goes over the edge of the cliff. Mark naturally dives in after the card and somehow falls faster than the object that was dropped from the same height. Did RL Stine really forget the only science lesson anyone even remembers from elementary school? Wait, don't answer, because...

YOU FINISH THE STORY.

But the Finish is:
Yes, a third platonic duo is introduced. Ross is upset that the book he just read didn't have an ending. His friend Brenda suggests he just take it back to the garage sale where he bought it. Ross does exactly that and Mr. Wardiz offers to trade him a deck of cards for the incomplete book as an exchange.

LET ME FINISH THE STORY.

Ross goggled at the deck of cards and suddenly remembered he was in an RL Stine book.
"Why couldn't you have put me in one of the Monster Bloods so I could hang out with Andy," he asked the sky.
RL Stine suddenly appeared from behind a parted cloud. He rode down from the heavens on a gilded yacht, his vessel steered by eight werewolves and one dog who it turns out used to be a child or something. The author's vehicle hovered over the small boy, who let out a cry of shock.
"Why are you so scared of me," the author asked his creation, "I haven't even provided this encounter with my requisite twist ending yet. Are you merely anticipating the thrills and chills my next book will contain?"
"Oh you have another book coming out? There's a shocker."
RL Stine grinned a grinning grin, as he did not understand jokes made at his expense. "Yes, and one day my number one fan Troy Steele will give it the proper cultural context it deserves!"
"So... what's your next book about," Ross asked.
"Oh I don't know, it's not due at my editor's until Thursday."
"But today is Tuesday."
"I know, Frasier's on later."
"But two days? How can that possibly be enough time to come up with your next book?"
"What happened to that cowering in terror thing you had going on," RL Stine asked. "That was a lot better than this question stuff."
"I'm just saying th--"
"YOU'RE REALLY A VAMPIRE BAT AND THE WORLD IS ACTUALLY A CAVE AND THE SUN IS A SUN CAVE."

But the Twist is:
And then the cave wash cost five dollars.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationships:
tl;dr

Questionable Parenting:
Connor's parents are so concerned with whether or not Connor heard the destruction next door that they forget to offer any help to their stricken neighbors.

Inherit the Wind Alert:
The children suspect that the caged monkey kept by Mr. Zarwid was at one point a human being, but Zarwid insists that the monkey was always a monkey. So, what is that exactly, Reverse Evolution?

RL Stine Shows He is Down With the Kids:
In the grand tradition of video games and gardening, card games can finally take their rightful place in the pantheon of horror.

Stelks:
Stelks

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Hall of Fame Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 2/3:
Kyle freaks out because something is horribly wrong. Only... gotcha! That's it, he just says "Gotcha!"

Great Prose Alert:
The Krel has called together an army of two thousand elf fishermen.

Conclusions:
Finally, a Goosebumps book for those who found Legend of the Lost Legend too cerebral.

The World Needs Laughter

2009-03-11T23:37:00.001-07:00

As soon as I actually manage to finish Be Afraid-- Be Very Afraid, the entry will be posted. You may find yourself asking, "Is it really that unreadable that it's taken months to get through?" To which I can only reply, "It's a Goosebumps book about kids playing cards and I stopped reading it after an excitable dwarf got conjured." I'd say more now, but as stated, I can only reply, "It's a Goosebumps book about kids playing cards and I stopped reading it after an excitable dwarf got conjured."

Series 2000 #19 Return to Ghost Camp

2008-12-17T20:15:00.000-08:00

Series 2000 19 Return to Ghost Camp

Front Tagline: Another summer. Another spirit.

Brief Synopsis:
Poor Dustin. His parents are forcing him to go to a sleep-away camp, despite the fact that he'd rather not attend. Their reasoning that camp isn't the same as being sent to prison fails to make much of an impact on Dustin, though his little brother Logan does start chanting that Dustin is in fact going to prison after hearing this. Dustin's parents refuse to discuss the issue and his mom writes his name on all his clothes using a Magic Marker, "the kind of marker that doesn't wash off." So... not a Magic Marker then? Before leaving his room for the summer, Dustin stares longingly at a Hulk Hogan poster. Hmm, maybe he would like going to prison.

The bus for Camp Full Moon picks Dustin up in front of his house, which is about as plausible as what comes next: The bleeding bus driver is revealed to be covered with thousands of fleas... though they are described as having "spindly legs," so I don't know what bug Stine is confusing fleas with here. It doesn't matter since this horror show turns out to be a dream. But in reality the bus still picks him up at his curb, which is surely reason enough to resurrect the ol' What.

On the bus to camp, Dustin immediately befriends the most muscular boy. I guess he's still not sure he isn't going to prison. The boy, Ari, proposes he and Dustin switch identities as "a practical joke," even though it's neither practical nor a joke. Dustin happily agrees because well obviously he wants to be inside Ari. When they arrive at the camp, Uncle Lou, the head of the camp, assigns Ari as Dustin to the crummiest cabin, Comanche, and gives Dustin as Ari the best cabin, Apache. All of Dustin's new bunkmates enthusiastically greet him once they hear he's Ari. Once inside, Dustin is very excited to see a poster of Mark McGwire hanging on the wall of the cabin. Boy, it's not even subtext at this point, is it?

While he enjoys the luxuries of his cabin, Dustin feels bad that Ari was made a Comanche. Of course, he's not half as upset about it as his Uncle Ethan will be. Dustin's bunkmates give him the best bed in the cabin and reveal a trunk of candy just for Ari. In an amazing campfire scene, Dustin tries to convince himself that he's manly and confidant like Ari by not freaking out when a bee lands on his hot dog. Two characters switching places, with one using the opportunity to act more macho, and also there's bees? This is already more a sequel to that book than Ghost Camp.

Oh and then some kid eats some bees. Wait, I mean

BEE EATING BEE EATING BEE EATING
BEE EATING BEE EATING BEE EATING
BEE EATING BEE EATING BEE EATING

Uncle Lou regales the campers with a campfire story about a creature called the Snatcher. Surprisingly, Dustin listens very intently to the story. Funny, I thought it was already well-established that he wasn't interested in snatch--er, anyways, Lou tells the campers that the Snatcher can take the form of anything but prefers a fox. Dustin hears whispers about how the Snatcher is real and takes a kid every year. Naturally, a fox then attacks Dustin. In this case, the fox aggressor brings the blood as the animal scratches up his clothing.

Dustin is rescued by his bunkmates who finally reveal why everyone is treating "Ari" so well: He's the Snatcher's chosen victim this year. The book then takes the predictable trajectory: No one believes he's really Dustin, Ari refuses to switch back, and of course, what Goosebumps book set at camp would be complete without another pay phone scene? Also, someone throws up marshmallows, so there's probably a "Stay Pukt" joke to be made. And just in case you think I'm being ridiculous with this subtext thing, Dustin says this:

"I never really tried to stuff my mouth with anything."

And then the book says this:

They pitched hard. Crashed into each other. Bobbed and reeled. Smacked against the wooden dock.

So it's not like I'm seeing something that isn't there. Maybe Prop 8 passed because thousands (I'm being generous here) of kids read this book and confused their hatred for the novel with a hatred of homosexuality. I imagine it's only a matter of time before the Return to Ghost Camp Defense becomes the new Twinkie Defense.

Gradually Dustin realizes everyone at camp is a ghost, which I guess is supposed to be all a sequel to a book called "Ghost Camp" needs. While trying to run away, he meets Laura, a girl from the Girl's Camp, who is also trying to run away. For reasons I don't remember, they put off their escape for a day, which gives Dustin enough time for his younger brother Logan to show up for a visit. Logan greets the real Ari as his brother, but only under the threat of violence. I guess Ari doesn't want to be a victim of a ghost anymore than he wants to lose his fifteen percent.

The night of the big escape, Dustin's bunkmate tries to tell him that they didn't select him to be the victim of the camp but rather the savior. Apparently God based the afterlife on Wild and Crazy Kids, as the ghost kids will only be able to rest if Dustin manages to cross a dangerous river. But Laura insists his bunkmate is only trying to trick him, but regardless he should still cross the river. So, the dramatic moment of the novel comes down to: Will he cross the river, or will he cross the river?

But the Twist is:
He crosses the river! But first, Laura turns out to be the Snatcher. She turns into a fox and attacks, but falls victim to some "scary" zombie hands that emerge from the river and tear her apart. Dustin crosses the river and saves the camp, but then he can't figure out how to cross the river again. An ending that matches the quality of what came before it.

the Platonic Boy-Magic Fox Girl Relationship:
Dustin and Laura, who turns out to be a fox or something most of the way through the novel.

Questionable Parenting:
After he tells her he had a bad dream, Dustin's mom makes fun of him. Spunky mother, gay son, the word "camp" in the title-- maybe this book was salvaged from a scrapped Showtime pilot.

Why Is There A Horse Skeleton On the Cover Alert:
Why is there a horse skeleton on the cover?

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 13/14:
Ari starts to tell a knock-knock joke. OH MY GOD I HAVE TO KEEP READING OR ELSE I'LL NEVER KNOW WHICH ORANGE IS AT THE DOOR

Great Prose Alert:
Nobody swallows bees.

Conclusions:

Series 2000 #18 Horrors of the Black Ring

2008-12-09T19:12:00.000-08:00

Series 2000 18 Horrors of the Black Ring

Front Tagline: Ring around the creature!

Brief Synopsis:
The book opens with wiseacre Anthony fooling protagonist Beth into thinking the brakes on his bike have malfunctioned as he careens wildly down the sidewalk towards her and her sister Amanda. This ruse results in Beth falling for the "old 'no breaks' gag," which according to this book is a thing. Anthony's a real stone cold dude who once told Beth her cat was dead-- even when it wasn't. Apparently this guy's specialty is lies that get disproved within ten seconds of being heard.

Beth recovers from this brilliant bike joke and encounters a small bird that has broken its wing. She decides to rescue the poor bird as opposed to sticking around for Anthony to prank her with the old "Look out, it's night!" gag. Saving the bird makes her late for class, but luckily Beth's blonde teacher, Miss Gold, is very kind and understanding. Hmm...

Beth notices Miss Gold is sporting a new ring with a large black stone arranged in the center. Beth thinks she sees an angry-looking face within the jewel, but her teacher just tells her that's an illusion caused by a natural flaw in the jewel. That's funny, I thought this was Jewel's natural flaw:

Later in art class, Beth gets close to her crush Danny Jacobs by asking for him to model hands for her. Anthony pulls the old making kissing sounds while someone models their hands gag and the two boys get into a fight. Later at lunch, Danny sits with Beth to discuss ideas for the big forthcoming Spring Carnival. Conveniently, Miss Gold simultaneously discovers an ominous message written on the chalkboard: "THE CARNIVAL IS DOOMED." As Miss Gold starts to tremble, Anthony walks by the classroom and suspiciously pulls the old having chalk dust on his hands gag.

That weekend, Amanda tries to get Beth to help her arrange her Barbies from most to least attractive. Apparently you can judge identical dolls:

"Surfer Barbie is beautiful, but Rollerblade Barbie is not so hot."

And Klaus Barbie of course refuses to be judged by anyone but God on his throne. Beth argues that she doesn't have time to play with dolls, as she must rush to the school to help prepare for the doomed carnival. Soon after, a mysterious caller phones Beth and warns her to stay away from the carnival. But since no one followed that call with another warning her against playing with dolls, she takes her chances.

Inside the school's art room, her and Danny find a total mess, with paint splattered everywhere and every canvas and sheet of paper in complete disarray. So basically, they find an art room. All the paintings which were to be sold at the carnival have been wrecked-- all except Anthony's rude painting of Beth. That next week at school, Miss Gold cancels class and sends all her students to the art room to make replacement art. Everyone paints rude pictures of Beth so as to ensure their artwork won't be ruined later.

That afternoon, Danny and Beth make cookies in the Home Ec room, only to have the dessert mysteriously ignite while in the oven. The kids flee the smoke-filled room just in time to catch Anthony pulling the old walking past the Home Ec room just as it catches fire gag. Heartstrings tugged by the oven fire, the entire school floods the carnival's food tables with bake sale goods the next day. Beth takes a bite from one of these treats, feels something disgusting inside, and throws up all over her shoes. Turns out someone baked insect larvae into the desserts-- Hey, I've heard of macaroons but maggotroons?! But seriously folks, you're a lovely audience. Now, how about women drivers, huh?

Miss Gold takes the bad news pretty, um, badly, and sits in her chair fiddling with her black ring and muttering "maggots" over and over. So, she's acting like any middle school teacher then. When asked what else could go wrong, Miss Gold ominously replies, "Hey guys, have you noticed yet how I'm wearing this evil ring? Because let me keep drawing attention to it every time something terrible happens, just in case."

Before the carnival begins, Danny gets cocky and eggs Anthony on to try and hit his target in the dunk tank. Anthony pulls the old hitting the target gag and sinks Danny into the tank. Unfortunately for Danny, the tank is filled with boiling water. Despite being passed out inside the boiling tank for several minutes, Danny doesn't die because RL Stine doesn't understand how boiling water works.

Later at home, Amanda jumps out of a closet as a cry for attention. Beth promises to take Amanda to the carnival, so long as Amanda doesn't change her mind while there and jump out of a carnival in order to get Beth to take her to her closet. Once at the carnival, Beth has to work the ticket counter for a little while and Anthony pulls the old keeping an eye on Amanda while Beth works gag.

Beth tries to sell a carnival ticket to a mysterious stranger wearing a dark robe, but this reaper didn't bring his coin purse. The cloaked figure explodes all the lights in the gym and proceeds to wreak some highly unlikely havoc on everyone inside. Wasps descend upon the WASPS inside the gym and tables catch fire. The cloaked figure kidnaps Amanda and carries her over his shoulder towards the carnival entrance. A policeman tackles the hooded stranger and reveals the figure's true identity: Miss Gold. Man, it's always the person you at least expect.

Miss Gold insists she was forced to do the deeds and is lead away in handcuffs by the police. Beth finds Miss Gold's black ring on the gym floor and feels compelled by plot convenience to put it on. It does not come off. I guess insect cookies are a lot more fattening than anyone suspected.

This all leads to a dream sequence where this line is uttered:

"This isn't right!" I screamed. "Your heads don't belong on duck bodies!"

Which, while true, is still not that scary.

Beth sneaks into the hospital to visit Miss Gold, who freaks out when she sees her wearing the ring. Miss Gold screams at her to take the ring off-- man, teachers cared about setting your cellphone to silent even back when this was written!

As the book winds down, Beth naturally starts exhibiting undesirable and aggressive traits brought about by her new accessory. Anthony gets the old crazy girl bewitched by magic ring tears off your bike lock and dismantles your bicycle by hand and then also breaks your sunglasses gag played on him. But that's not enough bad behavior for the possessed Beth, who also throws a nerdy kid into a locker. Oh man, that locker door is not going to open until Moose calls out his name and asks what time it is when an elephant sits on his car.

Beth continues on her mild rampage. She snaps the legs off Amanda's Barbie dolls. She puts slugs in her sister's spaghetti sauce (Newman's Groan?) and replaces her shampoo with corn oil (Selsun Ew?). But her weird acts aren't limited to blood relations, as Beth also sneaks into the school's kitchen and drops a live mouse into a vat of vegetable soup. Oh great, PETA's gonna make "RL Swine" masks now.

Beth is feeding that broken-winged bird from earlier in the novel when a magically healed Danny shows up and reminds her about the bike-a-thon she agreed to participate in. Beth doesn't want to go though, as she's afraid the ring will make her bike evilly or something, I'm not really sure.

At the bike-a-thon, the ring tells her to cut everyone's brakes, but Beth is pretty much done with bikes in this book and pedals home to remove the ring for good. While looking for metal cutters (!) in the garage, she sees her injured bird has died. But to go on with her daily affairs, she can't really think about that, which is probably why everyone takes the world for granted and why we act so thoughtlessly. It's very confusing-- but not as confusing as what happens when Beth tries to cut off her ring with metal cutters. Te evil face grows huge and emerges from within the ring as smoke pours out into the garage. The face bellows:

"My evil has outgrown the ring!"

So he has more than like a half-ounce of evil now? The face tells Beth he needs to inhabit a human body now. Beth's gotten used to her body and refuses to part with it. Beth grabs a saw and prepares to cut off her finger to spare her from the ring, but luckily she tries just pulling really hard first and it comes off. She reasons that without the big head inside the ring, it just weighs less. Well, there's just so many lessons in the book.

Beth slips the ring onto the dead bird and the evil face is sucked back into the jewel. She buries the dead bird/jewel-head in the backyard. She should be careful though, because as Dwight Schrute could tell you, bird funerals can result in smoke too. As the book ends, the evil has been stopped and all is well. So it'll totally be a happy ending then, rite?

But the Twist is:
Was there ever any chance this book wouldn't end with the little sibling of the main character acquiring a similarly dangerous talisman?

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Beth and her crush Danny Jacobs, who disappears into a tank of boiling water halfway thru the novel.

Questionable Parenting:
After Beth breaks all of Amanda's Barbies, their mom actually considers that maybe Beth didn't do it. I always wondered what happened to the former Simpson jurors.

Someone Actually Revised a Goosebumps Book Alert:
The first edition of the book (which was used for this entry) was called "Horrors of the Black Ring." Subsequent printings were titled "The Horror of the Black Ring." Though I agree that the book doesn't contain multiple horrors, I still can't quite be with Scholastic on it containing at least one. It's a good thing that they multiplied the "horror"s and not the "ring"s, because if it was more than three rings, the answering machine would have picked up.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 3/4:
Oh no, someone has written on a writing surface!

Great Prose Alert:
"See you at school, fool," Anthony sneered.

Conclusions:
At 108 pages, Horrors of the Black Ring is the shortest Goosebumps book. Thank you God.

iStockphotoh No!

2008-11-26T12:19:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last 24 hours trying to write an entry for this week's book, which isn't even all that bad, and I'm coming up empty. Truth is, I'm suffering from severe Goosebumps burnout. The toll of rereading the same book over and over and finding new things to say has temporarily zapped my desire to continue the blog, and the writing's suffering as a result.

I'm taking a two-week break. Blogger Beware will return to the regular update schedule Tuesday December 9, with the hopes that this time spent apart will rejuvenate the entries. Don't worry, I promise not to go out with any other blogs in the meantime.

Series 2000 #17 the Werewolf in the Living Room

2008-11-18T23:17:00.000-08:00

Series 2000 17 the Werewolf in the Living Room

Front Tagline: Home sweet horror

By now, all regular readers of the site should be old hands at tackling a Goosebumps book involving werewolves. So I have no qualms about issuing a pop quiz. Clear your desks!

the Werewolf in the Living Room Pop Quiz

01 The book employs what unusual (for Goosebumps at least) literary device?
A. Use of highly theoretical fourth-person narration
B. Non-chronological sentences
C. Division of the text into two parts
D. Entire story is told in MadLib fashion, with someone at Scholastic having already filled in the title's "(Monster Everyone Is Tired Of)" slot

02 Despite being about werewolves, the book does stray from Goosebumps convention by making Aaron, its protagonist,
A. Gay
B. Really gay
C. Eleven years old
D. Really eleven years old

03 Aaron's dad has a strange dual occupation. What are his jobs?
A. Ghost buster and Caddy shacker
B. Fairy flosser and Dental hygienist
C. Werewolf hunter and Town sheriff
D. Executive in charge of keeping peanut butter out of chocolate and Executive in charge of keeping chocolate out of peanut butter

04 In search of the creatures, Aaron's dad drags his son to the made-up European country of
A. LilSmoki
B. Kielbasah
C. Bratvia
D. Hotdogonabun

05 Within like five pages, the protagonist both has a dream sequence and
A. Has another dream sequence about the first dream sequence and it's all like whoa, so deep
B. Wakes up with his pillow missing
C. Gets bitten by a werewolf
D. Dreams he got bitten by a pillow and wakes up to find his werewolf missing

06 The werewolf comes back to visit Aaron and gives him
A. A written apology
B. A punchcard good for one free sub after his tenth werewolf attack
C. A wolf-tooth necklace
D. What for, the rite bastid

07 Ever the canon-changer, RL Stine presents yet more new ways to stop a werewolf in this, his eighteenth book about werewolves. Which of the following new methods actually appears in the novel?
A. Slapping the werewolf in the forehead three times
B. Saying the werewolf's name
C. Both A and B
D. Not D

08 Aaron visits with a hag in the forest who kicks him out of her cabin after she sees his
A. Boy Scout merit badge for cabin-disrupting
B. Eyes measuring the distance between her and the oven
C. Wolf-tooth necklace
D. Xeroxed list of herbal websites

09 Aaron's dad catches what he believes to be a werewolf. The only problem is that the werewolf has taken the form of
A. Golden-Age Werewolf
B. Wendell Willkie
C. A small, mild-mannered bald man named Ben
D. Two werewolves

10 Aaron's dad kidnaps the man, who insists he is not a werewolf, and ships him back to America in a crate. He also gives the werewolf what annoying moniker?
A. There Wolf
B. Werey
C. Wolfie
D. Ben, Werewolf-Style

11 While sailing to America, Ben breaks free from his chains just in time to
A. Avoid paying membership dues to the Being-Held-In-Chains Organization of Greater Bratvia
B. Make it to the post office before they close
C. Save Aaron from drowning
D. Have the refrain of "Chain of Fools" play over his actions in the movie trailer, complete with the sound of a needle being pulled from the record when the werewolf poorly attempts to dance in a fashionable manner

12 Aaron's dad keeps Ben locked in a cage in his living room, despite the fact that Ben insists
A. The room he's being held in is technically the den
B. He's pretty sure it's still considered kidnapping even if you think the person you're kidnapping is a mythical creature
C. He's not a werewolf
D. His predicament would make for a lousy book title

13 Aaron's best friend Ashlee takes her fashion cues from what popular Goosebumps character?
A. Evan from Monster Blood
B. Monster Blood from Monster Blood
C. Andy from Monster Blood
D. Monster Blood from Monster Blood III

14 Ashlee comes to see the caged man in Aaron's living room and
A. Tells a joke-- Q: What kind of milk does Ben drink? A: Werewolf Skim
B. Makes Ben an escape cake with a vampire baked inside
C. Takes pity on Ben, giving him a candy bar to eat
D. Advises him not to say or transform into anything until his legal counsel arrives

15 Feeling sure his dad has made a mistake about Ben, Aaron does what?
A. Writes to his congressman about passing the Aaron's Dad Is Like Totally Wrong Bill
B. Offers to hold magical body-switching stone at the same time as Ben
C. Takes pity on Ben, giving him a candy bar to eat
D. Offers to describe the outside world in "very vivid detail" if Ben agrees to stay incarcerated

16 Aaron does ultimately let Ben loose, only to realize his mistake when
A. Ben says "Oh by the way, I'm a werewolf" on his way out the door
B. Ben says "Oh by the way, I'm not a werewolf-- PSYCH!" on his way out the door
C. Ben turns into a werewolf and maims three people immediately following his release
D. Ben writes him a letter and signs it as "Ben the Werewolf," with "the Werewolf" scribbled over a few times

17 Aaron soon realizes that the werewolf terrorizing the town is actually
A. Ben. What a twist!
B. An overly-intricate PETA protest
C. Himself
D. One of the fifty other werewolves from these books

18 Aaron feels nauseated once he realizes that during his werewolf rampage, he ate
A. At Applebee's
B. Nine. Oh no, he's not a werewolf, he's a Seven!
C. Ashlee's French poodle
D. Off his friend's plate even though he said he wasn't hungry and didn't order anything

19 Aaron's dad almost kills his werewolf son. What stops him?
A. Killing children still illegal in all fifty states
B. Guiltily realizes "Aren't we all a little bit werewolfish at times?"
C. Notices the werewolf's wolf-tooth necklace
D. The sudden realization that there's no such job as "Werewolf hunter"

20 Aaron saves Werewolf Ben from being shot, only to discover that Aaron's dad
A. Forgot to put bullets in his weapon. The werewolf then easily ducks the unloaded gun after Aaron's dad throws it at his head
B. Is an undercover werewolf who is in too deep to blow his cover
C. Is willing to turn both werewolves over to the proper science authorities, which I guess is something which exists in this book
D. Doesn't really care about werewolves anymore. He's more into Transformers now. And dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are neat!

EXTRA CREDIT What is Aaron's solution to all of his problems?
A. Wait them out. The book ends on the next page, what could possibly happen at the last moment to completely alter the circumstances of the previous 115 pages?
B. Cut a bitch
C. Bite his dad, forming a Werewolf Trio
D. Bite nineteen other people, forming a Werewolf Orchestra

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Aaron and his best pal Ashlee, who appears halfway through the novel.

Questionable Parenting:
I sure hope Aaron's dad never tries to lecture his son about not kidnapping people, because he's certainly blown his ability to pass judgment on that.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 6/7:
Aaron's dad screams out for his son to hurry outside and... eat some eggs! I hope you enjoyed that, as it was the most thrilling part of the book.

Great Prose Alert:
I ate my best friend's dog!

Conclusions:
Does a werewolf hunter count as a scientist?

Series 2000 #16 the Mummy Walks

2008-11-11T21:20:00.000-08:00

Series 2000 16 the Mummy Walks

Front Tagline: One small step for mummy...

Brief Synopsis:
The last thing I want to read about is mummies, so I can't pretend I went into this week's book with an open mind. And thought it contains almost the same amount of mummies as any other Goosebumps book, it bears so little resemblance to this series that it's a little bewildering. The action doesn't take place in Egypt, but the made-up Middle-Eastern berg of Jezekiah. Protagonist Michael is put on a plane from New York to Florida for the purpose of visiting his Aunt in Orlando. But once he gets on the plane, he can't help but notice he's the only one in the cabin. Without even Bronson Pinchot tearing paper to keep him company, Michael wanders aimlessly around the plane. Finally, mid-flight, a middle-eastern man exits the cockpit and brings him a delicious dinner. So either this is an ironic hijacking or something else is going on.

After being called "Excellency" by everyone he encounters once exiting the plane, Michael figures out: "Hey, they must mean me." As cheerful foreigners celebrate his venture to the palace, it's explained to him that he's not really Michael Clarke from New York, but rather the son of two dead Jezekiah rulers. After the murder of his parents, he was sent overseas for his protection, where he lived for all these years unaware of his royalty. After seeing his shock, General Rameer, the military expert in charge of Michael's readjustment, asks whether his parents told him all this. Like this was something he'd forget being told. His "parents" did however hand him a sheet of paper that simply said "We're not your real parents" as he was boarding the plane, which is probably not the best way to break news that requires followup questions.

General Rameer has more news: His parents hid a valuable mummy, which in turn holds a valuable jewel, just before they died. The entire economy of Jezekiah depends on borrowing against the value of the mummy jewel. Without the jewel, thousands will starve and the nation will collapse. Write to your congressmen and oppose the bailout in favor of mystical mummy jewels. How is Michael supposed to know where the mummy is hidden if he was just a baby when all this happened? Well of course his parents implanted a microchip in his brain with the info. Because a poor desert nation dependent on borrowing against an ancient relic will also have the technology and money at hand for brain surgery and advanced cerebral microchips.

Of course Michael can't remember anything, but he caves to their pressure-- literally. He points to a random cave. General Raheem announces that they'll all leave at dawn to investigate the cave, and that Michael is coming with. Michael tries to explain that he's not a morning person, but this holds little weight with crazy military dictators who are using preteen members of royalty to further their own aspirations. The nefarious intent of the General is all spelled out by the General's adopted American daughter, Megan, who sneaks into Michael's room and explains that they'll kill him whether the mummy is or isn't in the cave. Michael doesn't question this information because adopted daughters of nefarious dictators are notoriously reliable.

The next morning, Megan tags along as they make their way through the desert towards the caves. Then some rebels attack and there's a gunfight and boy, we're a long way from werewolves. All tuckered out from being shot at, the Jezekiah military entourage rests until the next morning. When they finally enter the cave, to Michael's great shock, they do find a mummy. This mummy comes to life and chases after the explorers. It's then revealed that the mummy is really Megan, who knew Michael was lying and thus disguised herself as a mummy to scare away the men with guns. Then some other men with guns kidnap her and Michael.

The rebels tell Michael that they know he knows where the mummy is. He tries telling this new group of middle-easterners with guns that he doesn't know anything, but somehow they don't believe him. Frustrated, the rebel leader tells his lackey to shoot Michael. After some persuading, the rebel leader finally softens and agrees to throw the boy into a snake pit. And before Olivia de Havilland can chime in with a comment, not a metaphorical one, but a large hole filled with pythons.

But before that can happen, Megan saves the day once again by stopping the execution and convincing the rebel leader that letting them go back to America will actually benefit the rebel cause. The rebel leader reveals why he's on the losing side by agreeing and the two kids travel back. Because a rebel leader fighting for his people has enough money to fly two kids to America?

Michael's "parents" greet him and Megan at the airport and explain that the reason he couldn't remember anything about the mummy was because they had the microchip removed at an early age. His parents welcome Megan into the family.

But the Twist is:
Remember that mummy and its jewel? Michael's guardians had the mummy shipped over secretly years ago and reveal its hiding place in the basement. The next morning, the mummy and its jewel are gone. Megan leaves a note apologizing for being a double-agent for her adopted father. And the mummy's not there because a member of non-royalty taking the jewel causes the mummy to come to life. But whereas that should have been the first chapter of the advertised book, that's the end of this one. Take that, readers!

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Michael and the daughter of the guy who wants to kill him, Megan, who disappears into a cave halfway through the book.

Questionable "Parenting":
Close your eyes and point to anything they do in this book.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 26/27:
Michael's "mom" asks who is on the phone when he calls, and then he tells her, and then she knows who is on the phone. Edge. Of. The. Seat.

Great Prose Alert:
Maybe I am that baby, I argued with myself.

Conclusions:
Even RL Stine is clearly bored with the series at this point.

Series 2000 #15 Scream School

2008-11-06T23:07:00.000-08:00

Series 2000 15 Scream School

Front Tagline: Student body stalker... (What.)

Brief Synopsis:
Add "Movie Sets" to the list of things RL Stine is not qualified to write about, right below "Everything." Not content with merely ripping off books from the original series, Scream School opens with a riff on the opening to Cry of the Cat, as fictional characters in a film are presented as the novel's protagonists. Unfortunately, the illusion is shattered when Jake, the son of the film's director, Emory Banyon, accidentally messes up a take while offscreen. Emory calls "Cut" and rolls action against his son.

Emory is obsessed with the idea that his son is scared of things. Jake refuses to admit he was scared. Probably because it would be really embarrassing to be scared of the movie Emory is shooting, an entry in the titular horror film series for kids featuring as villain an incredibly obvious riff on Freddy Krueger (complete with melted skin and long sharp nails), Johnny Scream. That's supposed to be him on the cover, only he isn't exactly described as a leprosy-ridden Irish Longshoreman in the novel. Creative liberties.

After being embarrassed on the set in front of his friend Chelsea, Emory continues to test Jake, prodding him with scary stimulus and looking for an honest admission of fear. His first effort is hiding an eyeball in a bucket of chicken-- I've heard about Original Recipe, but Original Reci-see? Sorry about that joke, it was pretty cornea?

Jake cautiously revisits the Scream School set. While on-set, the star of the film gets sick and throws up (of course). Emory is such a visionary director that he casts his son to serve as the star's double. The actor was supposed to emerge from a shuttered art cabinet at the back of a classroom, only to be greeted by a cadre of snakes on the floor. Emory insists that no one will notice his son isn't the star, as he intends to film him from the back. Unless Jake exits the art cabinet backwards, that's going to be some feat. Jake then mistakes an electrical cord for a snake, to much deserved embarrassment.

Jake now obsesses about not appearing scared. His father leaves him a note on his birthday to take the limo to the studio. Once he arrives, he's greeted by zombies and it somehow never occurs to him that he was set-up. Jake runs away from his own surprise party in tears after being embarrassed by his father. His mother runs after him. The actors playing the zombies shuffle slowly off the set, as they are method actors.

After some healing time passes, Emory comes up to his son while in the pool and spits water at his chest. This is his way of saying, "Hey, I'm shooting a new Scream School movie in a haunted school in the middle of a desert. Want to come with me?" I checked in a book about body language and shockingly, that is actually an exact translation of spitting water at someone's chest.

Once father and son arrive in the desert, Jake makes a keen observation:

"Wow! It's hot in the sun!"

Jake is sent to look around the abandoned building while the crew finishes setting up their film equipment. Because Hollywood productions often scout locations after setting up filming, not before. Jake stumbles upon a mysterious gamine in the midsts of the cobwebs. She introduces herself as Mindy, a teenage extra on the film. She claims she got lost from the rest of her friends, and that they all drove over from a neighboring desert town to be extras on the film. When she reveals that she gets killed by Johnny Scream in the film, it becomes apparent that either she or the author doesn't understand what being an extra in a film means.

As they walk around the spooky school, Mindy tells Jake the story of how the school got haunted. See, the town council, like most responsible governing bodies, insisted on building the school over the existing cemetery, despite there being plenty of available land elsewhere. Though they did move the bodies, the souls were still pissed about not getting their security deposit back and decide to take revenge on the children. The ghosts do this by tying up some kids in a volleyball net, which clearly was the one thing Emory didn't do to scare his son.

After Mindy finally meets up with her friends, one of them warns Jake that she's a notorious liar. He asks her if he can believe what she said. Mindy tells him "You decide," ensuring her a long career with Fox News.

Ghostly accidents and horrors befall the set, such as human appendages showing up in the cafeteria food and a cheerleading scene being interrupted by the discovery of a human skull. Where be your gibes / You ain't got no alibi / Yorick! Yeah, Yeah, Yorick! Woooo!

Finally, in a bizarre, anti-climactic finale, Emory is led onto the classroom set, only to be greeted by actors he knows he didn't hire. He knows this because they are effectively scary, and in fact they terrify him with their ghostly intimidations. It's then that Jake reveals he got Mindy and her friends to play a prank on him by making him scared. Triumphantly, he asks his father to admit that he's scared.

But the Twist is:
Emory is upset at being tricked but thrilled that the cameras were rolling, as he can use the footage in the film. Yes, he can use the footage showing the director and none of the film's stars being scared for a few seconds in the film. However, artistic sacrifice is foisted upon the auteur by external forces: none of the children have shown up on film. Jake's friends really were ghosts.

But the Twist Really is:
They aren't really. Turns out Jake had the hindsight to film the empty classroom himself before his father entered. Yes, because members of a film crew love to work when they don't have to. Or is the point that Jake operated the camera himself without any training? And that the cameras were left unattended? And that for whatever reason his father watched the footage in horror without noticing that, y'know, it doesn't show him or his son either? I think even Gig Young would have had trouble sycophanting it up on this set.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Jake may remember her well, but Chelsea disappears halfway through the novel.

Questionable Parenting:
I can't believe Mindy's parents were okay with her wandering around a film-set unescorted.

Hey, California. The Novel Takes Place in California. California. California California California. California Alert:
Jake and his friends propose walking around the UCLA campus for fun and going to eat at In-And-Out Burger. What, too busy to see the sign or a palm tree?

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 2/3:
Nothing scares Jake. Nothing except whatever causes him to open his mouth in a scream of terror.

Great Prose Alert:
He spun around. Stared. And opened his mouth in a scream of terror.

Conclusions:
I guess they never let Stine on the set of the television series?

Still More Tales To Give You Goosebumps

2008-10-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

Still More Tales to Give You Goosebumps
(Goosebumps Special Edition #4)

Back Tagline: Reader Beware--You're In For Ten Halloween Scares!

Official Book Description:
Will Charlie's recipe for pumpkin juice cause him some hair-raising terror? Are Dave's awesome ants biting off more than they can chew? Can Max's Halloween wish turn him into an endangered species?

This book originally came packaged with plastic glow-in-the-dark fangs, a makeup kit, fake skin (carefully labeled as "fake"), a fake scar, and green blood. I'm pretty sure that description of Halloween costume-related freebies contains more scares than any story within this collection. But don't take my word for it, take my word for it:

Pumpkin Juice
Charlie and Frank are preparing to go out trick-or-treating. Before they leave though, Frank wants to whip up a special beverage from a recipe he found in a booklet. If only Jack Chick had thought ahead and included recipes in his tracts, he could have completely corned this market. Frank's tract has the needlessly verbose title of Monster Brews to Bring Out the Best in You on Halloween, and the recipe he is dying to try out is called, you guessed it, Eggnog.

I know what you're thinking, How can I make my own Pumpkin Juice?

Pumpkin Juice Supreme
(Serves ages 9-12)
Ingredients:
The flesh of a pumpkin
Milk
Molasses
Butter
Garlic
Chicken Broth

I know what you're thinking, How can I not make my own Pumpkin Juice?

This disgusting mixture causes the children to turn into what else but hungry werewolves. They go from door to door in the neighborhood, ingesting candy and eventually trash and worms and raw meat. Great. Charlie then spies his dog Scout. Overcome with something stronger than Sweetheart Fever, Charlie tries to enjoy a Scout nibble. Thankfully the reader is spared a child eating a dog-- though at the rate the series goes, I'm sure Goosebumps 3000 will be filled with nothing but.

Turns out the only way to reverse the effectiveness of the Pumpkin Juice is to concoct another recipe-- only you must use the flesh of the same pumpkin! Charlie and Frank race home, only to discover Charlie's mom had baked the pumpkin into a pie. The kids discover the pie's ingredients are identical to the antidote, and the two greedily gulp the whole thing down. Once they finish, Charlie's mom tells them how much she loved their juice, but boy is she hungry! Wait, a werewolf story that ends with someone else being turned into a werewolf? Well, now there's a lace-lined gold-lettered invitation to sarcasm!

Trick or Treat? Trick

Attack of the Tattoo
Jeannie is a little disappointed in her trick-or-treating haul this year. No big candy bars, cool toothbrushes, or unwashed fruit. But she did get a really gnarly looking fake tattoo of a snake! Unfortunately, she can't get the tattoo to stick to her skin. After much time spent with the small slip of paper, she notices a special 3-D message telling her that the only way to get it to stick is to use water warmed by the sun. She carries a bottle of water outside and sure enough, she affixes the tattoo. Unfortunately, unlike most like real tattoos, Jeannie's fake tattoo causes horrible snakes to crawl out of her skin. Nothing she attempts successfully removes the horrible snake-spawning design from her arm, not even closing her eyes and wishing really hard.

Finally, her friend suggests she look at the tattoo's instruction slip for instructions on how to remove the tattoo. Well, I know that sounds like a long-shot but it actually totally works. Unfortunately, though she removes the tattoo using water exposed to a full moon (What fourth grade poetaster wrote these instructions?), all her classmates overheard how she initially got her tattoo to stick. The story ends with everyone else in her class having affixed their horrible Halloween tattoos of gross creatures. Pity the poor wisenheimer who applied his barb wire fake tattoo to his genitals.

Trick or Treat? Trick

the Wish
Poor Max is constantly being hounded by his older brother Eugene. Though he thinks he'll be able to sneak past his brother during the neighborhood trick-or-treating canvass, his Max costume ultimately proves to have been a poor choice. His older brother pummels the boy and demands Max hand over all his candy. Careful with that ask, Eugene!

Despite his boy-ow-ow, Max still wants candy. All the houses have turned off their porch lights and the other kids have gone home. He wanders the streets until he finds a lit house. An old woman answers the door and grabs him by the wrist, insisting he take his "treat": an old rock. Seeing as how a rock is not even sort of almost candy, he goes home and tosses the rock out his bedroom window. This rock-tossing coincides with Max wishing he were an only child.

The next morning, when he leaves the house, everyone in the neighborhood becomes frightened and chases after him. After finally being corned by everyone and hogtied, the old woman holds up the rock and taunts him. The story ends with Max in a zoo because he is now an "Endangered Species"-- the only child in Earth.

Trick of Treat? Getting hit by a car in the street

An Old Story
Siblings Jon and Tom are visited by their mysterious old Aunt Susan, who starts feeding them prunes. The prunes cause the two boys to age rapidly. Aunt Susan then invites her elderly friends over to play bridge, and the two boys hear her promise their hands in marriage. That's when the realize Aunt Susan is aging them to sell to old women. The boys throw a pitcher of prune juice at the old woman and she explodes into dust. Luckily, a liberal smattering of anti-wrinkle cream cures the boys.

Some things are just too horrible to even joke about. And I didn't even mention how Mimi from the Drew Carey Show is somehow a character in the story. No, really.

Trick or Treat? Trick

The Scarecrow
A scarecrow magically appears in a neighbor's yard, sporting three expensive accessories that appeal separately to three friends: a handsome scarf, a baseball cap, and leather gloves. One by one the three friends each decide to steal the item they want. The girl who steals the scarf comes down with a sore throat and loses her voice. The boy who steals the cap suddenly acts as though he has a concussion. When the final girl attempts to swipe the leather gloves, her two friends pop up behind her and admit they faked the whole thing to scare her. Then the scarecrow smiles for no reason. The story was pretty close to being good. Thank goodness Stine turned it around at the end and made it as horrible as the stories that preceded it.

Trick or Treat? Trick

Awesome Ants
Boy buys ant farm. Ant farm comes with instructions that forbid feeding food to ants. Boy feeds food to ants. Ants grow huge and place humans in ant farm. Irony not lost on anyone.

Trick or Treat? Trick

Please Don't Feed the Bears
When you get to be my age, you'll learn a few things. Like, when a story is called "Please Don't Feed the Bears," man, you'd better not read "Please Don't Feed the Bears."

the Goblin's Glare
Mike has crafted the perfect paper mache Goblin Halloween decoration. It's so perfect that it keeps coming to life and chasing him in his dreams. I believe the lesson learned from this is to always make decorations without legs. Once the fabled night arrives, Mike attributes his great trick-or-treating success to his use of real fur in the costume. Now we know why the Olsens always walk away with the most candy every year.

In the midst of gobblin' up candy, Mike-- well, you know what I'm setting up here. Mike senses the Goblin and races home, attempting to stop the goblin by slamming the door to his house shut, just as he had in his dreams. Only, instead of being greeted by his mother, he's greeted by the goblin-- inside his house. The goblin chases Mike into his room, where he discovers himself, Mike, sound asleep in bed. Turns out the goblin is dreaming these events this time, not Mike. The Goblin prepares to eat the child.

Certainly this was the most I've ever used the word "goblin" in my life.

Trick or Treat? Treat

Bats About Bats
Liz and Suzanne's new friend Dorrie loves bats. In fact, you might even say she's crazily obsessed about crazily obsesseds! All Dorrie wants to do is talk about bats and she wants to grow up to be a bat scientist like her parents. After some back and forth about bats and sleep-overs and vampire costumes, the story ends with a punchline so stupid that it's actually sort of brilliant: Her parents are not scientists who study bats, they're scientists who are giant bats.

Trick or Treat? Treat

the Space-Suit Snatcher
For some unknown reason, there are two characters named Laura in this short story. That's pretty much all I plan to take away from it, but I guess I'll fill in some plot details anyways.

Laura has built a special radio that sends its signal into outer space and she spends her nights beaming classical music into the sky. An old man overhears her conversation at a garage sale and, having found a kindred spirit, gives her a gift: a space suit left for him by aliens back when he was a kid. He also sent signals into outer space, and one morning the was delivered to his doorstep as a gift. They told him if he ever wanted to join them, all he had to do was wear the suit and they'd come for him. She thanks the man for the lifesize MTV Video Award and goes her merry way.

Unfortunately for Laura, her older sister Tammy loves tormenting her. Tammy fakes an alien invasion and puts on the space suit. Just as she starts openly mocking Laura, a flash of light emerges from the suit and Tammy disappears. In her place is a gelatanous purple blob. The aliens signal to Laura that anyone who wears the suit gets picked up. The aliens then make a request for her to play more rock n roll music. Hahaha, aliens, you so crazy!

Trick or Treat? Trick

Just to be clear, the first four stories in the book are the worst thing I've ever read, and I've read Dean Koontz. It took more will power to keep reading than I knew I possessed. Nevertheless, Happy Halloween Blogger Beware readers!

Series 2000 #14 Jekyll and Heidi

2008-10-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 14 Jekyll and Heidi

Front Tagline: Half human. Half beast.
(That tagline is Half-assed)

Brief Synopsis:
As if going Greyhound wasn't horrible enough, poor protagonist Heidi is riding the bus to Vermont because her parents recently died in a car accident. Given the immediately somber details, perhaps you've scrolled back up to the awful cover just to make sure this is the right book. Well, it is and it's a good one at that. Until one of Stine's patented witticisms popped up (Someone saying "Thrills," which no ghostwriter would knowingly reuse), I was convinced this was the product of farming the series out to someone who hated the series but still wanted to show how it could be done right. The book has the triumvirate of Goosebumps cliches-- staying with distant relatives, a scientist, and a werewolf-- and somehow still makes these tired elements work.

Heidi gets off alone at the tiny village bus station and finds herself without an escort. Her Uncle, the scientist Dr. Jekyll, was supposed to pick her up, but he's nowhere to be found. While waiting, Heidi gets spooked by some cawing birds outside the station. Um, wrong Jeckle:

While she waits for her uncle, Heidi chats up a cute boy hanging around the empty seats, Aaron. His mother works in the bus stop's cafe and he's killing time until she gets off work by providing valuable background material to girls who get off busses. It seems a horrible beast is stalking the village at night, and the townspeople know her uncle is to blame-- though their evidence seems at best to be that they know his last name. I mean, that's pretty damning stuff, but somehow Heidi isn't convinced.

Tired of waiting, Heidi trudges up the snowy hill to her uncle's ominous-looking mansion. She's greeted at the door by her grumpy cousin Marianne, who tries to get Heidi to leave at once. And go where exactly, her parents are dead and she's alone in Vermont. "Leave at once-- and go tour the Ben and Jerry's factory!" Heidi's Uncle Jekyll however is pleased to see her, and apologizes for getting so caught up in his lab experiments that he forgot to pick her up. Now, guess which one is the werewolf and which one is the scientist.

And then most of the book becomes about the tension of escalating attacks in the village and whether her Uncle is living up to his namesake. In one of the book's great visuals, Heidi's bedroom overlooks the entire village and she sees the beast wreak a path of destruction from a bird's eye view, ending with the lights of the patrol cars shining through the night. Heidi then feels her suspicions growing when shortly thereafter, Dr. Jekyll returns from "a walk" covered in dirt. Maybe he was doing something even more horrifying than werewolfing.

Heidi decides to spy on her Uncle and witnesses him downing several concoctions in the lab. I guess that settles it: either he's a werewolf or thirsty. When she tries to escape, she's confronted by Dr. Jekyll, who locks her in her room for her own good. She shimmies down a drain pipe and goes out to stop the beast's destruction. While she witnesses the general destruction of the village, she sees something far worse: the beast. Aaron shows up and foolishly attempts to protect his friend. The beast merely throws the boy into a fire. He survives, but that doesn't change the amazing fact that this is a book where a werewolf throws a boy into a fire.

Heidi discovers that the entire village is fed up with being terrorized by a werewolf, as if they had anything else to do. A string of angry villagers descends (ascends?) on her uncle's mansion, just as she learns the secret: Marianne was bitten by a werewolf on vacation several years ago and ever since, Dr. Jekyll has been working on a cure. As the villagers arrive, Dr. Jekyll leads Marianne and Heidi down below into the basement, where there is a secret tunnel leading away from town. The three get halfway down when Heidi remembers an old diary she'd found in her room. She insists that the old artifact is worth saving and abandons her family to go brave the kill-crazy bunch and retrieve it. Upstairs, she sneaks past the vigilantes, who luckily are too busy setting fire to curtains and breaking things to bother killing monsters. The bedroom furniture had it coming though. I mean, just look at the way it was dresser.

Heidi retrieves the book. Unfortunately, the angry townspeople have run out of things to destroy and finally notice her. There hasn't been a mob this angry at Heidi since the Raiders/Jets game of '68. Luckily, a remarkably well-healed Aaron shows up to rescue her (this time without being thrown into a fire in the process) and the two escape downstairs. Tragically, her uncle and cousin have already left, never to be seen again.

But the Twist is:
Well, I guess if it's a werewolf book, someone who wasn't a werewolf has to turn into a werewolf. Safe at Aaron's house, Heidi begins reading from the old journal, only to discover it contains modern writing. Apparently Marianne liked the vintage journal and began charting her transformations within it. Heidi reads through the pages until she reaches the end and reads the entry about how one night Marianne bit her while she slept. Is it possible Heidi grabbed the wrong book?

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Heidi and her friend Aaron, who gets burns halfway through his body.

Questionable Uncling:
I know it's sad when someone's parents die, but maybe you don't invite orphan girl to live with werewolf girl, huh?

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 16/17:
The door to Heidi's room swings open, revealing: a draft.

Great Prose Alert:
"I don't know what I'm doing," she mumbled into her tuna casserole.

Conclusions:
Turns out you really can't judge a book by its cover. Except for Chicken Chicken of course.

Come back Friday for the traditional Halloween update. If you know your Goosebumps, you can probably guess what it'll be.

Series 2000 #13 Return to HorrrorLand

2008-10-22T22:57:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 13 Return to HorrorLand

Front Tagline: Long time no scream!

Brief Synopsis:
It's been a year since Lizzy and her family visited the horrific amusement park filled with vile creatures and hideous attractions. No, not Silver Dollar City, HorrorLand. But luckily for her and her siblings, two paranormal TV personalities want to expose the park to the world. Clearly influenced by the X-Files, Stine goes so far as to say the female half of this married duo, Margo Strange, looks like "Agent Scully." Unfortunately for all but lovers of mustaches, her husband Derek Strange does not look like David Duchovny, but rather, and again I'm quoting here, "Tom Selleck."

Lizzy and her brother Luke and his friend Clay are already big fans of the Stranges' show, The Strange Report. In fact, as the book opens, they're watching Evan Ross explain Monster Blood to a skeptical audience. In keeping with tradition, even kids watching him on TV mercilessly mock Evan. This will not be the book's only cameo appearance by a past Goosebumps character no one cares about either.

The Stranges approach Lizzy's mom and offer her $10,000 if she'll agree to let the kids come with them to Florida. See, HorrorLand keeps moving to different locations every few months. The Stranges have tracked it to Florida and intend to photograph all the nefarious goings-on at the park by posing as Lizzy and Luke's tourist parents. Well, I can see why HorrorLand would want to relocate to Florida. After all, it's not like there's many amusement parks in the state to compete with. The Stranges think that the amusement park is no longer a backdrop for a TV show but something else entirely. Their argument is basically "Oh, remember that thing that happened and you all were there when it happened and saw it happen? Well, what if it didn't happen?"

Despite being a firsthand witness to the very real horrors of HorrorLand, Lizzy's mom signs off on the journey. At least she's getting money out of the deal, as there's not even that perk to explain why Luke's friend Clay asks if he can still come along. I guess for an author, the benefit of not crafting characters is that you don't have to worry too much about their motivations.

So Margo and Derek take the kids to Florida and they successfully infiltrate the newest incarnation of HorrorLand. Unfortunately, a Horror smashes Derek's camera. I guess they don't like Monsterazzi. There's probably a TMZ = Thirty Monster Zone joke in there somewhere too. The "good" news is that Margo and Derek have secret cameras they won't be showing to monsters, so the couple continue to film as the kids explore the park.

If you've ever been to an amusement park, you know the biggest attractions are the rides. But for some bizarre reason, the kids will not encounter a single ride in the entire novel. Instead they visit an Egyptian Pyramid (?) where Luke gets trapped in a sarcophagus until he falls to safety from a trap door. Oh cool, I've read the Curse of the Mummy's Tomb too. This scene goes on for like thirty pages and trust me, even my one sentence summary is padded.

The next attraction the kids decide to visit is a Monster Dentist Office. No, really. Once inside, they see row after row of, well, monster dentists, operating on bawling kids with drills. One kid screams out "You broke all my teeth!" and another complains that the dentist drilled his tongue. A third child throws up blood. Lizzy finds herself strapped in and the monster is about to drill away all her teeth when she realizes that the dentist is actually a robot. Oh.

After getting out of the tooth-suite tout suite, the kids sort of keep losing and then finding their supposed protectors, the Stranges. The Stranges insist that the kids are never in any danger. The disappointed couple then starts hectoring the children to show them real danger in the park. At some point in all this, the kids get captured in a giant butterfly net by a Horror and are then taken down to a torture chamber. It's then that they meet the Dungeon Master. Dungeon Master, make the book end faster! The constant threat of disturbing violence in this book is really at odds with how stupidly fluffy the plot is. Never fear, before the dungeon can get too scary, the Dungeon Master unleashes hundreds of ferrets to eat the children. No really, how is this even sort of kind of like any attraction at any amusement park ever?

The kids escape the ferrets and take in a magic show. Amaz-O the Magician from Bad Hare Day pops up to do some illusions. Only Ricky Jay he ain't. After pulling animals out of his hat, which is cliche even by magician standards, he pulls Lizzy out of the audience and throws her into a cage with a live tiger. Who will disappear, the Lady or the Tiger? No ambiguities are afforded, as the tiger vanishes just before it can Skin Lizzy.

Once she goes back into the auditorium seats, she discovers her brother and his friend didn't even bother to stay to watch the whole show. So these kids are marginally smarter than they seemed. She runs around the park in search of the two boys and eventually finds them chained to poles in a desert while vultures circle above. What? I've seen Adult Swim programs with more narrative focus than this book. I guess the reader is not supposed to ask why there's a desert in an amusement park in Florida with giant scavenger birds that for some reason start attacking living human beings?

The Stranges, the kids' very very very bad legal guardians, get thrown out of the amusement park, leaving the kids all alone. The Horrors want to capture the kids but then Lizzy gets the bright idea to run into the gift shop, try on the Horror Halloween Costumes sold within, and then walk around amongst the Horrors as one of them. Why, any plan that borrows so heavily from Wacky Racers can't possibly fail!

Amazingly, the three kids dressed like Horrors manage to walk right out of the park and hop into the Stranges' waiting van. The Stranges apologize for having to leave, then drive the kids right back to the front gates of HorrorLand. A Horror slips Derek a wad of bills and thanks the Stranges. Turns out the Stranges were hired by the park to see if the kids would reveal the secrets of HorrorLand. Since they were willing, they'll have to die. Um... what? So established TV personalities would be willing to get involved in the needlessly complicated murder of three children? I know most of these books contain their own internal logic and you can't really question plot motives, but this book is so brazen in its ineptitude that it makes the first ever case for illiteracy.

The Horrors lead the three kids to the top of a mountain for an attraction called The Final Leap, which is just a steep ledge. Before they can be pushed off to their doom, three more Horrrors show up and walk the kids back down to the ground, which I'm sure is called The Petrified Pavement or something. The kids ask what's going on but the Horrors tell them there's been a change of plans. Once they're safely past the park's gates, the Horrors take off their masks and reveal themselves to be reporters from a TV show called Weird Copy. The reporters reveal that thanks to the kids, the Stranges have been arrested and HorrorLand shut down for good. Wow, these are the most efficient reporters ever.

But the Twist is:
The reporters feel they haven't quite gotten enough good footage, so they drive the kids to something called Terrrorville. Hey, that almost sounds like "terrible," which this book is.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Lizzy and her brother Luke, who disappears into a mummy's tomb halfway thru the novel.

Questionable Parenting:
I guess $10,000 is enough to buy two replacement kids.

RL Stine Shows He Is Down With the Kids:
In another inexplicable instance of this happening in a Goosebumps book, Luke puts his hands in the freezer and then touches his sister's neck. There are so many reasons why this isn't something anyone has ever done.

Late 90s Cultural References:
The X-Files, The Dentist, things that are awful.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 7/8:
My name is Luke, uh,
I writhe on the cement floor.
I give up: snakes? Not true.
Yes, I think you've seen this cliffhanger before.

Great Prose Alert:
And then I let out a shriek of surprise.

Conclusions:
More like Return to Sender.

Series 2000 #12 Brain Juice

2008-10-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 12 Brain Juice

Front Tagline: A mind is a terrible thing to drink.
(What, no Juice your own adventure?)

Brief Synopsis:
Well, as you can tell by the picture of the ejaculating brain on the cover, this week's book was probably never going to be the one that delivered the elusive Newbery Award for Stine. Brain Juice opens with a prologue that sets the stage for hilarity, but forgets to draw open the curtains: Two aliens are hiding in a scientist's kitchen pantry. Morggul and Gobbul provide valuable expository details about their mission on Earth: to kidnap some smart human slaves to take back to their home planet. In the meantime they've chosen the scientist Dr. Frank King for observation, mistakenly assuming that due to his name he must be the King of all scientists. I think we all can all guess the outcome of their next mission to capture a Latifah.

The book thankfully leaves the aliens and focuses on characters who are not aliens... or are they? No, they're not. Step-siblings Nathan and Lindy have come to their Uncle Frank to seek his help. Bookish Nathan and vibrant redhead Lindy have paid this visit because they feel stupid and want to get smarter. The kids feel excluded from the world because they're not good students and they can't build a dollhouse. Please note: That these two could find their way across town to their uncle's house and can tie their shoes still makes them smarter than most other Goosebumps protagonists.

Uncle Frank thinks the kids are plenty smart but decides to slip them a placebo. As his disapproving wife looks on, Uncle Frank slaps a computer paper label on a bottle of grape juice, calling it, you guessed it, Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls. Well, it seems that just putting a label over another label on a juice bottle probably means he's meeting the kids halfway in their intelligence argument.

Unfortunately Frank forgets the first rule of drinking with a group, as he leaves the drink unattended. This gives the aliens an opportunity to slink out from the pantry and swap the fake Brain Juice with real Brain Juice, which is conveniently purple and existent. The aliens decide that the two children would be perfect slaves if only they were smarter. Boy, these kids are so stupid that even stupid aliens think they're stupid. And even that sentence wasn't as stupid as these kids!

The kids take the Brain Juice home and split the bottle. This leads to a pretty cerebral exchange:

"Do you feel any smarter?" Lindy asked.
"Duhhh... yeah," he replied.

That night while they sleep, the aliens come over to make sure the kids drank the Brain Juice. They've never fed Brain Juice to humans before and have no idea what effect it will have. So they decide to test their dangerous potion out on the two people they've singled out to take back with them? Is anyone/anything not stupid in this book? Oh and then one of the aliens climbs into bed with Nathan and watches him sleep.

At school the next day, neither child is smart. But neither is dead from the experimental formula either, so there's the silver lining. Nathan gets teased on the bus by a gang of nerdy kids who mercilessly bully him because he can't do the New York Times Crossword Puzzle. Boy I don't know about you guys but I love reading scenarios lifted directly from real life like this! The aliens spy on the children remaining stupid and decide that since the kids aren't getting any smarter, they'll just eat them instead. These creatures are really impulsive. Maybe if the kids can wait them out, the aliens'll just drive to Vegas.

Before they can be eaten, Lindy and Nathan conveniently get smarter. They ace a math test, which immediately draws the ire of their teacher, who assumes the two cheated. So he throws away their exams and makes them take a retest. I guess it never occurred to him that he might be a good teacher.

Naturally the kids ace the test again. And then they start showing off. It gets so bad that the smart kids start making fun of them for being too smart and their teachers whine to the school board that the kids are too brilliant to be in public school. Finally, social commentary from a man who has never written a Goosebumps book with a black protagonist!

This all leads to an extended passage concerning the kids being expelled for being geniuses and the ensuing media blitz that descends on them in the wake. Being asked to advertise breakfast cereals and sneakers and getting chased by the government for testing would hit a lot stronger if it wasn't lifted directly from How I Learned to Fly. Of course, when you're already ripping off Flowers For Algernon, I guess stealing from a book you at least wrote is the lesser evil.

Eventually the aliens show up. At first the kids don't believe the slimy creatures are aliens, so one of them "proves" it by grabbing a bird and biting the winged creature's head off. I always knew Ozzy's glazed appearance and slurred speech were masking something far more heinous than the residual effects of a lifetime of drug abuse! The aliens tell the kids that they are now smart enough to serve their emperor back on the home planet. The kids are somewhat resistant to the idea of being slaves for hideous creatures from outer space, so they run away.

The aliens catch up with the kids and threaten to eat their little sister, Brenda. The kids agree to be slaves if the aliens will spare Brenda's life. Unfortunately Gobbul already ate her. Luckily the alien hadn't finished digesting her, so he happily throws up the little girl. Well, if that isn't the ultimate vomiting scene in a Series 2000 book, I don't want to read whatever actually is.

Once in the alien's starship, knee-deep in the hoopla, sinking in their fight, the two kids find themselves locked in a large cage. One of the aliens throws them a stack of crossword puzzles to keep themselves occupied on the long trip back to their home planet. Nathan gets Across with them and won't back Down. He tries to tell the aliens that they're no longer smart, that their formula has worn off. He's telling the truth but the aliens naturally think he's trying to outsmart them. The creatures were expecting this, as they told the children that the Emperor is testing the human race based on these two. If the kids fail, the aliens won't bother to enslave Earth. Gee, no pressure.

The two kids try to do the crosswords they've been given, but they can't figure out whether they're supposed to write in the black or white squares. The juice has been zapped from their minds, and what's worse, they've actually been made stupider in the process. This causes them to do stupid things, like mistaking "D-O-G" for "C-A-T" and watching Knight Rider instead of Pushing Daises on Wednesday nights.

(That last zinger was part of my dual effort to both save the best show on TV and reduce the shelf life of this blog's references. I hope you enjoyed it. Now please watch Pushing Daisies. I'm not even being paid to say this. Barring a miracle, it's pretty much going to get canceled and I'm holding all of you reading this personally responsible if that happens. I mean, viewers are really watching a talking car and a Jay Mohr sitcom over PD at the rate of almost 2:1. Obviously the twist here is that America needs some Brain Juice)

The ship finally lands and the aliens lead the humans through several futuristic set pieces until they finally meet the Emperor. By this point the children are so stupid they can barely walk. The Emperor is furious with Morggul and Gobbul and immediately has them melted. Dude should get upset with a grilled cheese some time, he would totally cut down cooking time. Ah, Writing the Entry at 2AM Jokes, how I've missed you.

The Emperor has his henchmen chase after the stupid children, who have managed to hide in a closet instead of escaping. The Emperor is amused by their stupidity and sends them in a spaceship back to Earth. Once back at Earth, the kids meet up with Uncle Frank. He wants to go to the media, but the kids are tired of the attention. Since they're returned, their intelligence has returned to normal. They just want to be normal.

But the Twist is:
Remember when the book ripped off How I Learned to Fly? Hi. The kids were never stupid, they just very convincingly pretended to be to avoid damning the entire human race. Oh, well I guess I won't stay mad at them. Their con is revealed when Nathan accidentally solves an impossible equation their uncle is working on.

Oh Cool:
I've seen Good Will Hunting too.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Nathan and step-sister Lindy, whose little sister disappears into an alien halfway through the novel.

Questionable Teaching:
Usually RL Stine undershoots the curriculum of a sixth grader, but I'm pretty sure he overcompensated for life with the following equation, given to the entire class of twelve-year-olds by Nathan and Lindy's teacher:

x = a - c + 125 (x + y)

No wonder he thought anyone who passed his test was cheating.

Minority Alert:
Stine insists on consistently referring to Uncle Frank as Dr. King, which would be bad enough except that Dr. King's solution to this predicament involves grape-flavored drink. Well, perfect. Of course the worst part of this happening is that it wrecked the "Brain Jews" joke that I'd planned for this section.

UFOh Burn Alert:
"Maybe we shouldn't have landed in New Jersey. Maybe there are nicer places."

Late '90s Cultural References:
The negative effect of the Juice being let loose is clearly a scathing reference to the OJ Simpson verdict.

Early 1900s Cultural References:
The kids prove their intellectual prowess by watching Jeopardy, resulting in what is likely the first and last instance of the Lusitania getting name-checked in a children's horror book. Oh and this scene ends with one of the aliens providing this witty observation:

"Final Jeopardy. Yes, I think that describes what these two humans are about to face."

Out of Context Text Alert:
He stood very erect, sweat rolling thickly down his emerald body.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 4/5
One of the aliens thinks their concoction has killed Nathan. Only it turns out that humans breathe through their faces. Whoa, sure you don't want to go back and make that the final twist, Stine?

Great Dialog Alert:
"Owwww! My heart!"

Great Prose Alert:
The class grew even silenter than silent.

Conclusions:
Based on the number of times some variation of the word "stupid" was used in Brain Juice, the target audience must have been Andy from Monster Blood.

Series 2000 #11 Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls

2008-10-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 11 Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls

Front Tagline: Dead but not buried...

Brief Synopsis:
Spencer loves imagination and writing. Naturally, Spencer is not very popular. Inspired by a short story about fictional graveyard ghouls penned by Spencer, his teacher Mrs. Webster plans a class field trip to the local cemetery to do rubbings. She must have sent home one heck of a persuasive permission slip to pull off taking a classroom of kids to a graveyard for English class.

On the field trip to the cemetery, Spencer tries to impress his crush, Audra, by unzipping his jacket. For all his supposed imagination, this isn't quite the level of flirting I'd have expected. Unfortunately for Spencer, the most popular jerk in class, Frank, already has his sights set both on romancing Audra and tormenting Spencer. Spencer counters these efforts by suavely tripping over a gravestone. In doing so, he unwittingly unleashes the curse carved into the headstone of two teenage boys, Oswald and Martin Manse: DISTURB OUR REST AT YOUR OWN PERIL. Had he been about to perform turn-down service, this message might not have seemed so frightening, but as it is, Spencer is heroically scared shitless.

Having safely survived the field trip without endangering his peril, Spencer realizes he left his little brother's backpack in the graveyard. He had presumably borrowed the bright purple toddler's bag in an effort to emasculate himself, little knowing that Frank was already on it. With no other option save returning to the cemetery, Spencer does what anyone would do in this situation: He telephones the girl he likes and asks if she'd like to come with him because he's too scared to go alone. Boy, this kid could write a book on circling first.

On their way to the graveyard in the moonlit night, Audra tells Spencer that Frank phoned her right after he did and she told him they were headed to the cemetery. Golly, I wonder if he'll show up. Once in the cemetery, Spencer hears a strange voice calling out, ~~"They're coming to get you, Barbara"~~ "Give me back my head!" Oh look though, it wasn't a graveyard ghoul making the moans; it was the schoolyard cool, Frank. Audra runs for help as Frank and his buddies tie Spencer to a gravestone and leave him in the cemetery.

Okay, so far so good. A cemetery is a spooky setting and the book's not quite half-over. Being tied to a gravestone and left alone, that's a pretty compelling predicament. Surely this book will take this and run with it, right? Um, did you forget who wrote this? You'll all be relieved to know that interesting and effective scenarios aren't what Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls is invested in. Unbelievably, this book quickly turns into another body-switching story, as the spirit of one of the brothers takes over Spencer's tied-body. Spencer's spirit is kicked out and left to float over the cemetery. Spirit-Spencer watches as Audra, flanked by her parents, comes to untie the Ghoul-Spencer and take him back home.

From his spectral position, Spencer is greeted by the other dead denizens of the graveyard, who float up and tell him about the evil boy who just took over his body. Oswald and his brother Martin were childhood arsonists who burned up most of the town over a century ago, and that Spencer should probably not expect him to retreat to his grave without some effort. However, the spirits do let slip that there is one way for Spencer to get his body back, but it's a secret. The spirits then start spookily dancing in a classic "Oh Cool, I've seen Carnival of Souls too" moment.

This is followed by an even more gruesome scene. Spencer watches as a horde of graveyard rats descend upon a small bunny rabbit, devouring the small creature in a matter of seconds. Spencer looks down at the rats congregating in the fresh puddle of blood among the discarded bits of bone and thinks "Hey, that's the life for me!" Yes, Spencer descends down and takes over the body of a rat in order to escape the graveyard. This leads to several "Rat eats gross things" moments that would cause even Templeton to lose his appetite.

As Rat-Spencer makes his way back home in order to warn his parents that their son is not their son, he encounters his family cat. Just when things look bleak for the rat, Spencer trades bodies and inhabits the cat. Boy, after like, what, twenty books where something like this happens, it's pretty hard to pretend it's interesting. Thankfully the book makes up for this familiarity by just getting Cat Tornado-level insane in the last act.

Occupying the body of the family cat, Spencer tries to get his parents' attention. This doesn't work using conventional cat methods, and Spencer's more human attempt to write a letter to his parents explaining the whole situation fares no better. I'll let Spencer's dad take this one:

"Dumb cat. It's a little late to be playing with pens."

Unfortunately for Spencer, the Ghoul-Spencer recognizes that Spencer's spirit is inside the cat. He tells the cat that he has no intention of going back to the cemetery. Then he just gets really selfish and starts complaining about how lame Spencer's body is and how the first opportunity he gets, he's going to upgrade to a better body and just destroy Spencer's used body. You know, I don't think I like undead teenage murderers.

Ghoul-Spencer locks the cat in a wooden crate and throws him down into the basement. A spider crawls into the crate and Spencer escapes once more. Yawn. Let's speed this up to the good parts. Spider-Spencer makes his way upstairs and takes over the body of his little brother Jason. Using his new human body, Spencer trots over to Audra's house to convince her of his predicament. Only when he looks into her eyes, he can see that she's either a graveyard ghoul or starring in an episode of the X-Files, as her irises have turned black. Realizing that the other brother must have taken over Audra's body in the cemetery, he races back to rescue her.

On his way to the cemetery, he sees Ghoul-Spencer wreaking a line of destruction down the street. Several cars and houses are on fire. A cop tries to shoot Ghoul-Spencer but Spencer-Jason distracts the police officer in an attempt to save his body. Ghoul-Spencer rushes off into the darkness and Spencer-Jason races to the graveyard. He tries to communicate with Audra while simultaneously fending off hundreds of spirits who want to inhabit Jason's body. Spencer finally gets Audra to inhabit the body of a stray black lab. In the rush to leave the cemetery though, Spencer-Jason accidentally trips over another headstone. Fearing what wrath he's incurred this time, he reads the cryptic message carved in stone: "Defeat Death Only By Living." Spencer dismisses this curse as too artsy and the boy and the dog race out of the graveyard.

Okay, remember when I said the book gets crazy? The destruction has gotten far worse, as Ghoul-Spencer, now joined by Ghoul-Audra, have stolen axes from the firemen and are now racing down the street, chopping up cars and windows before setting fire to the houses. Two preteens racing down a street and swinging axes is an admittedly perverse and interesting image, and unbelievably the book only gets weirder. Ghoul-Spencer sets fire to Frank's house and waits for him to come out so he can steal his body. He then gleefully tells Spencer-Jason that he's going to throw Spencer's body into the housefire and watch it burn. Spencer-Jason tries to convince him to watch one of those DVDs that show a roaring fireplace instead, but to no end.

Spencer-Jason somehow distracts him from making the switch and Ghoul-Spencer and Ghoul-Audra instead rush off to Spencer's house. Ghoul-Audra breaks all the exterior windows and Ghoul-Spencer breaks open the door to the family's home. As Spencer's family cowers in fear, begging for mercy, the two ghouls begin hacking everything inside the house to pieces. Spencer-Jason sics the Audra dog at the Ghoul-Spencer. Ghoul-Spencer picks up the dog and hurtles it across the room and into the wall. Now that's what I call playing ruff!

Okay, remember how I already said the book gets crazy and then I told you guys about all the crazy stuff that happened? Still not the craziest part. In the midst of all this violence, Jason's spirit shows up and demands being let back into his body. As Spencer-Jason wrestles against Jason reentering his body, Jason's body starts spastically jerking and wailing in rhythm. During the fight, Spencer-Jason notices that the two ghouls have stopped their mayhem and are doubled over in pain. This is when Spencer-Jason realizes that the ghouls are being tormented by his dancing. Thinking back to the gravestone he toppled, he realizes that the best way to show life is to dance. Spencer-Jason begins dancing wildly and enthusiastically. He even grabs the poor dog and starts dancing with the it out in the street. This is like the worst novelization of a Gene Kelly movie I've ever read.

But the Twist is:
The dancing causes the ghouls' spirits to leave the bodies of the children and everyone tries to go back to their correct bodies. Unfortunately, Audra and Spencer end up in each other's bodies, seemingly forever-- though that's probably only a bad turn of events for one of them.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Spencer and his crush Audra, who disappears into a dog two-thirds of the way through the novel.

Questionable Teaching:
Mrs. Webster took the kids she liked to hang out in the graveyard. She did class rubbings, she learned you never had to press hard.

Oh Cool
I've read Goosebumps too.

RL Stine Shows He is Down With the Kids:
Early in the novel, a food fight erupts at the dinner table. What is it with RL Stine and this notion that food fights are something that exist? Arsonist ghosts who take over the bodies of children, sure. But kids throwing food at each other? GIMME A BREAK. But seriously, I've eaten food before, and often in the company of other people, and I've never witnessed this phenomenon. I'm of course talking about the arsonist ghosts taking over the bodies of children

Vomit Alert:
Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls was the first Series 2000 book to not feature vomit. Which is a good thing, because there's pretty much only one Chuck I'm Up on:

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 3/4:
A hand reaches up from the ground and grabs Spencer's ankle. Only no, it was... nothing. And is never later revealed to be anything. Kind of makes me long for the days when Stine at least tried to come up with something. Well, since he couldn't be bothered to make something up, I'll heed the call-- It wasn't really a corpse's hand that brushed against Spencer's ankle, it was.... THE HORN OF A UNICORN!

Great Prose Alert:
"He must have been a bad dude," Audra replied thoughtfully.

Conclusions:
Axe-assisted arson aside, how many times am I going to have to read the same book?

Well well well

2008-10-02T11:26:00.001-07:00

Yeah I guess there's no update this week. I intended to go on Goosebumps Vacation next week too, but I guess that's out. I'll see you guys next Tuesday for the regular update. Oh, to ease the pain: There WILL be a special extra update on Halloween. But that's like a month away and who cares amirite

Bad news for people who think this blog is their own private secret

2008-09-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

About twenty minutes ago, Blogger Beware received its Half-Millionth Hit. I can't track images, so that's literally over half a million pages of the blog read and counting-- unbelievable. Thank you to all of my regular and new readers!

--Scroll down for this week's regular update--

Series 2000 #10 Headless Halloween

2008-09-23T02:19:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 10 Headless Halloween

Front Tagline: Talk about getting ahead!

Brief Synopsis:
Protagonist Brandon Plush has two mottos: "Make 'em scream" and "Oops-- just joking!" I gotta say, I'm impressed. When I was his age, I probably only had one motto, tops. So, a book about Halloween and a character who loves tormenting others with frights. We're really in uncharted territory here. Oops-- just joking!

Brandon torments his younger sister Maya. He torments his cousin Vinnie. He even torments the two yoots he babysits. He tells the two neighborhood kids about a ghost who lives in their basement. Brandon reveals that the ghost has "a bad habit" of killing people. Is there a patch for that? The kids don't believe that one of the ghost's victims still haunts their house, so Brandon puts on a mask and pretends to be a headless ghost. Let's all think about that for a moment.

Brandon's friend Cal, a six-foot-tall twelve-year-old, appreciates Brandon's work, as it skews idiot. Brandon likes Cal because he shares his fondness for tormenting kids, and also he can pull things down off high shelves. The two reminisce about all the times they've locked kids inside an abandoned house in their neighborhood. This exchange is shortly followed by Cal overreacting to someone scuffing his new Air Jordans. Man, he should shove him in a locker quick two times!

Not wanting to be one-upped by his fellow tormentor, Brandon spies Vinnie in the hall and pretends to splash acid in his cousin's face. Of course it's only water and Brandon has a good laugh. But what if Vinnie had been carrying an envelope with the flap pulled back? My God, the adhesive would have become prematurely active! This is what kids in these books never consider: the consequences of their actions. Thankfully, adults do, and Brandon's least-favorite teacher, Mr. Benson, sees the whole thing and sentences Brandon to a week's detention. Brandon decides to get revenge against the teacher on Halloween night. Well, I probably wouldn't try reusing that "Pretending water is acid" trick, he's already seen it.

After school, Brandon takes out his frustrations on his little sister by jumping out from behind a corner and screaming at her. Wow, that's a pretty compelling preview of the complex terror that awaits Mr. Benson on Halloween. The shock causes the little girl to accidentally break the glass she was holding and start sobbing. Brandon chooses this moment to reveal his excellent plan for getting revenge on Mr. Benson: He and Cal are going to trash his house on Halloween night. Then, to make up for not being able to trick-or-treat, they're going to steal some kid's bag of candy on the way home. Boy, with this build-up for what a jerk he is, anything short of this kid getting knifed in the eyes at the end of the book is going to feel like a letdown.

Halloween night finally arrives, and golly, Brandon just gets more and more appealing. His mother forces him to take both his cousin and his sister plus her two young friends trick-or-treating. Brandon decides that he'll lead them out into the dark night and then abandon them. And he does. First he ditches the three girls on a dark street. Then he leads his cousin to a dilapidated-looking house. Though he can hear Vinnie screaming as he and Cal run away, Brandon doesn't even stop to see if he's okay. I didn't realize that the bar could be set this low.

Now that responsibility has been safely skirted, Cal and Brandon are free to have a "Headless Halloween." This entails them walking around holding a mask above their heads and then removing the mask. Totally worth naming the book after. Once they tire of scaring little kids and stealing their candy (and long after the reader has tired of it), they decide to make their way over to Mr. Benson's house. His home overlooks a steep cliff that drops down onto a ravine. Just like so many other suburban houses.

As soon as Mr. Benson drives away, the two boys sneak inside. In a surprising scene, the two find beer in the teacher's fridge. This is definitely the first time alcohol has appeared in one of these books and I'm pretty sure it was included as a suggestion for how to get through the rest of the novel.

The two continue to loot their teacher's empty house. And because a Series 2000 book without vomiting is like a Mamet film without Rebecca Pidgeon, Brandon quickly feels the ill effects of eating too much candy. That's right, he gets the ultimate revenge on his teacher by puking all over the kitchen table. Cal thinks that's punishment enough, but Brandon wants to turn the teacher's living room couch upside down for good measure. I can just picture Mr. Benson's reaction to seeing his couch upside down: "Oh no, it'll take like fifteen seconds to flip this right-side up! AAAARGH THIS IS TRULY THE ULTIMATE PRANK!"

Unfortunately we will never know what his actual reaction would have been, because before the two kids can angrily move furniture, Mr. Benson returns home and lets loose his vicious dogs. Brandon races out an open window, leaving Cal behind. As he runs away, he can hear Mr. Benson's guard dogs eating his friend alive. But he has bigger things to worry about. Things like what to wear to school the next day, and how he just jumped off the steep cliff and into the rocky ravine below.

Poor Ambrose Bierce gets dragged into this mire as Brandon wakes up safe in the ravine. He wanders out and into a street he's never heard of. All the houses are dark and a boy he encounters is wearing a mask identical to his own. The boy asks if he heard about the kid who jumped into the ravine and was killed by the fall. And yet somehow the book is only half over. The kid he encounters is named Norband-- I guess Nodnarb was too on the nose? Norband invites Brandon to a Halloween Party-- or is it really a Lonewhale Atpry?!?!

The atpry is going great until Brandon heads over to the refreshment table and chomps down on a worm-filled donut. The kids pin him to the ground and force him to eat the whole thing. The atpry guests then make Brandon go bobbing for cockroaches. As if that wasn't stupid enough, they then make him play Twister. Oh my God, these kids are evil. This is confirmed when some of the children turn into snakes and wrap their bodies around Brandon. I don't remember that option on the Twister spinning wheel. I assume neither does Brandon, and he makes his feelings about associating with cheaters, especially evil snake-person cheaters, known by trying to leave in protest. Only he's stopped because, you know, the snakes.

Brandon eventually escapes the atpry and runs out of the house, only to be greeted by zombies. Oh good, more things. Brandon dodges the zombies and runs towards the ravine, only to see his own crumpled body resting on the bloody rocks below. This revelation proves surprising only for those readers who thumbed through the novel at a book fair and read this page randomly.

Norband tells Brandon that he's on "the Other Side." This is not to be confused with being on the Far Side, which has far more cows. Since Brandon was always scaring people, now his soul is trapped on the other side of being scared. But luckily there is one way for Brandon to regain his life. He must save three people from being scared in one hour. Norband pushes Brandon back into his corpse and the reanimated Brandon sets out to earn his life.

Too bad the first steps he takes are right into the path of Mr. Benson's angry dogs. After saving the still-struggling Cal from the dogs' grasp, Brandon finds himself under attack. How will he ever escape their clutches? Why, luckily he realizes

And dogs love candy-- right?

So he throws some Halloween candy at the dogs. The dogs eat the candy and leave Brandon alone. Add this to the list of valuable lessons young readers will need to unlearn from these books.

I know, I know-- this book is awful. But it can't get much worse, right? RIGHT? Um, ***RING RING*** Hello? Oh, it's the Wrong Phone, and it's for you.

Brandon runs around the neighborhood looking for someone to not scare. He stands outside the door of the house where he abandoned Vinnie and calls inside for his cousin. Vinnie cries out from behind the closed door for Brandon not to come in. Brandon braces himself for balled-up kleenexes, but what he sees within the house is far worse. Vinnie is curled up in the corner and he begs Brandon to leave while he still can. Suddenly, an actual giant ghostly figure of a decomposing man appears. Brandon decides to trick the ghost by doing his headless routine, and it works. The ghost runs away screaming. Unfortunately

"That wasn't the ghost," Vinnie repeated. "That was the ghost's pet."

Put that quote in a museum, it's art.

Vinnie tells Brandon that the house itself is the ghost, which begs the question: How exactly does a house die? The walls of the house start closing in on Vinnie and Brandon, but Brandon discovers that the one thing ghost houses are afraid of is the small beam of a flashlight. Brilliantly fighting off the ceiling and walls with his circle of light, the two boys make vaguely dog-shaped shadow puppets before finally escaping the evil house.

Saving Cal was his first scare-avert. Vinnie was number two. Brandon scans the neighborhood looking for number three. Conveniently, his little sister and her friends are being hassled by some punks at that very moment. Yes, of course the novel climaxes with this and not the giant evil ghost house. Brandon tries to scare away the punks, but somehow street toughs don't fall for his "I'll hold up a mask and then I won't" terrorizing. Luckily for Brandon, his hour is up and his body dies and slinks down, leaving his soul still standing. This does terrify the punks, and Brandon is convinces that even though his time was up, Norband will let him have his life back.

But the Twist is:
Brandon rushes to the cliff and jumps back over into the Other Side. He excitedly tells Norband that he did what he was told. But Norband replies to Brandon by saying, "Oops-- just joking!"-- he never had any intent of letting him live. Then Norband takes off his mask and reveals his Brandon mask. Then he takes that mask off and reveals nothing. Brandon immediately recommends that he and his new dead friends go back into the real world and start scaring people. Well, didn't this turn out to be the sunniest story of a kid dying

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Brandon and his little sister Maya, who literally disappears halfway through the novel.

Questionable Teaching:
What exactly did Mr. Benson have in his house that called for the protection of guard dogs? "Boy, these dogs'll sure stop some punk kids from flipping over my couch!" And like, not even then.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 23/24:
As though the book didn't throw enough random trash at the reader, suddenly bats pop up in suburbia.

Great Prose Alert:
The vampire boy suddenly felt lighter.

Conclusions:
If reincarnation exists, I had better be rewarded for somehow making it to the end of this book by coming back as Christina Hendricks' Emmy Dress.

Series 2000 #09 Are You Terrified Yet?

2008-09-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 09 Are You Terrified Yet?

Front Tagline: Along came a spider...

Brief Synopsis:
Most Goosebumps books feature improbable scenes, but I'd be hard pressed to come up with anything less plausible than the brakes of a car with a baby in the passenger seat accidentally giving way without the driver inside, and the careening car being stopped by a twelve-year-old boy who dives in from the street to rescue the child and stop the car. No, this isn't a scene from Agent Cody Banks (I assume), it's the opening of Are You Terrified Yet? The hero here, Craig, started the book by being scared of a leaf, so there was nowhere to go but up. His reputation for being a scaredy cat is so well-known that his classmates called him C-C-C-Craig, which unfortunately means they could never use that excellent "Did I stutter?" retort. But things are looking up for Craig, as he's just moved to a new town, a new town with abandoned babies in speeding cars.

The joke of the novel, and it's a good one, is that by consistently being cowardly, Craig is widely perceived as being brave by everyone he encounters. He fell off his bike and nearly got hit by the careening car but more or less accidentally found his way inside the car (don't ask) to stop it. The car slows to a stop in front of his new school on his first day of classes, branding him a hero to the entire student body, save a few skeptical students. The mother of the baby, who's a total MILRNLHBUIC (Mother I'd Like to Remind Not to Leave Her Baby Unattended In The Car) rushes over to thank him, revealing that while having your mom drop you off at school is embarrassing, having someone else's mom there makes you the coolest.

Craig's good fortune continues to accrue. He befriends the cutest girl in school, Amy, who is beyond impressed with his feats of bravery. Unfortunately, her best friends, Travis and Brad, are Craig's harshest critics. The boys refuse to be won over by his charms, even though he later rescues a bird's nest-- and man, if rescuing a bird's nest doesn't impress preteens, nothing will.

And so it goes, as Craig is built up to ridiculous levels of bravery by his peers. My personal favorite misunderstanding finds Craig screaming in horror at a scary movie, to which Amy agrees, it is fun to scream along with the characters in the film! Jealous of the attention being lavished on the new kid, Travis becomes obsessed with proving Craig is a scaredy cat. And Travis' cause gains traction after he talks to a distant cousin, who previously went to school with C-C-C-Craig. So Travis shows up with a jar full of spiders and dares Craig to stick his hand in the jar for five minutes. Craig is goaded on by Amy and does so, only to be bitten so many times that he can't even remove his swollen hand after five minutes are up. So Amy talks Travis into going double-or-nothing and Craig has to keep his hand submerged twice as long. Once they leave, Craig comes clean but Amy thinks that too was brave. He then washes his hands, an action which I'm sure she also found brave.

Travis pledges to go double or nothing again the following day. The bravery challenge this time will be to kiss a poisonous snake on the lips, which sounds more like a test for stupidity to me. Only the snake thing was misdirection for one of the boys plucking out their eyeball and shoving it in Craig's mouth. Craig comes out of this one looking brave by spitting out the eyeball, as though the cowardly thing to do was to swallow it? To the surprise of no one, the eyeball was a fake gag and also there was never any snake. But this too is not enough to prove Craig's bravery. And while I agree, I don't necessarily sign on for more tests either.

Travis' dad works at a funeral parlor. So now the newest bravery test involves Craig sneaking into the funeral home and sitting in a coffin. But unfortunately for him, the coffin he chooses is occupied. His "friends" egg him on anyways, as a truly brave person would sit in a corpse-filled coffin no problem. Just like all those other military generals, firefighters, and action heroes who hang around in coffins during their off hours.

But wouldn't you know it, the corpse comes to life and tries to choke Craig. It is of course Travis in disguise, and somehow Craig allowing himself to be choked proves his bravery, and Travis is shocked at how brave he really is. But then Amy challenges Travis to let Craig repeat the challenge again the next day for no reason other than that Craig is her prized pig and she keeps setting up things for him to jump over.

At some point Craig comes clean with Amy, but Amy just thinks he's not only brave but sweet to not want to take Travis' money by pretending to be afraid. Also Craig accidentally beats up Brad's older brother, and boy as much as I like this book, there's probably one too many of these kinds of scenes. But subtlety has had a restraining order out against Stine for the length of the series, so I can't say I'm real surprised.

So the big climax finds everyone back at the funeral home, where surprise surprise the corpses really do come alive. Everyone runs off while Craig bravely defends those who abandoned him, proving once and for all that he actually is brave. Also one of the attacking coffin corpses is wearing a hat, which begs one final question: Why would you bury someone wearing a hat?

But the Twist is:
It turns out the corpses were set up by Craig with help from Brad, who felt bad about how devoted Travis was to proving Craig's bravery. The zombies were actually Brad's older brother (the one Craig "beat up") and his friends. And if you thought this book already seemed a little like You Can't Scare Me!, you'll be happy to know that it proceeds to being exactly like You Can't Scare Me! Brad's brother walks in and apologizes for his friends not being able to make it to the cemetery. This causes Brad to race away from the room so he can vomit in horror. I was getting worried that the book was so far along without a vomit scene, but there it is.

But Then the Better Twist is:
It turns out Brad's brother just said that to get back at Brad for... well, I guess if these books have taught us anything, it's that older brothers don't really need an excuse to torment their siblings. Craig walks home and remarks to the reader on how it turns out he really is brave... even if he's still afraid of the dark. Which is to say, a protagonist in one of these books doesn't get screwed and the novel keeps its charming tone. Man, based on that cover, who knew

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Craig and his new best friend Amy, whose big mouth causes Craig's attraction to her to disappear about halfway through the book.

the RAND Corporation, In Conjunction With the Saucer People, Under the Supervision of the Reverse Vampires Alert :
Outside of the distraught mother who opens the book, there's not a single other adult in the novel. Finally, a Lord of the Flies for our generation.

RB Farraday Alert:
Some of the horror movies Craig browses in Amy's collection: Killer Daycamp, Killer Daycamp II, Killer Daycamp III: the Revenge.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 6/7:
Craig's life is ruined-- and by ruined, he means greatly improved.

Great Prose Alert:
I gazed down at the box. It showed two teenage boys and two teenage girls screaming in horror.

Conclusions:
No, but that's okay.

Series 2000 #08 Fright Camp

2008-09-09T22:52:00.001-07:00

Series 2000 #08 Fright Camp

Front Tagline: Where the wild things are... out of control!

I gotta say, just when I think this series can offer no more surprises, along comes Fright Camp, a book so derivative of past books that it makes I am Your Evil Twin look wholly original. I can say with no exaggeration that if you've read (the books or the entries) for Welcome to Camp Nightmare and A Shocker on Shock Street, then you've read this book. Don't believe me? Take the quiz below and discover for yourself just how familiar Fright Camp is.

Brief Quiz

01 Protagonists Andrew and Tyler's parents start the summer right by telling their children
A They're adopted
B Their parents were adopted
C They're not invited to the family vacation
D Off, those lousy stinking kids

02 The book flirts with self-reference as Andrew's parents enroll him and his brother in a summer camp run by the "Scariest Man Alive,"
A FW Murnau
B FX Toole
C RB Farraday
D DB Sweeney

03 On the bus ride to the questionably named Fright Camp, the siblings get excited by
A The prospect of an Arts and Crafts Cabin From Hell
B The likelihood of a horror camp's bug juice being made from real bugs
C The bumps the driver hits in the road
D RL Stine's newest acquisition to his fleet of yachts, 'River Beware'

04 Once arriving at the camp, the children are
A Greeted warmly by the caring staff
B Immediately dissed in the staff's slam book
C Handcuffed to an electroshock generator
D Reminded that the first rule of Fright Camp is that they don't talk about Fright Camp

05 All of the bunks, cabins, and attractions at Fright Camp are named after
A US Vice Presidents
B Mr. Sketch scented markers
C Characters and locations from RB Farraday's films
D LiveJournal usernames

06 The campers are warned by the counselors against playing in the awkwardly worded
A Knife Pool
B Eight-lane-highway Trail
C Bottomless Quicksand Pit of Screams
D Scary Raccoon Trash Can Book Cover Fun Area

07 One jokester scares his fellow campmates by pretending his hand is caught in a
A Hunny pot, only to be mauled by an angry bear
B Cookie jar, spoiling the song for everyone by revealing who then
C Wasp nest
D Lie. Why, that's really his foot!

08 RB Farraday shocks the children by
A Clearly peeking during their game of Seven Up
B Using ironic racism
C Calling them prisoners
D Actually shocking the children, with electricity

09 RB Farraday has directed 35 horror movies and believes the best way to terrify an audience is to
A Show them how hot dogs are made
B Drop a loud book while they're taking a test
C Scare them using real terrors
D Allow Mickey Rourke's style consultant to dress them

10 In order to begin the horror for the children, Farraday's helper Alonso does what terrifying act?
A Brings out his Horror-Beginner Machine
B Shows their parents the campers' secretly whiteout-defaced Trapper Keepers
C Wheels in a caged gorilla
D Dons world's last hypercolor shirt, draws "Boo!" on chest with finger

11 Andrew notices cameras all over camp. He figures they're there
A In case Paris Hilton wants to have sex somewhere
B Because they are free-range camcorders in their natural habitat
C For surveillance on the campers
D Because RB Farraday set up Fright Camp in order to film a documentary on terror. Whoops, ***SPOILER ALERT***

12 Andrew goes swimming and is grabbed by an underwater zombie who looks just like a missing camper. This sounds familiar because
A What am I talking about, this is a fresh and novel turn of events
B Andrew was already warned about this happening in the brochure
C Oh cool, you've read the Curse of Camp Cold Lake too
D 'Dead person in the water' is a common halloween costume--

13 Yes, Fright Camp fulfills the unwritten requirement that every Series 2000 book must contain vomiting. What induces the act this time?
A A poorly-timed visit to the Swift Kick To The Midsection Cabin
B Bunk Three decides they can take on Ed "Cookie" Jarvis in the camp's hot dog eating contest
C An out of control amusement park ride, which for some reason is on the campgrounds
D Page 73, which features a pop-out finger to literally induce vomiting in the reader

14 What other regular Goosebumps fixture makes a cameo appearance?
A Cool Doctor Money
B Goo Punch
C Werewolves
D Kendall Gill

15 After things get more and more dangerous, RB Farraday hires
A A new ghostwriter for the book he appears in
B An efficiency expert, so he can streamline the danger
C Armed guards to prevent the children from escaping
D Illegal immigrants, in a confused attempt to frighten the campers with UFOs

16 The threat of being shot doesn't deter some campers from attempting to leave, so Farraday has the staff remove what?
A The hats of the children, who are then put on permanent Pledge of Allegiance notice
B The letter 'F' from the sign, in the hopes that the children will stop if they think the camp is correct
C The campers' shoes
D All of the children. What isn't there can't escape

17 While attempting to confront Farraday, Andrew discovers a note written by the director which reveals
A Farraday is going to marry Shelly the cook, live in a mansion, have three children, and drive a VW Bug
B Farraday is going to kill himself, and he bequeaths his collection of bottled sand art to Alonso
C Farraday can't handle the terror of the camp he created and has abandoned the campers
D Farraday dots his I's with evil hearts

18 One camper's mom comes to rescue her son but fails. How does she meet her sad fate?
A Is driven off the road to the camp by a Bang Bus, assassinated by the MILF Hunter
B Tries to drink gallon of milk straight from the jug in under five minutes
C Is sucked into quicksand pit
D Trips and falls in the parking lot, figures "Screw this," turns around and heads back home

19 Unbelievably, RL Stine thinks kids don't retain anything they read and the first of three (!) twists is revealed to be that
A The camp is throwing with its right hand
B The camp put on its sister's halloween mask
C The camp is really a project to gauge the response of children to stress and terror
D This is the one where the camp turns out to be a dog or something

20 Twist two finds Andrew and his upset friends tricking RB Farraday into thinking some of the campers really have gone missing into a dark, forbidden cave. The kids lead him into a dark cave and then reveal their revenge-fueled trickery, only to be told by the fearful director that
A Fred Flintstone said to stop bothering Wilma and he'd kick his ass if he ever came back into his cave again
B He picked the wrong day to wear his Adidas snap-pants
C The cave is forbidden because it is a giant wasp nest and once they slip inside, the walls are coated with wasps, preventing their escape
D This gives him a great idea for his next movie: The Director Who Murdered Four Jerk Kids In A Cave

But the Third Twist is:
Andrew notices a speaker emitting the sound of wasps buzzing and RB Farraday reminds him that Fright Camp doesn't end for another two weeks. PSHEW, that was almost a good ending, thank God we dodged that.

Selected Filmography For RB Farraday:
RL Stine reveals that Farraday has directed 35 horror movies. Here is every project mentioned by name in the book:

the Beast With Three Brains
Carnival of Disgusting Horrors
the Cavern of No Return
Conquerers of the Gorilla Planet
Crab Monsters vs. the Leech People
Go-carts From the Evil Kingdom
Kunga, the Animal Vampire
Night of the June Bugs
Nightmare House (TV series)
the Revenge of Dr. Cruel
Vacation of Endless Doom

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 9/10
I didn't talk about it much, but the gorilla from Question Ten breaks loose and starts hugging the strapped-in Andrew. Pretty much any chapter unfortunate to break at that point in the story earned this one.

Great Prose Alert:
Another kid sent a balloon of yellow vomit into the air.

Conclusions:
How can there possibly still be two more books set at camp in this series

Series 2000 #07 Revenge R Us

2008-09-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 #07 Revenge R Us

Front Tagline: It's a bird's-eye view... of horror.

Brief Synopsis:
For those who enjoyed last week's entry (or those of you who just skimmed all six-thousand words of it looking for jokes), I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that much like I Am Your Evil Twin, Revenge R Us is another Goosebumps mixtape, constructed almost wholly from other books in the series. The bad news is that despite borrowing, oh, the entire plot of Be Careful What You Wish For...., the book also cribs heavily from, dear God in heaven, Chicken Chicken. So the bar is set pretty high and pretty low.

Narrator Wade Brill is getting ready for a friend's birthday party. Wade's supposed to catch a ride to the party with her 17-year-old brother, Micah, but he still hasn't returned from the gym to pick her up. This isn't the first time Micah's been a bad brother though. For instance, there was the time he interrupted her and her friends by trotting around with Wade's underwear on his head. What. And here's the part that makes even less sense: She's the one who felt embarrassed by this.

As the hour grows late, Wade decides he must have forgotten his (non-bench) pressing engagement. Braving a violent rainstorm outside, Wade wades through water and loses her umbrella on her journey to meet her brother at his gym. Luckily, en route, he pulls up next to her before she has to walk too far. Unluckily, he purposely hits a puddle in the process, spraying her and her soaked white sundress with mud. He then helpfully drops her off at the bottom of her friend's driveway and speeds away without so much as an apology. This will be the nicest thing he does in the novel.

While drying off in her friend's bathroom, she notices a newspaper ad that will solve all of her problems. It's for writing lessons and she mails the clipping to RL Stine c/o Scholastic. But seriously folks, it's for a revenge business called Revenge R Us. Yes, that's right, for those of you who saw Dirty Work and thought it would make an excellent Goosebumps book, you were wrong.

Wade doesn't want to visit Revenge R Us without an escort though, so she spins her wheels for a few days until her friend Carl Jeffers is available to accompany her. In the meantime, her brother's behavior becomes a little less than charming. Micah steals her diary and reads it over the loudspeaker at a public pool. Wade's shocked because though Micah was always sneaking around her room to find her diary, she hid it in a really good place: under her mattress. I don't know what's worse, that she thought that was a good hiding place or that it took her brother a couple months of snooping to find it.

Before her official revenge against Micah, Wade attempts a pretty horrendous amateur revenge. While her brother is entertaining his girlfriend, she slips a dead garden slug into his coffee. This is followed by her mother accidentally drinking from the slug mug. If that wasn't gross enough, her mother spits the slug out and it slides down her face, sticking there. Classy as always, RL Stine.

Finally the day arrives for Wade and Carl to take a trip down to Revenge R Us, which is located in a trailer park in "the wrong part of town." With his finger on the pulse of those income brackets which preclude yachts, RL Stine appears to have confused mobile homes with gypsy hovels. The description given to the lower classes in the trailer park is so removed from any current reality that I kept expecting the Joads to emerge from behind a tent flap.

Once the kids arrive at Revenge R Us, they meet the proprietor, a gypsy named Iris. Iris is pretty excited about finally getting some customers, as her business is a new startup, but she's less thrilled when Wade explains she has no money. Proving her business model is probably not a good one, Iris offers to let Wade have a free preview of her revenge services, with the warning that they are magical. Wade thinks it's a fine idea and pets Iris' magic crow, Maggie, three times while the gypsy witch casts an itching spell on Micah.

Oh but wouldn't you know it, Iris is still working out a few kinks in her new business. The first revenge spell for Micah to have horrible itching somehow gets transferred to Wade, who itches so horribly that she begins scratching herself until she bleeds. Oh but Iris reverses that spell and then casts one that will cause Micah's hair to fall out during his big date. Except oops, that spell also gets transferred to Wade, only reversed so that she grows hair. Great, this is the one where it turns out they're stealing part of that one where it turns out they're all dogs or something. After Wade grows so much hair that she gets weighted down and can't move, Iris reverses her second failed revenge spell and then casts a third and final spell against Micah. I know you get what you pay for, but at this point wouldn't it be a lot easier for Wade to just wait around a corner and yell "Boo!" at Micah? It's not like she could turn into a ghost or something if it backfired. But no, more magical crow petting ensues.

Iris' third revenge spell erases Micah entirely. For some unknown reason, Wade really wants her brother back, even though he is without exaggeration the most psychotic character ever to appear in one of these books. His actions aren't obnoxious, they're abusive. One scene finds him just shoving his sister into a bathtub as hard as he can with no provokation. But because there'd be no forward momentum without her doing so, she goes to Iris and begs for her to bring Micah back. Unfortunately, Iris is sick of giving away free ineffectual revenges that are horrible, and this reversal will cost Wade.

What's the price? Apparently Maggie the magic crow has a sister named Minnie being held captive by Iris' evil sister in a house on Wade's street. If Wade can go into the house and rescue Minnie, Iris will use the collective power of the two magical birds to bring her brother back to life. Let's all pause and marvel at what I had to write just now.

Wade breaks into the witch's house and steals the magic crow, only to be stopped by the familiar-looking hag. Why, it's Micah dressed in drag! Oh Christ me. Micah smirks and explains that the entire book was an elaborate revenge against Wade. I don't think "revenge" means what he thinks it means because she didn't really do anything. Nevertheless, Micah spent $300 procuring Iris' services after he saw the ad clipping in Wade's room. The entire thing was set up to ruin Wade's life for no reason. Even the second magic crow was just a regular crow. Thats the last straw for Wade and she vows more revenge. Great, because the last 100 pages have been pretty good, but what the book really needed was more revenge.

Wade steals Maggie and casts a spell on Micah that causes him to do back flips. Micah warns that she probably shouldn't have stolen the gypsy's magic bird, but Wade explains that the hag doesn't have their address. She then cuts the debate short by turning him into a slug. Then that gets boring so she turns him into a frog. Things turning into other things, there's a novel twist for these books. Unfortunately Iris shows up anyways, having gotten their address from the check Micah wrote her. Iris must be really new at running a business if she accepted a check from a teenager.

Wade refuses to give the bird back and instead casts a frog-tuning spell on the witch using Maggie. Only Iris doesn't transform. She explains that magic birds have rules and Wade just broke one. Apparently you can only use a magic bird for three spells in a day. On the fourth spell, the revenge you wish is cast back on the spellcaster. Wade turns into a frog.

But the Twist is:
This didn't end the series.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Wade Brill and her friend Carl Jeffers, who disappeared halfway thru this entry's summary because he was boring and didn't really do anything.

Questionable Parenting:
When Micah runs over Wade's bike with his car, their father just chuckles. Aren't the odds pretty good he's the one who paid for the bike though?

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 1/2

I had no idea that I was minutes away from the worst day of my life.
And maybe the best....

You guys read this entry, was there ever a moment that was the best of anything for Wade?

Great Prose Alert:
How's that for a Kodak moment? A boy I like sitting there with my underpants in his hands!

Conclusions:
Writing this entry was like discussing the ingredients label on a cereal box. I can tell you what's in it, but there's not much I can do to make it interesting.

Series 2000 #06 I Am Your Evil Twin

2008-08-26T21:59:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 #06 I Am Your Evil Twin

Front Tagline: He's one deadly double!

Brief Synopsis:
Narrator Montgomery Adams seems to have it all: A scientist uncle who lives in Pittsburgh and a mother who must leave her son to go to South-east Asia for a couple months. You know, the average life of an American Preteen. Montgomery doesn't mind being dropped off at his Uncle's though, because he understands why his mother couldn't take him with her:

Mom can't take me with her, because there are no good schools in the jungles of Borneo.

Which is hard to argue with.

Luckily for Montgomery, his cousin Nan is the same age as him and the two get along swimmingly. With all this going right for him, you'd think Montgomery wouldn't be complaining, but he openly hates his name and also whines about his red hair. You know kid, some redheaded Adamses do alright for themselves

Uncle Leo spends most of the time in his basement laboratory, but he does stop to smell the roses by taking time out of his busy schedule to greet Montgomery by pricking him with a pin and poisoning him with donuts. Monty (as he prefers to be called) is allergic to peanuts, and the donuts from the bakery were fried in peanut oil. This naturally results in another Series 2000 scene involving vomit. Uncle Leo suggests washing the whole experience away with a jug of cider. A jug of cider? Is the twist that they're living at Silver Dollar City?

Monty has to transfer to the new school mid-semester, but luckily he knows a few of Nan's friends already. He's sweet on one in particular, Ashley, and she helpfully reminds the reader that the novel is set in Pennsylvania by wearing a "Penn State" shirt. Strangely, his teacher gets miffed when Monty asks which desk is his, as she claims she already told him last week. Except, Monty was still in another state until a few days ago. Ashley helpfully points out his desk for him, and though the seat is not wearing a Pirates jersey, it too is probably also located in Pennsylvania.

After school, Monty kills time around the mansion while his cousin takes a piano lesson. It turns out he and his cousin both really good at it and they decide to do a duet for the school talent show. Well, that's fitting, because after all they are living in Dutch country.

While waiting for his cousin to wrap up, Monty opens the door to Uncle Leo's Forbidden Basement Laboratory, where someone with a high-pitched voice yells out for him to get out. Uncle Leo surfaces a few moments later and apologizes for snapping, but his basement laboratory is just too dangerous for non-scientists. As for his high-pitched voice, well, maybe his dangerous experiment is sucking the air out of helium balloons. I mean, they do that at Discovery Zone but those kids are tuff.

Around this point, the novel takes an unusual turn and becomes... well, really good actually. And thank God for that, because after the last quintet of books in this series, I really needed a book that flirted with competency. At school the next day, Monty and Ashley are in art class and there's interplay between them and other classmates that is both interesting and resembles actual human interaction. This was about the time in the novel when I realized Scholastic finally sent for a competent ghostwriter.

While the two are flirting and goofing around in the art room, Monty accidentally spills paint all over a rough classmate's volcano problem, and both he and Ashley are punished with after-school detention. Ashley spends the rest of the day ignoring him, though she does finally acknowledge him after school lets out. See, she caught him trashing the art room and then sneaking out the window. Monty surveys the art room, which looks like a non-cat tornado hit it. He questions how she could think he did it, as he was in science class. But she insists that she saw it happen and then tattles on him to the principal.

While cleaning up the art room solo, he spies his reflection in the mirror-- only he realizes the reflection is of someone behind him. Monty tries to chase after the figure but he's stopped by the art teacher who chastises him some more and explains how mirrors work. After school, things aren't much better as he gets beat up by the volcano sons. The next day, Monty spies his double again, this time looking into his classroom from the window. Monty runs across the room and jumps out the window to chase after his double, which does little to endear him to his teacher.

Once safely back at home, he says hello to Uncle Leo and then asks if he has a twin. Surprisingly, Uncle Leo admits that he does. He quietly tells Monty that when his mother was pregnant, his father died a month before she was due with twins. Because she couldn't afford to raise two children, she had to give up one. She held on to Monty simply because he was born first. Monty has a lot of questions, but before he can ask about the twin tormenting him at school, Uncle Leo drops a shocker: Nan is his fraternal twin, who Uncle Leo has raised as his own daughter.

This all leads to one of the most "real" and well-written segments in Goosebumps history, as Nan and her brother talk about her feelings of abandonment and how to deal with this new information about their relationship. In other words, they act like human beings and not plot devices. The story is silly, but the way it's told is so far beyond what I've seen from this series that it's nothing short of a minor miracle.

Nan and Monty share a story about how one Christmas, they both stole part of one of their cousin's model trains, and how they should have known they were siblings then. Unfortunately, they can't keep being interesting for the entire book and this nice stretch is interrupted by a phone call from the plot, warning Monty that things are about to get worse for him and for that poor Prince Albert stuck in a can.

Several weeks pass though before anything gets worse, proving the mystery caller unreliable at best. However, on the day of the Big Piano Rehearsal in front of the school, things do get, well, ridiculously worse. Before Monty can go onstage with Nan for their duet, he realizes he left his sheet music in his locker. Along the way, someone shoves him into a supply closet. He escapes the rising fumes of some carefully spilled chemicals and races to the auditorium, only to discover when he returns backstage that Nan went out and started without him. Only, wait for it, she is with him. Only the "him" onstage is not really him at all! The Real Monty yells out to the Fake Monty, who cuts the recital short by pushing the piano across the stage in an attempt to kill the Real Monty. There's probably a Full Monty joke somewhere in all of this, but I'm not making it. This is a Family Blog.

Monty chases his twin into the halls and the twin confronts him, tells him he's taking over his life, and then punches him in the stomach. He then nonchalantly walks out of the school. The Real Monty gives chase and sees the Fake Monty calmly walking past cars in the parking lot and along the street holding a spray can. He stops to spray-paint a heart around "MONTY LUVES ASHLEY 4EVER" on the door to a car he knows Ashley will pass on her way home. I mean, c'mon, that's so great.

Monty follows himself home and spies the twin slipping into one of the mansion's open window-- man, has this dude never heard of a door? Monty races inside to get his uncle, but then remembers he isn't home. Nan however shows up and angrily asks why he shoved a piano offstage. His answer doesn't do much to quell her anger. However, during this argument, Monty and his sister make their way over to the family's computer and discover a scholarly paper authored by their uncle resting in the printer that explains everything. Its title? "THE FUTURE OF CLONING." You would think that a scientist smart enough to perfect cloning would be smart enough not to leave a paper like that just hanging around.

Monty picks up on the subtle clues and realizes his uncle must have cloned him, with the pinprick earlier in the book an excuse to get a blood sample. Nan insists he would never have done such a terrible thing. Uncle Leo exhibits some excellent timing by interrupting her to confirm that he indeed would do such a terrible thing. His defense of his actions is the single greatest thing I've ever read in a Goosebumps book:

"I am a scientist," he declared.

Instead of seeking to understand himself, Uncle Leo summons four cloned Monties, who line up behind him in an excellently choreographed moment. They're all dressed identically, which begs the scientific question: Is that how cloning works? Because I'm like pretty sure you can't clone someone's clothes from their blood.

The Monties attack. The kids panic and begin throwing glass beakers at them in a futile attempt to escape. Uncle Leo cries out for them to stop breaking all his expensive equipment. Dude must have blown all his money on cloning clothes if he's concerned that a few busted $2 beakers are going to break him.

The escape is quickly thwarted when the Real Monty misjudges and knocks himself out when trying to duck under a steel table. He comes to in a supply closet-- what is it with these clones and supply closets? He spies Nan and the real Uncle Leo, who are also being held captive in the dark dank room. Uncle Leo explains what might have already been suspected: The other Uncle Leo is just his own clone. Even though he'd never clone another human being, Uncle Leo had no problems cloning himself. Unfortunately he discovered the one downside to clones: They are all evil. But what about their cloned clothes? Are all cloned clothes evil?

It turns out Monty was cloned last year by Leo Two and the whole pinprick thing was just a coincidence. Uncle Leo didn't know about the Monty clones until a few days prior, and it turns out they had been sleeping in some of the extra bedrooms in the mansion. When he tried to confront Leo Two about the squatters, he got locked in a supply closet.

Then Uncle Leo shows what a scientist brings to the table by revealing that all the clones have a small blue dot on their right thumb, so that they're easily identifiable against the original. Again proving that all clones are both evil and possess excellent timing, Leo Two chooses this moment to drag the Real Monty out of the supply closet. While his Monty minions hold him down, Leo Two tattoos a blue dot on the Real Monty's thumb. Thankfully, before Leo Two can give Nan a butterfly tattoo in the small of her back, the Real Monty creates a diversion and she escapes to go get help.

The four Monties don't much like the original and decide to show why they're superior. They walk him over to a bunsen burner and force his hand into the flame. Guys I've heard of Monty Burns but this is ridiculous amirite. It turns out that in addition to being evil and possessing excellent timing, clones also can't feel pain. Couldn't they have just told him that?

Monty tries to sleep through the pain of his badly blistered hand but he has difficulty and tries a meek escape. Of course the clones are not only evil, possess excellent timing, and can't feel pain, but they also are light sleepers. In the house that Jack built. They thwart any attempts at leaving, but they also get surprised by the lab door being kicked in.

Who has come to the rescue? Why, it's Nan and she's brought more scientists! Leo Two expresses outrage at the strangers bursting into "his" lab. Unfortunately, he fell into a trap, as the scientists Nan brought were old college roommates of Uncle Leo. The scientists manhandle Leo Two out of the lab and into a waiting truck. Strangely, the Monty clones stand idly by and do not attempt to help their creator. Wait, evil clones aren't loyal? So many life lessons learned.

The scientists liberate several mops and the real Uncle Leo from the closet. They explain that the truck they're loading up with clones is headed down to South America, where they've set up a lab to do testing on the duplicates. The Real Monty tries to embrace Nan in gratitude, but she shuns him due to his tattoo. Things aren't helped much by the other clones all claiming they're the real Monty too. Unfortunately, one of the Monty clones steps forward and proves he's the Real Monty by reciting the Christmas anecdote about the trains. That's good enough for Nan, and the Real Monty gets shipped away with the rest of the clones into the back of the truck.

This is probably where any other Goosebumps book would end, but like I said, this is a better book than most. The Real Monty realizes that his clones don't know he's not one of them-- they think the clone who stepped forward was the Real Monty. As the truck arrives at a loading dock, the clones discuss how they're probably being held until morning when they can be loaded onto a ship bound for South America. The Real Monty spies an armed guard standing watch outside the back door to the truck's compartment.

Monty spies an emergency hatch on the roof of the truck compartment and whips the clones into a revolutionary frenzy by rallying against himself. He inspires the clones to work as one and escape, so that they can reclaim "their" life from the original who is living it. The Monties begin standing on each other's shoulders, with the Real Monty planning to climb out the top. He tells them he'll come back with a rope to get them, and they buy that. So clones are evil, possess excellent timing, can't feel pain, are light sleepers, aren't loyal and are really really dumb.

But not as dumb as humans. Monty gets to the escape hatch but accidentally hurts his burnt hand in the process of climbing out. He cries out in pain and the clones all realize he's not one of them. They pull the wriggling boy back down into the truck.

The clones descend on the Real Monty. He thinks quick and asks for one final request before they kill him. He'd like to pick another name, as he still hates Montgomery. He proposes Paul. One of the other clones likes Paul and decides he might like to be called Paul too. Another clone comes up with his own name he'd like to be called. Before long there's a brawl among the clones over who gets to be named what. While his copies are distracted, Monty alerts the guard to the fracas and slips out unnoticed while he breaks it up.

Monty walks all night until he finally arrives at the mansion. Unfortunately, the book makes a drastic shift at this point that demotes it from probably the best Goosebumps book I've read to merely one of the best. Not because of the plot, but because the previously excellent prose takes a nosedive. See, the novel up to this point has been in first person from Monty's POV. However, at this point, and with no warning, the perspective changes to first person from Nan's POV and remains with her until the end of the book. Aspiring writers take note: You. Can. Not. Do. That.

Nan is confronted with two Monties, both who claim to be the real deal. She decides to test them by giving them half a donut fried in peanut oil. Uncle Leo warns that they don't really know how allergies work and the clone might also possess the allergy. But no one has time to hear another item added to the list of things clones are, so they proceed with the experiment regardless. In the exciting climax of the book, one of the Monties vomits.

But the Twist is:
To the surprise of exactly no one, it's revealed that the Monty who threw-up faked it. He practiced vomiting the day before so he could pass such a test, should it ever come up. Add "overly prepared" to the clone list. He also only knew the "stupid" story about the trains because he overheard them talking about it. Clone Monty shows no remorse for sending the original to his doom. He then utters the book's titular line, "I am your evil twin!"

About That Twist:
Ha, I bet you thought I was going to say the title of another book and not the actual titular line REGULAR READER, THE TWIST IS ON YOU

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Nan and her cousin/brother Monty, who disappears forever into the back of a truck at the end of the novel.

Questionable Uncling:
Cloning humans is one thing, but cloning clothes is just going too far.

Questionable Teaching:
Yet again, another middle school class is presented with an elementary problem (What is a proper noun?), and what's worse, is stumped by it.

Oh Cool:
I've read Stay Out of the Basement, Let's Get Invisible, and Mirror, Mirror On the Wall too. And alternately: I've seen Solaris, Multiplicity, and Solaris too.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
I think this is only the second time this has happened, but there aren't any worth mocking.

Great Prose Alert:
"Hi-ya!" I karate chopped the clone's wrist

Conclusions:
A++++++++++++++ WOULD READ AGAIN

You may have noticed, but the blog updates on Tuesdays now. Schedule your lives accordingly.

Series 2000 #04-05: Invasion of the Body Squeezers Parts One and Two

2008-08-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

Invasion of the Body Squeezers Parts One and Two

Front Taglines: Talk about a tight squeeze! / Please don't squeeze the human!

Brief Synopses:
Invasion of the Body Squeezers is a vast, all-encompassing epic that shatters all preconceived notions of what RL Stine is capable of achieving. A story so massive that it took two books to contain! With a scope so immense that no single Goosebumps book could hold it! The Cinemascope of children's novels, this 248 page event unfurls at such a furious pace that novice readers will need to go back and read certain passages two, three, seven times to fully grasp all that is revealed. Truly this is a book that encourages that academic habit of writing in the margins. Here's one of my scribbled comments:

Oh, so nothing happens, and slowly

Yes, Invasion of the Body Squeezers is an epic, but only in the same sense that Epic Movie is an epic. Here is the entire saga, reader indeed bewarned.

Part One
Invasion of the Body Squeezers Part One is so unnecessary that it's hard to imagine why it was released at all-- this is basically a prologue that goes on longer than the story proper. Padded beyond reason, RL Stine has poured so much water into this liquor bottle that no one's parents are going to be fooled. Protagonist Jack Archer at various points invokes every Goosebumps cliche there is, including scientists, werewolves, vampires, monsters, ghosts, adults with fantasy careers, breaking into someone's house, bratty siblings, parents who won't listen, bullies-- and, if we accept that the aliens are technically moving to a new town, the book is practically the series' own Wiki.

And what is all this at the service of? Well, allow me to sum up The 120 Pages of Boredom in three paragraphs:

NASA is completely baffled at the mysterious objects hurtling towards Earth. But Jack Archer knows they're really aliens. Of course, he's been down this road before, as his nickname is Saucerman-- and not because he takes his tea like a gentleman. No, his outlandish claims about UFOs and other wolf-cries have long fallen on deaf ears. So it's his bad luck that his neighbor (with the unlikely name of Mr. Fleshman) is actually harboring several horrible monsters inside his house. Jack knows this because he's been spying on him with his binoculars. Finally, Jack musters up the energy to break into Mr. Fleshman's house several times, encountering monsters every time. On his last visit to Fleshman's house to gather incriminating evidence, ~~Grace Kelly~~ Jack discovers that Mr. Fleshman is actually a world-class special effects guru and all the monsters within the house are really just elaborate robotic creatures. As ridiculous as this sounds, it's actually really obvious from almost the beginning of the book. But did RL Stine really devote 1/4 of his DeMille Moment to a head-fake? Though, granted, it wouldn't be that unusual if he had, the answer is no.

As the mysterious objects in the sky hover closer to Earth, Jack deals with the consequences of accidentally stealing Mr. Fleshman's beeper. Instead of alerting Jack that his table at Outback is finally available, the vibrating beeper transmits strange metallic voices into his mind. These voices command him to get ready for the incoming alien fleet. Jack also finds himself automatically agreeing to any external command with a robotic answer of "I will obey." If PetsMart could get their hands on this technology, I bet they'd sit on it like Ford sits on the electric car. Jack finally gives the beeper back to Mr. Fleshman, hoping to rid himself of the voices. But Mr. Fleshman nonchalantly accepts it back as if it really were just his beeper, and Jack wonders if he's going insane. But before he can start chopping down hotel doors with an axe, Jack witnesses firsthand the most improbable meteor shower ever described.

After exiting Mr. Fleshman's house, a torrent of fiery meteors rain down on the streets of his neighborhood. Rather than everyone dying in fiery craters, nothing happens. Oh good, I was afraid something was going to happen, but no, nothing happens. Instead, a small smooth stone rests in front of every house. Jack takes one of the meteors in preparation for a possible game of wall ball with the coming aliens. But alas, the voices are still coming to him, this time from within the meteor. He overhears Mr. Fleshman tell a general on the phone that he's ready for the coming invasion and Jack realizes he's been tricked and the Hollywood story was just a cover. He races back to his house to retrieve the meteor to show Mr. Fleshman, who he assumes is working with the government to thwart the incoming aliens. But he's too late, as an alien emerges from his meteor.

That's it. That's the entire first book, minus Jack's interminable bickering with his little sister Billie and some imbecilic side plots that add nothing and go nowhere ("Oh no, someone threw a ball out a window! Let's talk about it for ten pages"). And no, I don't understand what that cover has to do with the book it adorns either.

Part Two
The book opens with a four page recap of the events of the first book. Unsurprisingly, even the "Previously on" segment feels too long. Eventually RL Stine brings the reader back to the alien that has emerged from the meteor in Jack's room. The insect-like creature is quickly shown to not be benevolent and attempts to attack Jack. Luckily he dodges it and is about to escape his house when suddenly his school's science teacher shows up inside his house. Yes, that's right. In the first part, some kids played with Jack's meteor and so Jack ran away from the school in a huff. Well, Mr. Liss, Jack's science teacher, was so worried about how sad Jack must have been to throw such a tantrum over a ball that he too left the school and ran all the way to Jack's house. Because teachers often abandon an entire classroom of students in order to run after a crybaby, going so far as to follow them home and enter their house unannounced. Well, in Florida maybe.

Mr. Liss doesn't believe Jack's story until one of the alien shows up in the kitchen. Mr. Liss, being a man of science, believes that the alien wants a hug. Mr. Liss rushes over to the slimy alien and embraces him. Unfortunately, the alien likes it rough and squeezes Mr. Liss so tight that the creature actually slips inside the teacher, controlling him from within. The only outward signs that there's an alien inside the teacher is a clicking voice impediment and the periodic green bubblegum bubbles that inflate out of his ears. What.

Before Mr. Liss can hug the boy, Jack's mother comes home. She doesn't really question why there's a strange man in her kitchen though. Mr. Liss introduces himself and tries to hug her, but Jack pulls her away. Mr. Liss leaves without infecting his mother, though he does see him hugging a mailman on his way out the driveway. Naturally Jack's mother doesn't believe him, so he decides to turn to Mr. Fleshman. He sneaks into his house for like the eighth time-- I don't know why Mr. Fleshman doesn't just make him a set of keys-- and confronts the secret agent. The man admits to being part of the Alien Detection Bureau and asks Jack to keep a list of everyone he knows is being infected by the aliens for later use. Because that worked out so well for HUAC.

Jack swears off ever going to school again, as he doesn't want to run into Mr. Liss, but some of his friends come over to convince him to show up the next day for swim team practice. Then, in the book's only exciting action sequence, his friends have a pillow fight.

At school the next day, Jack very passively battles the alien invasion by running to the principal to avoid Mr. Liss. But the principal's interest is compounded by the fact that she has been infected by aliens also. She tries to hug him but he wants his personal space respected. He hightails it out of the office and runs through the school, only to wind up in an auditorium during a police presentation to the student body. Jack gets the bright idea of running up on the stage and announcing the whole alien invasion. Somehow neither the student body nor the police department get behind his logical alien hugging speech and so they openly ridicule Jack.

The principal drags Jack offstage and completely disregards her own PDA rules by trying to hug him yet again. Jack wiggles free and runs backstage, hiding in an old costume trunk. Other than being interrupted by Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, he remains safely undetected inside the chest until the assembly ends. After the applause dies down, Jack rushes to tattle to the cops, but spies the principal embracing them. Uh, NWA weren't saying "Hug tha Police."

Jack knows he's running out of time, so naturally he needs to try out for the swim team first. His friends Henry and Derek show up and drag him to the school's pool, where his coach is impatiently waiting. The coach decides to make up for the lost time by having five boys at a time race. Strangely, Henry and Derek won't go in the pool and disappear while Jack swims his laps. Hmm, M Night, did you rip off this book too?

In the locker room, Henry and Derek confront and try to hug Jack. Shock of all shocks. However, they are interrupted by the non-infected coach and Jack slips out and races home. However, the house is empty and there are puddles of green slime on the floor. Luckily his mom left a note explaining that his little sister had to go to the hospital for a sore throat. The green stuff on the ground is revealed to be lime Jell-o, which Jack confirms by tasting. I guess he follows the 5000-Second Rule for food dropped on the floor.

Two more of Jack's friends, Marsha and Maddy, show up at the front door. Jack isn't sure he can trust them, so he looks out at them from behind the safety afforded by the small thin door chain. The girls beg him to let them in, as they're trying to run away from Henry and Derek, who have been acting weird. Jack decides to let them in and as he opens the door, another questionable meteor shower occurs. Small orange balls crash down like hail all over the neighborhood, smashing into his house and around the driveway. The girls reveal their clicking stutter and get excited, as they had been waiting for the reinforcements. The girls are infected, and not just with cooties.

Jack locks the girls out using the chain and after a few futile hurls they give up. The balls start to hatch and the aliens roam around the neighborhood, though for some reason none of them bother Jack. Jack's dad calls and tells him to grow up and stop talking about aliens. The call comes about the same time as his neighbors begin running out of their houses and begging the cops to help them, only to be placated by a hug. Is this their Crash Moment?

Since none of the aliens bother to check his house, Jack hangs around and makes a sandwich. He thinks about visiting Mr. Fleshman, but he's too afraid to go outside. He does spy him through his window though, calmly watching TV as though nothing were happening. Taking a cue, Jack also watches some TV and unleashes this bon mot:

"Even the weatherman!" I moaned. "Even the weatherman has been possessed by aliens!"

Jack falls asleep and discovers upon waking that his parents had come and gone back to the hospital while he was resting. He tries every station on the dial but all the announcers have the alien's speech impediment. Eventually his mom returns and of course she don't believe his story about the aliens. Billie, his constantly fibbibing little sister, merely replies that she saw a blue alien and her alien was bigger than his. As though that were a competition anyone would want to win. Jack he pretends to go to school but instead ditches and takes a bus to his Dad's work. This kid needs serious lessons on how to play hooky correctly. But, gasp, his dad and the deputy mayor (who is just hanging around in his office I guess) are infected and try to hug Jack.

This book is just too much for me:

"Hug him," the deputy mayor ordered. "Hug him, Frank-- now!"

Jack's dad embraces him and begins the hugging process, but in the struggle the boy knocks over a bottle of water and the infected-creatures back off. Jack still doesn't make the connection and can't figure out how to defeat the aliens. He quickly eevades his dad and runs around downtown LA, dodging a fleet of infected police officers. He takes the bus back home and as soon as he starts to warn his mother and sister, dozens of police officers, led by his father, surround the house. They begin to chant "A hug... a hug...A hug" over and over, which is far too ridiculous to be scary.

Jack finally puts all the pieces together and realizes water will defeat them. He fills up a super soaker and grabs a spare bucket of back-up water, then heads outside. He sprays a stream of water into the crowd, which reacts with anger, then bemusement. Turns out water doesn't affect them at all. Ah, he got us. Henry and Derek explain that they just didn't feel like swimming. The ever-enlarging crowd encircles Jack, as he's the last uninfected person in LA. Finally, Mr. Fleshman emerges from next door and Jack begs for him to save his life. Mr. Fleshman says he'll take care of everything just as soon as Jack accepts the alien. After all, Mr. Fleshman is the alien leader of the pack, vroom vroom vroom!

Mr. Fleshman reveals that while his cover on Earth was as a special effects guru, his best special effect was his human body. He then sheds his skin, revealing his true form: a giant soft pulsating brain. He's the energy source for all the aliens. As soon as they claim Jack, the aliens will then ascend back to their home planet with their new bodies. On the bright side, this would make California's highways drivable for the first time in twenty years.

Jack thinks quick. He takes a running start and dives inside Mr. Fleshman. That's right, the human invades the alien. "Clever." Jack rolls around inside Mr. Fleshman, punching wildly and whatever soft tissue he encounters. The alien finally collapses, freeing everyone of their creatures. The crowd cheers Jack as their savior.

But the Twist is:
Billie congratulates her brother on defeating his aliens, but there's still her blue alien to deal with. A giant alien bursts out of her closet and asks for a hug. OH NO

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Jack and his little sister Billie, who disappears halfway through either novel.

Questionable Parenting:
Dr. Spock's fifth rule is to always listen to your children re: aliens.

Oh Cool:
I've seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Faculty, and the X-Files too.

RL Stine Has Never Been To California Alert:
"Buses don't run that regularly in LA."

Out of Context Text Alert:

I swallowed hard and turned back to Mr. Fleshman.
He was still scowling at me, his silver eyes narrowed, moving the ball from one hand to the other.
Slap...slap...slap.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
(Part One)
Ch. 17/18:
Jack dies. Dies of embarrassment for thinking he had died! Ugh, these books.

(Part Two)
Ch. 19/20:
What. Is. Inside the house?!! There...is... NOTHING. WE TRULY DO HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF. GR8 WORDS 2 LIVE BY~

Great Prose Alert:
(Part One)
My head buzzed as if it were filled with a thousand swarming bees.

(Part Two)
Out of the meaty, hot alien body.

Conclusions:
More like Invasion of "Oh Puh-leeze"-rs, amirite

Series 2000 #03 Creature Teacher

2008-08-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 #03: Creature Teacher

Front Tagline: This is one killer class!

Brief Synopsis:
In the days before Ashton Kutcher made punk'ding socially acceptable, children like protagonist Paul were punished for their childish antics. See, Paul taught his pet parrot how to say "Don't do your work, the teacher is a jerk," which is not even clever for a parrot. This alone isn't enough to get him expelled, but on the way to the principal's office, he accidentally trips his jerk teacher and she gets hurt. See, hurtful words will never compare to actual physical harm. This is why bullies model themselves on Oscar de la Hoya, not Wilde.

So Paul gets himself sent to a boarding academy for overachievers, The Caring Academy. Paul isn't an overachiever but his dad pulls some strings and gets him accepted. Because expensive private schools often accept students who will lower their average testing scores. Paul's new roommate Brad is a violinist practicing for one of the strativarious acts at the upcoming school-wide talent show. Paul is warned to get a talent before the big show. Unfortunately, stumbling over teachers and sending them to the hospital is hard to translate to the variety show format.

Paul's parents leave and he meets up with two girls, Celeste and Molly, who warn him to leave as soon as he can. Paul thinks it's a big joke and starts clowning around before class starts. Unfortunately, he learns the hard way that he's not funny when a giant grotesque monster enters the room and licks his arm with her enormous cow tongue. The lessons in these books are so easily translatable to the everyday situations kids face.

See, though several kids warned him that the teacher was a monster, Paul took the literal figuratively. Turns out Paul's teacher Mrs. Maaargh really is a giant monster. God, with a name like that, who knew? She's given plenty of disgusting physical traits, like lumpy wet bloated feet with black claws on the toes, and her skin is yellow like "chickens in the supermarket." Insert jaundice/the Simpsons/fake tan/questionable Asian joke here.

Mrs. Maaargh and her students explain how she's a big booster on Darwinism and survival of the fittest. So the hideous monster is in favor of evolution? If the right thinks the left is full of nothing but baby killers, Stine takes ludicrous political allegory to the extreme by having Mrs. Maaargh expressly promise to eat the worst-performing student in her class. There's a bunch of index cards with the name of every student and Mrs. Maaargh moves them around as she sees fit. Paul notices that his new friend Molly is one away from the bottom.

In the lunch line, Molly and Celeste tell Paul that he can get ahead by working on extra credit projects and performing well in the talent show. In the dining hall, there aren't three seats open so Paul sits away from his new friends and across from a lonely-looking chubby kid. He makes small talk with the kid, Marv. He learns that the other teachers are normal and only his is the monster. Paul wastes no time in bitching about his teacher to Marv, only to be dragged away from the table by Celeste and Molly, who inform him that Marv is Mrs. Maaargh's son. Paul decides that the best plan of action is to get to Mrs. Maaargh before her son can and do damage control. He runs to find the teacher and interrupts her snack of crackers and mice. Great.

Molly and Celeste brainstorm ideas with Paul on what his talent can be. Paul wants to be a stand-up comedian and tell jokes, but the girls warn him that she's never laughed at anything and he'd better do something spectacular to dazzle her. Spectacular like doing balloon animals while performing stand-up! That is his actual solution. Marv shows up in Paul and Brad's room and offers them some dessert, but Paul rudely rejects the treat as he suspects the boy is only trying to fatten him up for his mother.

Several days later at the talent show audition, Paul's roommate Brad gets sabotaged when someone pours "pure skunk scent" from the science lab into his violin case, causing a noxious odor to fill the rehearsal hall when he tries to play his instrument. Mrs. Maaargh heads over to the science lab and retrieves a bottle of the skunk scent and drinks it for no reason than to elicit a cheap "Ew that's gross" from the reader. Since Molly and Brad were both competing to play violin in the talent show, Mrs. Maaargh disqualifies Brad and allows Molly to stay in the show. Paul has the misfortune of trying to make people laugh after all the commotion, and he's shocked to discover someone has poked holes in all the balloons, ruining his act. Paul immediately suspects his manipulative far-sighted girlfriend.

Back in his room, Paul discovers a block of Marv's fudge next to the rest of his pricked balloons and Brad's ruined violin case. He suspects Marv of the treachery and though it's not expressly revealed, he probably expressed his frustration by yelling out "Oh fudge."

After school, Celeste and Molly are working on some sort of model using Nerf balls and sticks. When pressed, they admit they're working on a model of the galaxy. Um, they might need a few more balls. The girls suggest Paul get in good with Mrs. Maaargh by doing a molecular model of the most complex molecule in existence. The molecule is not named in the book, because that would have required five minutes to pull a book of a shelf, and five minutes in RL Stine time is three chapters written. Paul decides that extra credit could only help, given that he accidentally stepped on Mrs. Maaargh's foot and severed one of her clawed toes, which she then ate. I really can't imagine why this series failed.

To the surprise of exactly no one, when Paul presents Mrs. Maaargh the model he spent several countless nights constructing, he discovers that someone has sabotaged it to simply form the words 'YOU UGLY.' Paul, who ain't got no alibi, backpedals and insists someone is out to sabotage him. Mrs. Maaargh chastises him on his improper grammar and moves his card down off the chart and onto the floor.

Taking a page from, oh, I don't know, every book Stine's ever written about camp, the phones don't work at the school and none of the outgoing mail ever gets deilvered. So Paul decides he'll escape, even though Molly tells him that it's impossible to escape the grounds. See, on her second day at the academy, after she discovered her teacher was a monster, Molly tried to escape, but was caught and that's how her name ended up so low on Mrs. Maaargh's list. Before Paul can escape though, his parents show up at the school.

Mrs. Maaargh has invited Paul's parents to feed them a story about how their son tried to run away, revealing that the woods surrounding the academy as so dense that were he to run away "again," he'd be lost forever. Paul realizes she's just covering for his disappearance once she eats him. So, just like any other parent-teacher conference. Paul begs and pleads with his parents to take him with them, but they refuse.

Finally the day of the big talent show arrived. During lunch, Paul is handed a note from the office and told he is to report to the auditorium immediately. While he waits in the spotlight to go on in the eerily empty concert hall, Molly shows up and informs him that the talent show was canceled, meaning Paul's still on the bottom and was only called to the auditorium to be Mrs. Maaargh's luuunch.

Mrs. Maaargh lowers Paul down under the stage using the trapdoor and prepares to eat him. Molly causes a distraction and attempts to save Paul's life. It turns out Molly, not Marv, was the one who sabotaged all the projects, so she could get moved off the bottom of the chart. But she feels awfully sorry and attempts to hoist Paul up on the elevator to the top. Unfortunately, Mrs. Maaargh pulls him back down and only Molly escapes. Paul wriggles free and runs for help, only to bump into Marv.

Mrs. Maaargh's son reveals that he considers Paul a friend, since he's the only one who ever talked to him. So like all good friends, he gives advice on how not to be eaten by his mother. If Paul can make his teacher laugh, she'll fall into a coma and hibernate for six months. Well of course. Paul realizes his jokes won't do the trick (It's hard to type out a sarcastic "No!" but if you can imagine one here, that would be swell) so he drops to the ground and starts tickling the monster's wet clawed toes until she falls into a deep sleep. 2000 times the scares!

But the Twist is:
Marv tells Paul he's hungry.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Paul and his new friend Molly, who disappears up an elevator 7/8ths of the way through the novel.

Questionable Parenting:
Paul's dad admits that his teacher looks like a monster, but insists that beauty is only scaly skin deep.

Questionable Teaching:
Mrs. Maaargh's lesson for her class of gifted students, who are so smart and talented that they're sent to an advanced-placement boarding school, is to just write a sentence on the board and have one of her pupils identify the subject and the verb.

Minority Alert:
The protagonist's surname is Perez, meaning the odds are pretty good that he's either Hispanic or enjoys drawing squirting MS Paint penises on pictures of celebrities.

Less is Lorrie Moore Alert:
The book opens with a second-person prologue for no reason whatsoever. Because you enjoy reading things written in second-person.

Where Have I Heard This Before Alert:

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 22/23
Paul is offered SOME COOKIES OH MY GOD AHHHHHHHH SO HORRIFYING IF YOU NEED ME I'LL BE UNDER THE SHEETS FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT

Great Prose Alert:
She howled and slapped her knees, which made her dress bounce around as if it were filled with soccer balls.

Conclusions:
There are only so many times I can say the book under discussion is the worst Goosebumps book ever.

See you guys next week for even more amusement.

iStockphoto = Disappointment

2008-08-04T22:31:00.000-07:00

"C'mon gals, keep hitting 'refresh'!"

I started this week's book and there is a prologue.
--It's not likely that I'll be picking that book up from across the room for at least another day or two. Check back later in the week, gang.

EDIT: It's Friday and no update, I guess it's a pretty good bet there won't be one til Monday. Such is life, gang.

Series 2000 #02 Bride of the Living Dummy

2008-07-28T23:55:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 #02: Bride of the Living Dummy

Front Tagline: It's a match made in horror.

Brief Synopsis:
As this second shot at 2000 scares opens, Jillian has her hands full with her pet lizard Petey, her little twin sisters Katie and Amanda, their life-size doll Mary-Ellen, and her best friend Harrison. No more proper nouns pls. It goes without saying that the twin sisters are obnoxious and the best friend is complacent, and yet here I've just said it anyways.

In a very strange plot point, Jillian wants to grow up to be a clown, so she volunteers to take her sisters to the Little Theater, a kids' puppet show. The idea is that she'll learn how to entertain kids but a clown has never been entertaining so I hope she brings a book to read. Harrison agrees to accompany them, as he thinks it sounds "cool." It's revealed that five years prior, Jillian made her rather large friend Harrison eat "a bowl of mud," so let's chalk his enthusiasm up to the lingering effects of that thing that never happened and could not ever happen. Mary-Ellen the doll, who resembles Raggedy-Ann not the Bride of Frankenstein (Sorry cover artist), also comes to the show because of course it does.

Entertainer Jimmy O'James comes on stage with his "good pal" Slappy the dummy. Jillian is shocked that the ventriloquist is only a teenage boy. Jimmy tries to do a straight act, but of course Slappy has other plans. The doll brutally compares Jimmy's face to vomit, wrinkled money, and a summer's day.

Katie and Amanda get called on stage to be insulted by Slappy with closer proximity. The girls are called assorted names and Slappy even insults their doll. The twins are so angry at their treatment that they decide to tell Slappy how mean he was after the show. Boy, these two better keep away from a Rickles show. Actually, that's good advice for anyone.

Jillian tries to stop the six year olds from running backstage to confront a doll, but if you've been to a Rolling Stone concert, you know that young girls are the first waved inside, and ventriloquist shows are no different. The two older kids run after them, but the bulky Harrison does his best Eric Campbell impression, and he and Jillian get stuck in a doorway. Oh man, you wouldn't think physical comedy would translate into book form, and you'd totally be right.

Jillian and Harrison split up in the search for her sisters. Jillian beats the twins to the ventriloquist and arrives just in time to see Slappy bloody Jimmy's nose. Wait, but Jimmy's not a woman. Ghostwriter Alert. Jimmy explains that in fact Slappy isn't alive and what Jillian saw was just him practicing his new routine. Jillian believes this because if she didn't, the book would be over.

Jillian finds the twins but loses Harrison, but figures two out of three ain't bad. The twins make her take them to Dairy Queen and she's forced to buy the doll ice cream. When they get home, Slappy's waiting on the couch. Harrison explains that he met some friends he knew working backstage and they let him go out into the alley behind the stage and dig in the trash. Man, lucky! Inside a trash can was Slappy. Harrison figured Jillian would love some trash so he brought the doll along. Almost immediately, Slappy bites Jillian's hand. Oh my God, is this the one where it turns out Slappy is actually a dog or something?

Harrison leaves the broken dummy with Jillian so her dad, an aspiring carpenter, can fix it. At dinner, the twins won't pass the salt and this is simply the last straw for Jillian, who storms away from the dinner table to plot her revenge. She comes up with a plan of revenge that's about as diabolical as a hug: She'll tie the twins' shoelaces together! Evan Ross, meet your new girlfriend.

Before Jillian can execute her Machiavellian scheme, Slappy comes to life and tells her to go to bed. But it's actually the twins making Slappy talk. This further enrages Jillian and she calls off the shoe-tying revenge in favor of an even worse revenge. The next day at school, Harrison helps her brainstorm revenge plans. She contemplates smearing their doll with cheese and letting rats feast on it. I don't think that's a very good revenge, unless she ties the rats' shoelaces together afterwards.

After school, Harrison and Jillian visit the local magic shoppe to pick up some funny tricks for their clown act. Clowns, magic tricks, ventriloquist dummies-- how did this series fail when Stine included everything children in 1998 loved? As they walk into the store, Jillian spies Jimmy the ventriloquist exiting. He warns her to get rid of Slappy, then disappears. A very appropriate action based on the locale, really.

Jillian's in a pretty good mood because she bought some squirting playing cards, but the squirting playing cards-caused mood quickly transforms into a non-squirting playing cards-caused mood as Jillian discovers to her horror that someone has cracked open her lizard cage and let Petey out. Slappy is precariously perched on the busted case, as if to say, "You're ugly." No reason really, he just always seems to be saying a variation of that. Jillian furiously accuses her sisters of the prank and in a moment more bizarre than anything else in the book, her parents side with Jillian. Ghostwriter Alert. Oh and then the lizard turns up inside the Slappy doll.

Jillian and Harrison perform their clown act for a four-year-old's birthday party. Only it goes horribly wrong and somehow becomes even worse than a clown act normally is. They make the kids cry instead of laugh. For a finale, they shoot soap into a four-year-old boy's eyes, painfully blinding him. Abracalawsuit.

Somehow the two blame their inept clown act on the twins and so once more revenge is contemplated. Before they can follow that train of thought, a newer, dumber car comes on the tracks: Harrison proposes they do a ventriloquist act for the kids using Slappy. This is the fifth Slappy book I've read so far and I've pretty much exhausted my alloted suspension of disbelief. So let me put it bluntly:

Kids do not like ventriloquism. Ever. They do not like performing it. They do not like watching it. They do not even like being familiar with it as a concept. In any scenario where ventriloquism is pitted against something else, something else will always win-- unless the other option is, like, genocide.

When Jillian gets home, her mother asks how her clown party went and she replies, hand to God, "Don't even go there." Harrison wants to get a doll of his own, so he gets the address of Jimmy and the two children race to the house of the boy who plays with dolls. The teenage ventriloquist lives on the wrong side of the tracks. To help visualize this metaphor, RL Stine has Jillian and Harrison cross over a set of train tracks. "Hello, Pulitzer?"

In what is I believe a first, Goosebumps readers are exposed to a trailer park and poor people. It is of course given the ominous airs that such a wretched locale deserves. I'm sure all of Stine's low-income readers appreciated their portrayal, but unfortunately he can't hear their comments from high atop his stack of money.

The kids finally arrive at the ventriloquist's abandoned house. They naturally invite themselves in and start rifling through the belongings he left behind. Jillian finds a diary and thus the reader finally learns the secret origins of Slappy. An evil sorcerer created evil toys to steal the possessions of children while they slept. He made Slappy out of a coffin and the sorcerer then possessed the dummy body. Jimmy goes on about reciting the magic words to bring Slappy alive and how one time a girl at 7-11 smiled at him.

When Jillian gets home, someone has written "Where is my bride?" in lipstick on her mirror. The twins shriek in terror at finding Slappy sitting in a pile of spaghetti in the dining room, and they insist Slappy is responsible for the horror. Jillian assumes the twins read the magic words and brought the dummy to life.

Because of the diary and pasta, Jillian refuses to use Slappy in their ventriloquist act. They instead practice with Mary-Ellen and a spare dummy Harrison found in his uncle's attic. I called my uncles to see if they had a spare dummy in their attic and they all said no. Hollywood

Okay gang, you better take off your shoes because I'm about to blow your socks off. In a stunning finale that encapsulates everything I hate in these books and more, another kid's birthday party arrives. Jillian and Harrison plan to do the above-mentioned ventriloquist act. Due to plot convenience, the party will be taking place in Jillian's basement and without adult supervision. Jillian goes to grab Harrison's doll but finds Slappy has taken his place. Ominous.

The party starts off well, with some humorous battle of the sexes bickering between Slappy and Mary-Ellen. Then Slappy vomits all over a kid. This is met with a similar response by the audience:

I saw two boys bent over, vomiting on the floor.

Great.

Slappy grabs the birthday boy by the neck and drags him across the room, threatening to kill everyone unless he's given his bride. Jillian fetches Mary-Ellen and Slappy reacts in disgust, informing her that he meant Jillian. Now it's my turn to react in disgust. Child brides. Add that to the list and then burn it.

Jillian refuses and then Slappy punches her in the head. RL Stine Alert. Slappy justifies this by telling her it was only "a love tap." Holy shit, you guys.

Jillian tries to run away but she slips and falls into the puddle of vomit. Mary-Ellen comes to life and tells Slappy that she didn't bring him to life to marry Jillian, she brought him to life to marry her. Mary-Ellen is thus shocked that he's so resistant to her. She probably figured all she needed to do to keep her marriage successful was keep Sienna Miller away. Unfortunately, Slappy calls Mary-Ellen ugly and punches her out.

Slappy insists that the birthday party is now a wedding party and he wants his bride, Jillian. Mary-Ellen comes to life again and she and Slappy wrestle in his vomit. Boy, is this doll's vomit irresistible or what? Slappy leads the fight into Jillian's dad's workshop, where he swiftly slices Mary-Ellen in half with a table saw. But Mary-Ellen won't let go of Slappy's hand, so he too goes through the table saw. Finally, the end of Slappy. Oh wait

But the Twist is:
Jillian continues reading the ventriloquist's diary and learns that even though the evil doll may die, the soul of the sorcerer can still pass on to other people. Jillian tells Harrison to check out her awesome revenge against the twins. She then vomits on her sisters.

FUCK THIS BOOK

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Jillian and her best friend Harrison, who disappoints an audience with half-hearted clownery halfway through the book.

the Violent Doll-Girl Relationship:
Jillian and Slappy, who does his best Jerry Lee Lewis impression for much of the novel.

Questionable Parenting:
"Well, you did blind a child with your clown act. But I guess your ventriloquism act can't possibly go wrong. You're hired!"

R.L. Stine Shows He's Down With the Kids:
If there's one thing kids love reading about, it's marriage.

Please Don't Praise the Dummy Alert:
"That dummy has a baaad attitude!"

Out of Context Text Alert:
"We'll do an all-squirting act."

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 1/2:
Someone has slit Jillian's throat! Wait, no, it's just the twins getting ready to cut her hair. This is why I scream in terror every time I pass a Supercuts.

Great Prose Alert:
Maybe we'll become RICH birthday party clowns!

Conclusions:
What.

Series 2000 #01 Cry of the Cat

2008-07-22T01:26:00.000-07:00

Series 2000 #01: Cry of the Cat

Front Tagline: Dead cat walking...

Official Book Description:
The Series 2000 books contain no summary of their contents, only a brief, "terrifying" excerpt from the text. So, say goodbye to this feature along with the Back Tagline. Farewell, Blogger Beware elements. I'm giving you a military funeral in my mind.

While I'm here though, let's talk about where this series went wrong. Look at the cover. No. Simply no. It does not work. The first series was popular in-part due to its uniform look and cover template. No kid would want to collect this ugly, neon-green adorned book that screams "Little boys with anger issues, c'mon in!" But I guess someone forgot to tell Scholastic. Let me reiterate: these books look hideous, and this is actually the best cover of the lot. Reader beware indeed. Oh, that reminds me: No more "Reader beware, you're in for a scare." Nope, now it's "2000 Times the Scares!" Also no.

Brief Synopsis:
I was fully prepared to claim that the Goosebumps Series 2000 books were just regular Goosebumps books arbitrarily given a new name and layout to keep up with the changing market trends of 1998. Oh how wrong I was. Oh sure, Cry of the Cat is still very much identifiable as a Goosebumps book, but it also contains new elements not found in the sixty-two volumes which preceded it. Elements such as adults acting like adults, needless gore, and tornados made of cats. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The book begins with an extended scenario involving a monstrous, spittle-spewing feline attacking a child in the upper arm and back. I worked so hard on trying to come up with a way to make "a shoulder to Cry of the Cat on" work, but it just didn't happen. This sequence is revealed to be a scene from a film called, oddly enough, Cry of the Cat. Our heroine Alison is watching the flick with her little brother, Tanner, but the movie is so scary that he makes her shut the VCR off. Oh man, is that a nostalgia trip or what? Remember VCRs man, like, wow, totally takes me back to childhood and stuff. Check out this awesome new nostalgia blog for VCRs: http://vcr-u-srs.blogspot.com/

Alison's friend Ryan shows up and they both ride their bikes to school for practice. See, both are starring in something called the Princess and the Jewel Thief, and they're in such a rush to make it on time that Alison decapitates a cat with her bike. Wait, she does what? I wrote that sentence and even I had to go back and read it again. The force of Alison hitting the cat with her bike sends the cat's head flying out into traffic with a shocked look of surprise on its face. With an expression that wide-eyed and in awe, I bet I know what that cat was thinking: "They renewed the Nanny agaaaaaaaaain?!?!"

When Alison races over to the decapitated animal, she discovers that the cat has magically regained its head, but sadly not its life. She wraps the limp body of the cat up in her jacket. Alison figures it probably came from the big house full of cats across the street, which is a remarkable deduction.

Inside the cat house, Alison finds a saloon girl with a heart of gold. Wait, wrong cat house. She finds a young girl who introduces herself as Crystal. Crystal is furious upon being told that one of her cats has died. Luckily the cat chooses that opportunity to come back to life and scramble out of Alison's arms. Crystal changes gears and becomes furious that her cat is alive. There's just no pleasing some people.

Crystal freaks out that Alison killed her cat Rip, that she should have run over any of her cats other than Rip. Alison suggests that would have been great information five minutes ago but it's a little too late to go back in time and kill another of her cats and she'd kill another one now but she's late for rehearsal. Crystal screams that her mother is going to be upset and warns Alison that she shouldn't have killed Rip, that Rip is no ordinary cat. You mean cats don't usually come back to life after being decapitated?

Alison rushes off to practice. Ryan is waiting for her at the school, because like a true friend, he ditched her when the going got tough. Alison tells him about the cat coming back to life, but he just mocks her. She hears cat calls, and modestly pulls her skirt hem down to a respectable level.

Mr. Keanes, the teacher in charge of the play, initiates the practice and instructs Alison to get a scepter out of "the Royal Cabinet," which sounds like a supply closet to me. But Alison must have misheard his direction as "Get attacked by a dead cat," as Rip jumps out of the closet and gets tangled up in her hair. She pries the cat from her head and throws it as hard as she can across the stage. Wait for it. This startles the stagehands so badly that they drop the giant king's throne on top of the cat. The kids all gather around the flattened animal, only to have the cat come back to life and exit, stage-left even!

Mr. Keanes dismisses practice early because

"I can see you're all very upset about that cat. What a strange thing!"

At dinner, Alison tries to tell her parents about how she killed a cat twice in one afternoon. Unfortuantely, they're not interested in anything other than the homemade chicken noodle soup Alison's mom made. Alison becomes less-enamored with the soup than her parents when she somehow scoops a big spoonful of wet cat fur into mouth. She tries to go to her room to relax, only to find her toy mice collection thrown all over the place. Her toy mice collection.

At school the next day, the decapitated head of the cat appears in her lunch bag and sticks its tongue out at her. She's disgusted, but some people enjoy having lunch with The Cat.

That night, Rip jumps on Alison's face while she's sleeping. She responds to getting smothered by gently removing the cat from her face and throwing it out the second-story window. If it didn't take itself so seriously I'd swear this book was a comedy. Alison goes outside to investigate whether the cat is dead or not. Three guesses. Rip scratches her leg but the wound draws no blood.

The following morning, Alison finds herself craving tuna fish. That's right, it's one of those books. At practice that night, she thinks she can land on all fours, so she jumps from the roof of the auditorium onto the stage. So a child can jump several stories down and nothing bad will happen?

Alison's cattiness gets worse, as she hacks up a furball and begins posting on ONTD. Sadly, half of that wasn't a joke and Alison really does hack up a furball. It's exactly as pleasant a moment as it sounds. She also starts licking the back of her palms like a cat. Get it, she's doing things a cat does. Like a cat. She's becoming like a cat. A cat. She's like a cat. Cat. A cat.

That night, she races off to confront Crystal about Rip. She is shocked to hear that Alison has killed her cat two more times and warns her to watch out, as Rip only has nine lives and he's now used up lives six through eight. Alison promises to avoid another cat-astrophe, but soon a strange force compels her towards a pet cemetery. Also Ryan shows up and follows Alison to the pet cemetery. Alison walks among the gravestones until she comes across the RIP RIP tombstone.

Perhaps you're saying to yourself, "No wonder she can't kill the cat, it's already dead!' Well, speculation like that isn't good enough for Alison, so she gets on her hands and knees and starts digging up the cat's grave. Gravedigging. Decapitation. Toy mice collections. We're in uncharted territory here, folks.

Alison finally digs up the cat coffin and opens it to find... the corpse of Rip, which springs out of the coffin and attacks her. If that weren't bad enough, Ryan draws her attention to the rumbling ground and smoke pouring out of the gravestones. Rip begins walking on his hind legs and commands the corpses of all the other cats out of their graves. The ghost cats are his slaves and he commands them to take the form of a giant black ghost cat tornado. The ghost cat tornado chases after Alison and Ryan as they race back to Crystal's house.

In a moment of karmic justice, Alison ditches Ryan in the chase and convinces Crystal to let her in the house. The young girl finally agrees just as the swirling wall of cats reaches the front door. Crystal tells her they only have a few minutes before the kitty twister breaks in. She whisks Alison to the other side of the house, insisting that only her mother can help them now. The two walk down the dark basement steps to meet her.

Gang, I know this book is blowing your mind, but are you ready to meet Crystal's mom? You'll like her, after all, she is a scientist. Oh, and she's also half-cat. The humanoid cat woman purrs with delight upon seeing Alison. See, Rip prolongs his life by stealing lives from humans. Every time he scratches a human, he takes away some of their life and replaces it with cat-life. Oh, now I don't see!

Crystal's mom did scientific experiments on all the cats from the graveyard and that's why they're now Rip's slaves. A-h--nah, that still doesn't make any sense. She also made a deal with Rip to be his sole human resource provided that he didn't harm her daughter. However, cat mom reveals that she no longer has any human life to give Rip, so she's sacrificing Alison to be his new living scratching post. She tries to tell her it won't be so bad, but somehow Alison is resistant to the idea of turning into a horrible half-cat creature. Probably mostly because it sounds like it still involves being a scientist and who has time for that.

The ghost cat tornado breaks into the house, led by Rip, who walks on his hind legs down the stairs. That sounds like the cutest horrific thing ever. Ryan shows up just in time to get scratched by the evil walking cat. All hope seems lost until Alison remembers that she has a toy mouse with her. She throws the mouse to the ground right in front of Rip. All the ghost cats turn their attention to the mouse and attack, killing Rip in the process and the ensuing chaos causes the tornado to disappear. Just like real non-cat-containing weather!

But the Twist is:
Alison and Ryan are still like cats and so they fight over who gets to eat a field mouse. Oh RL Stine, finger on the pulse, as always!

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Alison and her friend Ryan, who disappears a third and two thirds of the way through the book.

Questionable Parenting:
Alison's mom practices her observational humor routine regarding women's blouses instead of listening to her daughter complain about becoming a cat. Sentences like that would never have been written without this book.

Questionable Manners Alert:
Crystal's mom thanks Alison for saving them from Rip. Um, that's nice and all, but did she never hear of "Sorry about willing to mutilate and sacrifice you to the evil cat"? What's worse, that exact quote is on like page twelve of Judith Martin's book, so this is an all too common faux-pas. That's looooow rent, ma'am.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 9/10:
Alison cries out in horror as she looks in her lunch and sees... that she accidentally grabbed Ryan's lunch. She must have had an unspeakably traumatic run-in with a Lunchable in the past.

Great Prose Alert:
Egg salad always reminds me of dog vomit.

Conclusions:
Three letters come to mind: WTF

Even More Tales to Give You Goosebumps

2008-07-15T02:30:00.000-07:00

Even More Tales to Give You Goosebumps: Special Edition #3

Back Tagline: Reader Beware-- You're In For Ten More Scares!

Official Book Description:
Can Jeff convince his parents there's a live mummy in the basement? Will Adam escape from a monstrous flying gargoyle? Is Brian's boarding school turning kids into robots?
Find out in these ten creepy Goosebumps short stories guaranteed to make you shiver!

This third short story collection was the first to come without a book light. It was packaged with a one-size-fits-most pair of glow in the dark boxer shorts, in a move that drew many a Joe Boxer enthusiast into the bookstore. As for the other summer "shorts" in question, read on...

the Chalk Closet
Protagonist Travis goofed off and failed the sixth grade, thus he's arrived at Millwood Junior High for summer school classes. Instead of indulging in hilarious antics as in the Marc Harmon comedy classic Summer School, he finds himself faced with unspeakable terror, as in the Marc Harmon cautionary horror classic, Summer School. See, Travis' teacher, the improbably named Mr. Grimsley, has no patience for kids who goof off and fail his assignments. He sternly warns that any students who fail to do their homework or adequately study for class will be sent to the ominous-sounding Chalk Closet. It's too bad his teacher isn't Mr. Grimley, I must say!

Travis is given his first homework assignment and it's a real humdinger: List five reasons why you'd want to be a Pilgrim. He's only able to come up with three though:

1. Get to travel a lot.
2. Eat dinner with some really cool indians.
3. Don't have to recycle.

Take that, Earth.
He's unable to come up with two more reasons (understandably, since no one wants to be a Pilgrim), so I've taken the liberty of rounding out his list:

4. Finally be able to understand all the esoteric jokes in Disney's Pocahontas.
5. Buckles.

Luckily, Mr. Grimsley doesn't lash out at Travis because another classmate, Dooley, shows up with no homework at all. Dooley is led to the Chalk Closet and is never heard from again. The next day, another kid is led. And then another, and so on. It's not hard to figure out that eventually, Travis slips up and gets punished. And if it is hard to figure out, well then whoops I just ruined it for you. Seems Travis spent the previous night watching "a Lethal Weapon movie" instead of doing his homework. I was going to say something about that being pretty inappropriate for a twelve-year-old, but then I remembered my mom taking me to see Lethal Weapon 3 in the theater when I was like eight or nine. So I guess what I'm saying is that Travis is watching baby movies, the big baby.

Mr. Grimsley walks Travis down the hall to the Chalk Closet, which is revealed to be a room where the sound of nails on a chalkboard plays... forever. That's really the twist. Okay, next

Home Sweet Home
So if I tell you this story is about a big sister who always teases her little sister for playing with her elaborate dollhouse, can you figure out the ending? Perhaps. But if I told you the story also involved the big sister breaking a witch's china bowl at a garage sale and facing the witch's revenge via being besieged by large talking spiders that eventually bite Sharon in the head to shrink her to doll-size, what then huh? That's right, next

Don't Wake Mummy
Eleven-year-old Jeff hates getting teased by his big sister Kim about his fear of mummies. So when a mummy gets delivered to their house by accident, Kim probably wishes Jeff was afraid of sacks of money. If you think the idea of a mummy being delivered to a house sounds unlikely, well, did you forget what blog you were reading? Jeff's dad is in charge at the local museum and decides to hold on to the mummy in the basement until he can haul it to work.

Jeff becomes convinced that even though the mummy is chained inside a sarcophagus, it will come and get him. This is probably because on the first night the mummy's in the house, it comes to get him. Thankfully, his mom shows up and scares the mummy away. Wow, what a wuss. My mom stopped fighting my battles against undead Egyptians for me way before age eleven.

Terrified, the next morning Jeff tries to do research at the library on mummies, but is baffled at the lack of How To books on thwarting mummy attacks. However, he did pick up one of those ReadyMade modular dwelling kits for later in case he can't stop the mummy. No basements = No problems.

Luckily, there's a local Sardo-type magic shoppe in town with plenty of ancient spellbooks, amulets, and dishes of hard fruit candies. The proprietor of the shoppe sells Jeff a bag of powder called "mummy dust," and the question of how a magic shoppe stays in business is answered. I suspect there's several idling cars in the magic shoppe parking lot, pulled-up driver's side to driver's side.

That night, when the mummy returns, Jeff prepares to throw the sack of dust into the mummy's face. Except this is the first fast mummy ever and it pushes Jeff to the ground, spilling his sack of dust. Luckily his mom comes out again and the mummy scampers away. Then his father-- in a scene that proves after 70-odd entries, it's still possible to be dumbfounded by these books-- apologizes for agreeing to buy a living mummy from a rival museum. He knew that if he kept the mummy locked up with the magic chains, it wouldn't get out. But now he knows he must chain the mummy inside the casket for the safety of his family. Did the editors of Scholastic lose a bet?

Sometimes Goosebumps books flirt with a good idea, only to chicken out at the last moment. In a stunning reversal of narrator (in a story told via first person narration, by the way), Kim reveals that she's pretending to be the mummy and the story seems to suggest that she'll hide in the sarcophagus... thus she'd about to be locked forever inside the casket. It would have been a predictable end, but still impressive for this series. But instead, Kim merely starts walking around the dark basement and bumps into the real mummy. Whatever.

PS This story's title is so bad that when I first saw it, I said "Oh Jesus" out loud and went out to eat dinner instead of reading the book. My gyros was three times scarier than this story, and please note that my gyros wasn't scary.

I'm Telling!
Adam is supposed to be doing his homework, but instead he's in the woods, playing pretend. His little sister spies him and utters the titular line over and over, despite Adam's claim that he's pretending to do his homework. There's also a horrible stone gargoyle in the woods who suddenly begins spouting green liquid that turns things into stone. Adam fills up his water pistol with the liquid and sprays a tree, which Missy is also going to tattle about. Frustrated, he sprays Missy with the gun, turning her into a figure carved of stone. On the way home, he decides to enter her in the middle school art show and places first for his "sculpture." Second place: crayon drawing of cat.

Adam wheels his stone sister back into the woods and is surprised to find the gargoyle has come to life. The gargoyle spits the green liquid at Adam's face but Adam doesn't turn to stone because that would involve the ghostwriter going back and reading what they've already written. Adam sprays the gargoyle a second time and it turns back to stone. He sprays Missy again and she turns back into a human. Missy threatens Adam with more tattling about the art show and the tree and the gargoyle and about some other stuff that could never happen. Adam retaliates by spraying her again, keeping her in stone forever. I guess a kid who tells on another kid is a statue.

the Haunted House Game
Finally, a short story that captures all the fun and excitement of playing a board game! Jonathan and his best friend Nadine are babysitting his twin siblings, Noah and Annie, on a dark and stormy night. Jonathan insists on playing the Haunted House Game, even though Nadine wants to play Parcheesi. Jonathan nixes that suggestion because

"There aren't any ghosts in Parcheesi."

The four start to play the board game. When they land on different spooky spots on the board, commands printed on the game come true: "WIND RATTLES THE WINDOWS," "YOU HEAR AN EERIE MOAN," "LIGHTNING CRASHES, A NEW MOTHER CRIES," "YOU PLAY A BOARD GAME." Oh cool, I've seen Jumanji too.

Eventually, Jonathan lands on the "SCARED TO DEATH" spot and the four kids all start screaming until they die. No, really. Then the ghost kids pick up a newspaper from 1942 and read the front page story:

4 KIDS DIE IN MYSTERIOUS DEATH
Police were completely baffled when they found four kids dead in an old mansion last night. "It looked to me as if they were scared to death!" declared one police officer.

The story begins again with the kids arguing about playing the Haunted House Game. So did the board game die too or what

Change For the Strange
Jane loves to practice for track. Her friend Lizzy only loves to try on clothes. They're the original Odd Couple! But they do share some common activities-- like, they both watch "The Animaniacs" and dance around to a band called "Fruit Bag," which sounds like the name of some Sub Pop band that would have opened for Paw in 1995. Lizzy talks Jane into visiting the cool new consignment shop around the block, A Change For the Strange. There's a lot of cool stuff at the vintage store, though no baby coffins.

Jane finds a radical red snakeskin jacket and Lizzy finds some totally tubular bunny slippers at the store. Jane is so excited by her new snakeskin coat that she turns into a red snake. Oh good, another of these stories. Jane the snake tries slipping into Lizzy's room so she'll notice she's not really a snake but actually her friend who has been turned into a snake, but somehow this plan doesn't work until Lizzy spies a zipper on the snake and removes the jacket-skin. Well great. The story ends with Jane becoming a rabbit after she puts on Lizzy's bunny slippers-- totally unpredictable!

the Perfect School
Brian's parents are unhappy with him, so he's been sent to the world's speediest boarding school, the Perfect Boarding School. Sessions only last two weeks. As soon as he arrives off the train, all his possessions are taken away and he's told to stand in line according to height. Brian is told he'll be given only a plain gray wardrobe and is assigned a number which will replace his name. A serious question at this juncture: Did RL Stine really feel comfortable borrowing such blatant Holocaust imagery for a Goosebumps story?

Brian made a friend on the train, CJ, and almost immediately he's in trouble for horsin' around with him. Brian's told that his training has been expedited and he must report to the Pattern Room. A child inside the walls of the institute warns Brain against going inside the Pattern Room, but Brian figures it can't be any worse than that scene in Garden State.

A man inside the Pattern Room, which resembles a doctor's office, measures every part of Brian and gradually it dawns on him that they're planning to replace him with a robot. Wow, tuition must've been really expensive to cover that. This plan is confirmed by more children living in the walls. Take your pick: Oh cool, I've seen the Stepford Wives too; or Oh cool, I've seen the People Under the Stairs too.

Brian makes a daring escape, only to be tricked by CJ into joining the other slave children who live in the basement and walls of the institute. CJ reveals that he works for the boarding school. Brian's parents are presented with their son, who is now a robot. Only, the twist is, he's not a robot. He's the real Brian, who escaped at the last moment and is only pretending to be a robot. Oh man, I just found a friend for Adam!

For the Birds
This book certainly didn't need another story about kids turning into things that aren't kids, but here we are. Another character is named Kim, and this Kim's family has dragged her to a massive bird sanctuary to celebrate her parents' wedding anniversary. Kim starts grousing about having to be around birds, as she's the only one in the family not taken by bird-watching. The avian-looking Mr. Dove, the bird sanctuary's curator (and apparently huge Judex buff), takes note of her displeasure. When Kim happens upon a pair of missing hedge-clippers, Mr. Dove offers to let her get revenge on her family.

Each family member is given a different bird-themed room. Kim's room overlooks the massive hedge maze below. Oh cool, I've seen the Shining too. That night, a massive flock of birds flies in unison around the windows of Kim's bedroom, as though trying to tell her something. Perhaps they're trying to get her to drive into town and go door to door collecting the final three or four slices from everyone's loaves of bread.

The next morning, Mr. Dove greets them at the entrance to the hedge maze and shows them his newest hedge: a perfect likeness of the family. The family admires themselves and pays for their vanity by getting tricked into walking into a giant birdcage. Mr. Dove shows up and moves his magic hedge clippers twice. Each time he makes the movement, one member of her family turns into a bird. Mr. Dove keeps his promise to Kim though, and turns her into a cat. Oh good. This story's the real cat's meow-ow-oww-oww-owww (that would be the sound I made after kicking the goddamn wall in frustration)!

Aliens in the Garden
Like every alien story, this one just turns out to be another "But the aliens were actually from Earth" shocker. In lieu of recounting the story in detail, let me just provide everyone's favorite Blogger Beware segment, Out of Context Text Alert:

Jenna gasped. Her green eyes grew huge.
"Kurt!" She whispered. "Please tell me you've got a remote control somewhere."
I pulled the pockets of my shorts inside out. "No remote, Jenna."
"This is unreal!" She murmured.

the Thumbprint of Doom
Well, it took nine solid misses but RL Stine narrowly avoids a complete no-hitter with the collection's final story. Trisha thought she'd have a great summer, but it's been hampered by her friend Jeremy's cousin Harold, who is more interested in reading than having fun. Holy mixed signals Batman!

Harold doesn't even want to go swimming, as he'd rather stay home and read the dictionary. Is the twist going to be that he's either of these two?

Luckily, a new girl has moved onto the street. Her name is Carla and she follows horoscopes and other new age superstitions very closely. She tells her new friends that the thing she fears most of all is the Thumprint of Doom. No, she's not going to start quoting lines about "the Mark of the Beast" from that movie that comes on at 4AM on TBN about the guy who dreams about the Rapture inexplicably taking place in an airport. Rather, it's an ancient spell that curses the person who receives it with death within 24 hours.

Unluckily for Carla's new friends, Carla takes her superstitions very seriously. She won't even let Trisha ride in a blue canoe on a Tuesday. Hey, I've never ridden in a blue canoe on a Tuesday and I'm still okay so maybe Carla's on to something. Trisha and Jeremy talk both Carla and Harold into visiting the local fair. Once on the grounds, they naturally get dragged to a fortune teller who reads Carla's fortune... and then in fear plants the Thumbprint of Doom on her forehead, to "spare" her the horrors she foresaw. Carla sprints out of the tent in terror.

Trisha and Jeremy delight in their awesome joke. They snuck away to the fairgrounds that morning and paid the fortune teller to pull the stunt as a joke. They go out to tell Carla about the gag. Carla snaps at them and reveals that she knew it was a gag, as she's the only one who can give out the Thumbprint of Doom. But now that they know that, she'll have to imprint it on all three of them. She does so and the kids run off into the night, screaming.

The fortune teller sticks her head out of her tent and asks her daughter, Carla, how long it'll take her friends to realize that Carla didn't actually have any powers and was playing a trick on them. See, that's how you do one of these stories. Not, "Oh but then she turns into a thumb."

R-E-T-R-O-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me

2008-07-07T01:00:00.000-07:00

Thomas Edison said, "Well, light bulbs sound cool, I guess I'll invent them."

Alexander Graham Bell said, "Well, I'd sure like to phone Watson, but I haven't invented a 'phone' yet. And also I'll need at least two and I'm lazy like you wouldn't believe. I mean, I could just walk to Watson but he's in the other room and this chair is so comfortable. I think it's made of oak? Could be oak. It's probably oak."

The Romans said, "All roads lead to us, so we better invent those plastic things on the end of shoelaces just in case it ever comes up."

Troy Steele said, "I can't believe there's not just a list online somewhere that tells you the twist endings to Goosebumps books."

Thus, out of necessity, in early 2006 Blogger Beware was born. I never intended to keep writing past the original series, but in case you don't read the comments or look to your right, I will be blogging into the next year. When the Horrorland series concludes, so will the blog. But until that day, expect the same "weekly" updates you've come to know and, well maybe not love, but like as a friend.

The following features are all culled solely from the first sixty-two books in the Goosebumps series.

NOTE: A retrospective of the covers will appear in the entry on Tim Jacobus' autobiography, It Came From New Jersey, so don't whine about one not appearing here.

the Goosebumps Collector's Cap Roundup Quiz
To capitalize on the POG craze (If you don't remember these, you're either too young to be reading the blog, or too old), Scholastic released two sets of Goosebumps POGS-- oh pardon me, POG is a registered trademark, they released "Goosebumps Collector Caps." Both sets came with bonus books filled with brief descriptions of the books pictured on the caps, along with word games and bits of trivia and new backstories. Think you've been reading the blog long enough to pass a test on Stine's exciting revelations? Take the quiz and find out. Answers will appear at the bottom of this entry.

01 RL Stine puts forth which two books as having the biggest twist endings?
A. Stay Out of the Basement and Be Careful What You Wish For...
B. Welcome to Camp Nightmare and Go Eat Worms!
C. Attack of the Mutant and the Girl Who Cried Monster
D. My Hairiest Adventure and Let's Get Invisible!

02 RL Stine proposes several potential Goosebumps-based rides in the section for A Shocker on Shock Street-- which one of the following is real?
A. the Headless Ghost 4' and under roller coaster
B. Ghost Beach water slide
C. My Hairiest Adventure petting zoo
D. How I Learned to Fly cordless bungee jump

03 The original title of the Horror at Camp Jellyjam was
A. Purple Rein
B. Snots Landing
C. Smelly Summer
D. Sports Sports Sports Sports-- Sports!

04 RL Stine's dog is named
A. Scholastick-ridden mutt
B. Doesn't matter, this was written thirteen years ago and his dog is now dead ;_;
C. Nadine
D. Cat-- man, Stine's always twisting everything!

05 As of the fortieth book, which of the following was the best-selling Goosebumps book?
A. Welcome to Dead House
B. Guess Who's Dating a Werewolf?
C. Invasion of the Appleheads
D. Beware the Shopping Mall

06 Which of the following "facts" were actually given about gnomes?
A. Several members of congress actually just gnomes resting on the shoulders of large woodland dogs while draped in navy blazers from the Big & Tall store
B. Gnomes can be either helpful or harmful
C. Gnomes love you long time, Joe
D. Celebrated Anthony Michael Hall action comedy A Gnome Named Norm still most popular gnome-centric film of all time, with eight total viewings since release

07 RL Stine makes which of the following dubious claims re: Deep Trouble?
A. Fish sticks > fish fillets
B. Entire novel was elaborate Snorks homage
C. Mermaids are scarier than sharks
D. 'Tippi' Hedren could have really been something

08 RL Stine proposes a fun "touching" game inspired by Go Eat Worms! and suggests preparing an extra bowl to hold
A. Keys
B. Subpoenas
C. Any vomit your friends may volunteer
D. Delicious Doritos-brand Cool Ranch tortilla chips

09 Least-shocking revelation about RL Stine:
A. Never played outdoors as a child
B. Is actually the pen-name of thirty-seven different men and women, and one centaur
C. Cracked magazine's demise actually the result of seven years of litigation from Scholastic's lawyers over ill-received "GooseDumps" parody
D. Goosebumps paid for his fleet of yachts, Fear Street for his wine cellar, and Superstitious for most of a McFlurry

10 RL Stine provides a new backstory for John Waters Shopkeeper from the Haunted Mask. What caused the old man to open an evil costume shop?
A. Freak chemistry lab explosion
B. Perfectly normal chemistry lab explosion
C. Elaborate ploy for Eric Stoltz's affections
D. The lines at the city registration building for opening any other kind of shop were too long

11 The Scarecrow Walks At Midnight was inspired by
A. That time RL Stine saw a scarecrow walk at midnight
B. That time RL Stine said cheese and died-- again
C. That time RL Stine didn't go to sleep
D. That time RL Stine lived in your basement

12 RL Stine gives a backstory for the Darks from the Girl Who Cried Monster. Where did the family immigrate come from?
A. Convenientending, Germany
B. Romania
C. Mexico. Is this why Republicans want that wall? To keep out monsters?
D. Vatican City, as the entire book is elaborate precursor to Angels and Demons

13 Stine reveals some new ways one can become a werewolf. Which of the following is one of them?
A. Drink after a werewolf without wiping lip of glass first
B. Have unprotected sex with werewolf
C. Accidentally give werwolf the same Christmas present you gave him last year
D. Rub self with plants

14 RL Stine refers to plot holes from Phantom of the Auditorium as
A. Proof of his gross incompetency as an author
B. Unanswered questions
C. Funstakes
D. Accidentios

15 RL Stine takes Conan the Barbarian down a peg by revealing he sleeps with
A. Sienna Miller
B. A teddy bear named "Fluffster"
C. A loaded shotgun
D. Danger

BONUS And finally, in the most amazing bit of revisionism, what were the employees of Horrorland before they were monsters?
A. Burn victims
B. Car crash victims
C. Members of Ice-T's wife-bronzing posse
D. Um, monsters?

Goosebumps By the Numbers
Percent of books with no twist: 11%
Percent of titles ending in exclamation point: 13%
Percent of books with a platonic boy-girl relationship: 89%
--Percent of remaining books that are just Monster Bloods: 57%
Percent of books written in first-person: 82%
Percent of books with a female protagonist: 35%
Total number of minority characters: 20
--Percent which are Egyptian: 45%
Total number of books with minority characters as protagonists: 3
--Percent which are Egyptian: 67%
Total instances of "What.": 43

Ten Best Goosebumps Characters
01 Andy from Monster Blood

Ten WORST Goosebumps Books
It probably goes without saying, but this list was far harder to whittle-down than the Best list.

10 My Best Friend Is Invisible (#57)
How bad is this book? It bumped both My Hairiest Adventure and the Horror at Camp Jellyjam off the list. That's pretty bad.

09 Say Cheese and Die-- Again! (#44)
Sequels rarely get love from the blog, and this abomination is no exception. Rapid weight gain is fine if you're DeNiro, but when it's a twelve year old boy gaining massive amounts of weight just so Stine can make poorly (portly?) constructed fat jokes, I'd rather say "No thanks-- again!"

08 Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes (#34)
I still remember.

07 Deep Trouble II (#58)
Sometimes I realize that no matter how ridiculous the book is, I can never quite sell its badness for readers of the blog. You may have some vague notion of the book's badness, but its true terribility remains ungrasped. Be thankful.

06 the Abominable Snowman of Pasadena (#38)
An adventure book that's about as exciting as buying socks and bar-none the strangest final twenty pages of any Goosebumps books are but two of the strikes against the peculiar novel. If the Geico Cavemen have taught us nothing else, and they haven't, it's that no one chooses to experience fictional ape-men on purpose.

05 Egg Monsters From Mars (#42)
Sometimes I considered revisiting the first four or five books I covered and redoing their entries in the more recent style. Eventually I decided that the first book I ever read for the blog has the entry it deserves.

04 A Shocker on Shock Street (#35)
One of the worst examples of what would become a growing trend in the series, the "Let's just line up crazy things in a row from the beginning of the book to the end" approach. Two problems. Firstly, that's a really unwieldy name for an approach. Secondly, despite how easily mockable these sort of books are, thus making my job easier, they are still infuriatingly bad.

03 Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns (#48)
I still remember getting to the last twenty pages or so, putting the book down, and actually saying out loud "Really? Really?" Like I was going to get a response from a book. The lesson here is don't try asking a book a question, it won't work.

02 the Legend of the Lost Legend (#47)
I reread this entry recently and even I couldn't believe I didn't just make half of it up.

01 Monster Blood IV (#62)
The nadir of the series, and proof that the end of the original Goosebumps line was a mercy killing. I wrote in the initial entry that this book was only slightly below Chicken Chicken solely because it lacked the ugliness of that tome. So what was true then remains true now. Monster Blood IV is nothing but the worst traits of the series, lined up one after another (and occasionally simultaneously) in one-hundred-plus pages of middle fingers to the reading audience. Truly Monster Blood IV is the worst Goosebumps book ever thrown at a public. That it was received by readers with the same enthusiasm as being peed on solves once and for all the question of how the original series earned its fate.

00 Chicken Chicken (#53)
This book doesn't deserve a number. It doesn't even deserve to be listed. To list it implies some value, even as a marker for the lows of the series. But this book doesn't deserve the attention it will garner just by virtue of its position. This isn't a case of "So bad it's good," this is "So bad I want to vomit, quick get me that bowl from the Go Eat Worms! game." Chicken Chicken very nearly ended the blog two years ago, but I ultimately decided to push forward. I don't know what else to say except it really is that bad.

Ten BEST Goosebumps Books

10 How I Learned to Fly (#52)
Sometimes RL Stine didn't try to scare his readers, sometimes all he wanted to put forth was a mild fantasy. This is surely the best "non-scary" Goosebumps book, with a genuinely weird concept and easily the sweetest twist ending in the series. Plus it filled that flying dog void that Underdog had left empty for several decades.

09 Stay Out of the Basement (#02)
I don't ask a lot from children's literature, but this is the only Goosebumps book to actually fulfill my Axe Murderer Quota.

08 Welcome to Camp Nightmare (#09)
For this retrospective, I resisted making a list of best and worst endings, despite it being a seemingly given category to cover. The truth is, most of the memorable endings are hard to classify as either, and the majority of those endings are from books on either list anyways. Everyone who read this one as a kid remembers this ending, and I'd wager most if not all felt cheated back then. However, this was one of the biggest revelations from revisiting the series-- what seemed ridiculous as a child now seems perversely appropriate. In case you forgot, this is the one where they all turn out to be aliens or something.

07 the Ghost Next Door (#10)
No other Goosebumps book ever attempted gravitas on this level, but given how successful this deeply depressing book is, you'd think Captain Yuks would have written more like it. Clearly evil sponges and sports camps were just too darn tempting.

06 the Headless Ghost (#37)
I don't particularly think ghosts are any more terrifying than vampires or ventriloquist dummies, but it's hard not to notice that Stine's ghost-centered books are among his finest achievements. I guess he should have let the spirit move him more often huh

05 the Haunted School (#59)
Slightly less terrifying than Pleasantville, this is another of Stine's last-minute bursts of creativity. The ink-spitting orgy remains the most bizarre moment in any Goosebumps book-- except for maybe when the car wash cost five dollars.

04 You Can't Scare Me! (#15)
Another Goosebumps book that aged into being appreciated, like fine wine or a British actress. Any book that contains bee throwing and still earns a spot must be really good.

03 Werewolf Skin (#60)
Well, it wouldn't be a real Goosebumps list without werewolves somewhere. An early favorite since the blog began, this one has it all: Werewolves and things that aren't werewolves.

02 Ghost Camp (#45)
The closest a Goosebumps book has come to being scary. The novel is atmospheric, darkly comic, and ingenious-- three descriptors rarely lobbed at this series. If all Goosebumps books were of this quality, this blog wouldn't be so popular.

01 Be Careful What You Wish For... (#12)
For better or worse, this book is Goosebumps. It is deeply flawed and contains many of the worst problems the series suffers from, yet remains just as disturbing and memorable as it was the first time I read it in grade school. The finale, with its completely unfair and entirely out of proportion punishment, remains the single greatest reminder of why kids everywhere loved these books. The book reminds us all of how we were able, for at least a little while, to look past the flaws and embrace the series. We read the books to be surprised. We read the books to be entertained. We read the books to be scared. Perhaps we even read the books just because everyone else was too. Regardless, the twelfth book in the series gives the reader the entirety of the Goosebumps experience in one shot. Be Careful What You Wish For... is the definitive Goosebumps book, and the best.

ANSWERS TO QUIZ
1 C 2 B 3 C 4 C 5 A 6 B 7 C 8 C 9 A 10 A
11 A 12 B 13 D 14 B 15 B BONUS A

Well, what now?

#34 Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes

2008-06-30T22:11:00.000-07:00

Phantasm XXXIV: Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes

Front Tagline: Keep off their grass!
Back Tagline: Someone's Been Stalking In My Garden!

Official Book Description:
Two pink flamingos. A whole family of plaster skunks. Joe Burton's dad loves those tacky lawn ornaments. But then he brings home two ugly lawn gnomes. And that's when the trouble starts.
Late at night. When everyone's asleep.
Someone's creeping in the garden. Whispering nasty things. Smashing melons. Squashing tomatoes.
No way two dumb old lawn ornaments could be causing all the trouble.
Is there?

Brief Synopsis:
I thought perhaps I'd misremembered Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes. Maybe it was one of the "funny" Goosebumps books? Remarkably, I didn't and it isn't. RL Stine wrote a "scary" book about gardening. RL Stine, for future reference, here's a cheat sheet:

Things that are scary: Monsters. Ghosts. Nuclear war.
Things that are not scary: Gardening. Gnomes. Gardening.

By now, you probably know that this was the last Goosebumps book I read as a child, and thus fittingly the last book of the original series to be covered by the blog. Before I revisited the book, I wondered if I'd be able to pinpoint the exact moment when I realized I'd outgrown the series. I got pretty far into the book before I was able to finger the breaking point, almost to the third sentence of the first page. It was probably never possible for a book called Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes to be good, but I didn't anticipate it would be this worthless. But don't take my word for it, take my word for it:

The book opens with a ping pong game. At one point protagonist Joe Burton serves the ping pong ball by kicking it instead of using the paddle, much to his older sister Mindy's chagrin. He then follows that up with a hilarious routine where he tells her there's a spider on her back. Oh man, and then, and there are tears of laughter streaming down my face as I write this, he tells her she's got something gross on her face. Isn't Joe the coolest? Don't bother answering, he's got this one:

Me? I'm not organized. I'm cool. I'm not serious like my sister. I can be pretty funny.

Must be a hidden talent. Joe reveals that he doesn't look like anyone else in the family. They're all tall and skinny and he's short and stout. Perhaps you're thinking that the twist will be Joe is actually a lawn gnome. I wish that were the twist. That is not the twist.

Shortly after arriving in the rec room, Joe's friend Moose sits on Joe's chest. I don't know either, let's move on. Moose lives next door. His father, Mr. McCall, and Joe's father have a running rivalry involving the produce they grow in their gardens. If that sounds exciting, good news, that's the entire book. The scary paperback with the dripping letters on the cover, it's about gardening.

Mr. McCall has it out for Joe's dog Buster, as the mutt has an affinity for trampling into the McCall's garden and digging it up. And sure enough, as soon as this plot point is mentioned, Buster is revealed to be digging up the McCall's garden. Mr. McCall comes out in a rampage and threatens the children and their little dog too. Boy, I haven't seen a McCall this angry since Gordon wore Casey's shirt. Joe pulls out his trusty dog whistle and Buster slinks back into the Burton's yard. I just don't understand how anyone can hate the Burtons' dog:

Joe's dad thinks it would be a fine time to visit the little old lady down the block, as she sells gardening supplies from the first floor of her three story house. The woman, Lilah, somehow stays in business, selling lots of garden-related paraphernalia, like New Jersey snowglobes and Truly Madly Deeply cassingles. Joe's dad is such a good customer that he even named a plaster deer after her, Deer-Lilah. Please note: that's not my joke. It's the book's fault!

Joe's dad loves lawn ornaments, even going so far as to dress-up the plaster deer and flamingos on his lawn for the holidays. Joe's mother however hates the lawn ornaments and finds them embarrassing. It's too bad Joe's father didn't marry John Waters. Well, I guess not everyone can appreciate the subtle social commentary of putting a beard on a plastic bird to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday. The worst part is that I didn't make that up, that's one of the holiday decorations in the book.

Joe's dad spies two darling little lawn gnomes and instantly purchases the small plaster men, eager to be a part of the Gnome Owners Association. Mindy warns that the lawn gnomes look evil in a poor attempt to generate suspense. Joe's father however ignores such frightful talk and cheerfully names the little guys Chip (because his tooth is chipped) and Hap (because either he's so happy looking or half-Japanese). Here is a list of better names for gnomes:

Gnome Chomsky
Gnome N. Clature
Gnomie the Clown
Lil' Gnomeo
Gnome Macdonald
Kodagnome
Sean "Puffy" Gnomes
Gnomer Simpson

Walking back home with the gnomes in hand, Joe thinks he sees Hap change its expression from a cheery grin to a grim howl. Seriously, this is the book. I still can't believe it. Evil Lawn Gnomes Who Move Their Faces: The Book.

You can probably guess what happens next. Strange horrible things start to happen to Mr. McCall's lawn, and Buster the dog keeps getting blamed. Also, in between sequences of tomatoes getting squeezed and squashes getting, you guessed it, stomped, there are plenty of additional gardening scenes. However, the suspicion quickly turns from the dog to the gnomes when Mr. McCall awakes one morning to find someone has drawn smiley faces on his prized casaba melons:

Forgetting what we all learned last week with respect to what dogs can do, Joe is immediately suspected of the deed. Joe pleads his innocence and even brings in evidence of the real perpetrators: there's black paint underneath one of the gnome's hands and a melon seed between his lips. Perhaps the twist is the gnome is actually Al Jolson?

It soon becomes apparent that the rivalry between the neighboring gardening aficionados is escalating, yet the attempt to turn a gardening feud into a thrill-a-minute frightfest never quite pans out. Let me reiterate: some Goosebumps books are intentionally funny or lightweight, but this book plays it completely straight and expects the reader to be involved in a gardening war.

Joe becomes convinced that the gnomes are responsible and talks Moose into staking out the two houses to catch the lawn ornaments in the act. Moose cancels his big date with Midge and the two hide across the street on stakeout, in a scene which beautifully references everyone's favorite Emilio Estevez comedy, Men at Work. Eventually, the gnomes do come to life and start their terrorizing.

The giggling men start splashing big buckets of paint against the exterior of Joe's house, which is not part of the garden unless these gnomes have a really loose definition of what constitutes a lawn ornament. A confrontation between the gnomes and the children breaks out and at some point Mindy shows up and one of the gnomes drags her into the street by her hair. So the book is still just like any show on TLC.

The gnomes suddenly get very serious and reveal that they are Mischief Gnomes who were kidnapped from their native forest and sold into slavery. RL Stine is just about the last author who should be so cavalierly co-opting slave trade imagery. The gnomes reveal that they can't help causing trouble, it's in their nature. But, if the three kids will help rescue their friends being held at the garden supply store, Chip and Hap promise to leave forever. The kids agree and make their way to the old woman's house.

The other kidnapped ornaments are supposedly left gnome alone in Lilah's basement. Hap and Chip would have freed them alone but they weren't able to get in the basement window. Now with the help of the children, they'll be able to free their six gnome friends. The kids lower the gnomes into the dark basement and follow behind. Once inside, they see that they've been tricked. There's not six other gnomes. There's six hundred. Wait, you mean you can't trust Mischief Gnomes?!

The hordes of gnomes come to life and start attacking the children. Some want to tickle an unwilling Mindy, apparently unaware that "gnome means gnome." Other gnomes want to use the children as trampolines or play tug of war with their bodies. This is scary? It's not even all that weird because it's so ridiculous. The children are upset about being tricked and even more upset that the narrative has strayed so far from its fundamental gardening aspects.

Luckily, Joe remembers how gnomes are scared of dogs (but not all animals I guess) and so he calls for Buster to come into the basement using his whistle. But it turns out gnomes aren't scared of dogs, they're scared of dog whistles. All of the gnomes freeze into place as soon as Joe blows the trinket. Well, I'll go ahead and say it: That was convenient.

But the Twist is:
Joe's dad, distraught from mysteriously losing his two lawn gnomes, brings home an eight foot tall plaster gorilla for the garden. Wait, a what?

"I think it's a beauty, Dad," I said. "It's the best looking lawn gorilla I ever saw."

The twist is supposedly that then the gorilla winks and oh it's a shock, but the real twist is what the deuce is a lawn gorilla

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Joe and his sister Mindy, who disappears into a pack of wild living gnomes 4/5 of the way through the novel.

Questionable Parenting:
Entering the Garden of Getting Even, Joe's father takes his squashed tomato and walks over to Mr. McCall, who happens to be wearing an all-white jumpsuit. Joe's dad hurls the fruit at his neighbor, in a scene that isn't at all telegraphed or predictable.

Minority Alert:
One of those gnomes on the cover appears to be in the middle of an offensive "Me Chinese Me Make Joke" routine.

R.L. Stine Shows He Is Down With the Kids:
Gardening

Early 90s Cultural References:
Gardening

Early 00s Cultural Predictions:
Joe is reminded of a zombie from a film with the unlikely title of Killer Zombie From the Planet Zero. This along with Chip's injury was twice in a book about gardening that I was reminded of Planet Terror. That's kind of a horror movie, but there isn't any gardening in that film, so in retrospect it probably doesn't seem quite as scary or exciting as Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes does now.

Look, Seriously, the Entire Book is About Gardening:
Maybe I haven't stressed this enough. I actually left out most of the gardening parts too, so just imagine how much worse it really is. There's an entire chapter about the whole family cheerfully spraying plants with insecticide.

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 5/6:
Joe had no idea he and his family were about to begin "the most horrifying adventure" of their lives... as they walk into a garden store. Well, after this book, I'll admit it, the idea of any more gardening is a little frightening.

Great Prose Alert:
Anything is better than lawn gnomes who come alive and do terrible mischief.

Conclusions:
Yeah, now I remember.

Next week, Blogger Beware will be presenting a retrospective covering the first 62 books. Along with many other "fun" categories, I'll be counting down the best and worst Goosebumps books in the original series. Think you know what'll make the top and bottom ten? You might be surprised.

#26 My Hairiest Adventure

2008-06-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

#26 My Hairiest Adventure

Front Tagline: It keeps growing... and growing... and growing...
Back Tagline: He's Having A Really, Really Bad Hair Day...

Official Book Description:
Larry Boyd just found the coolest thing in the trash. It's an old bottle of INSTA-TAN. "Rub on a dark suntan in minutes"-- that's what the label says. So Larry and his friends do. But nothing much happens.
Until Larry notices the hair. Dark, spikey [sic] hair growing on his hands and face. Really gross shiny hair.
Hair that jeeps growing back even after he shaves it off....

Brief Synopsis:
Well, we might as well get this out of the way. All together now: This is the one where it turns out they're all dogs or something.

As the book opens, Larry Boyd is running from a pack of dogs. For some reason, dogs just love chasing after Larry. Maybe I misremembered the twist and they all turn out to be Milkbone Dog Treats or something. Larry slides across ice and snow as he races towards his friend Lily's house. Luckily Lily has just the thing to stop a dog chase: a snow shovel, which she waves around in a threatening manner. The dogs all scamper away so they can laugh at her without hurting her feelings. Please note that this opening sequence is the only remotely adventurous event in a book with the word "Adventure" in the title.

Larry made the trek to Lily's house so that they and their friends Manny, Kristina, and Jared can rehearse for the upcoming Middle School Battle of the Bands. I know what you're saying, "I've never heard of a middle school throwing a Battle of the Bands" contest, and the fact that they only have one other band competing against them certainly would explain why this isn't a regular event. Their main competition is a band called Howie and the Shouters, a superior rock n' roll group led by the titular school jerk. But Larry and crew's band is offering stiff competition for the, um, competition.

See, their band, the Geeks, consists of three guitars, a keyboard, and vocals. Bass guitar and drums are a lot easier to learn than the guitar, but not in Goosebumps world. Another questionable musical moment soon follows when the keyboard's "saxophone" preset is said to perfectly recreate the sound of a saxophone solo, over which the characters roundhouse their instruments. It doesn't help the band any that they spend as much time changing their name as they do actually playing music-- "Pirate Gold" is vetoed for not being as cool as "the Geeks," which is almost as bad a decision as that time Vampire Weekend rejected any other band name at all in favor of "Vampire Weekend." The Geeks work each other up with trash talk about Howie and the Shouters, joking about how horrible Howie's squeaking guitar sounds. Somewhere, Isaac Brock is sobbing into a couch cushion.

Perhaps you're thinking, "Well, they may be no match for Howie and the Shouters, but maybe they've got the right look for a popular band." First, that's a very relevant thought and I thank you for thinking it. Second, nope. Larry has big ears (which are over-exaggerated on the horrible horrible cover) and wavy blonde hair; Lily is blonde with bangs and her eyes are two different colors (remember, this is the one where they all turn out to be Marilyn Manson or something); Manny is a man, so there goes any relevant Degrassi jokes; Kristina is fat and so of course she's always eating in every scene; Jared plays keyboards and if he was given more character information than that, I don't remember it. Maybe he's the mysterious fourth Smoosh sibling.

Well, after running through a couple classic rock songs, the kids decide to take ten and go play in the snow. While outside, they decide that if they're gonna be in a rock band, they might as well practice being poor. While digging through their neighbor's trash, they come across a discarded medicine cabinet. Showing they indeed are not ready to be musicians, they ignore the pharmaceutical bottles and instead retrieve a bottle of INSTA-TAN. For some reason, all five members of the band think that it would be really awesome to get a fake tan.

So awesome that they excitedly race into the bathroom and take turns squirting the liquid on their bodies. I guess this was written before adults realized what groups of children really do in a bathroom together. Everyone is having such a grand old time rubbing fake tan solution on their bodies that no one cares when Larry expresses concern over the fact that the INSTA-TAN expired in 1991.

The hilarious bathroom tanning party ends when Manny pretends to peel off his skin, only to reveal that it was merely a wet kleenex. Again, so close to what teenagers are doing in the bathroom and yet so far.

The gang makes its way back outside and participates in a massive, highly-unlikely snowball fight. The fun of the afternoon proves to have been too much for Larry and he loses consciousness and collapses. I'm avoiding making puberty and pubic hair jokes in conjunction with the forthcoming hair-growth scenes, but I'm not above raising my eyebrows over the name of Larry's pediatrician: Dr. Murkin. Dr. Murkin gives Larry his regular bi-monthly shot and reminds the boy that he's not supposed to overexert himself, as he doesn't have sweat glands. Larry whines and Dr. Murkin pats Larry's head and tells him he's still a good boy, a good boy! Yes he is, yes he is!

Please note that for every half-assed attempt at giving the characters dog-traits, such as different colored eyes and no sweat glands on the skin, there's still plenty of missteps, such as the fact that everyone can see colors. Also, outside of barking "Jingle Bells" in popular Christmas novelty songs, dogs don't possess musical abilities.

After his injection, Larry races back to the snowball party but finds that it dissipated shortly after he left. Apparently Howie came by to gloat about having bought an Eric Clapton songbook for the contest, so I guess the sixth grade audience can look forward to being regaled with a squeaky-guitar rendition of "Cocaine."

That night, between the snowball fight, the fake tan party, and playing with his cat Jasper, Larry's simply exhausted. But before he can drift off to sleep, he's shocked to discover a thick patch of hair growing on his palm. He races to the bathroom and luckily he beat Jack Lemmon, so there's still razorblades inside. He lathers up and shaves his palm. It's a disgusting scene. There's a lot of shaving scenes in the book and they're all disgusting, though at least they all end before "Needle In the Hay" can start playing.

The next morning, Larry is paranoid about his hair growth. Everyone already calls him "Hairy Larry," and since kids aren't very creative, this wouldn't get them to stop. He tries asking Lily if she experienced the same thing, since he's attributing this growth to the fake tan they all used. Lily reveals that in fact she has and also she's a werewolf. Larry buys her story for a few minutes, which goes to show you, dogs are dumb. Proof:

But I had believed her story. Up to the part where she said she ate three people.

In class, Howie gives a book report on a Matt Christopher novel. If you never read a Matt Christopher book as a child, they were basically the Horror at Camp Jellyjam without monsters. Howie's oral report is awful but he's Howie, so he manages to ace it. Larry goes up to give his Bruce Coville (!) report but Howie trips him. Larry's confused though: it's winter but he'd just been wished a nice fall. Sorry. While picking himself up the ground, Larry notices the hair has grown back around his hands, this time covering both palms. He runs out into the hall and retrieves his gloves from his locker. Things could be worse, though. Lots of cool people wear gloves: chauffeurs, elevator operators, Mickey Mouse.

What follows in the book is sixty pages of hair growth. Sometimes on the knees, hands, arms, and regrettably near the end, across the forehead. Let me reiterate: reading about hair growth is gross. At some point, Manny disappears and a dog with the same shaggy hair as Manny joins the pack of dogs that runs around the small town. When Larry goes to investigate, he discovers Manny's house is completely empty. He can't figure out why he left, but of course his biggest concern is that now the Geeks only have two guitar players instead of three. Oh no, now they can no longer re-enact Zaireeka on stage.

Things go from bad to bad when Lily also disappears. When Larry tries to talk to her parents, they quickly drive away, but not before insisting they never knew any Lily. Now down to one guitar player (If they keep losing members, they'll just turn into Casiotone For the Painfully Alone), the Geeks must make a difficult decision as the Battle of the Bands approaches. If they drop out, someone's going to have to scribble out the final 's' on all the promotional material. The remaining kids ultimately decide that regardless of the dwindling size of their band, the show must go on. Triumphantly, they declare that they'll do it for Lily. And they're not the only ones doing it all for Lily:

Finally the night of the Battle of the Bands arrives. Luckily, Jared's mother was in the audience and while she ignored the other members of the group, she did capture some excellent footage of her son's performance:

Since Howie and the Shouters went on first and were even called back for an encore, the bar was set pretty high for the Geeks. Luckily they brought the house down with "I Want To Hold Your Hand"-- or should that be "I Want To Hold Your Paw"? Amazingly, the Geeks win the Battle of the Bands on the strength of their special effects. See, while performing, Larry turns into a dog. The audience, being huge fans of the Teen Wolf movies, thinks this is done with Hollywood Magic, when it is in fact done with Larry being a dog.

Ashamed, Larry runs home and tells his parents what happened. His father's reply?

But the Twist is:
"You're a dog."

See, Dr. Murkin developed a way of turning dogs into children and then giving them to his employees. The twice-monthly injections were booster shots of the serum, but after a dozen years, the formula loses its effect. Everyone in the town works for Dr. Murkin and all the children are in fact dogs. His former parents tell Larry that Dr. Murkin has decided not to turn dogs into children anymore. The book ends with Larry's parents bringing home a newborn baby girl named Jasper. So at least one of them turns out to be a cat or something.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Larry and his bandmate Lily, who disappears halfway through the novel and also turns out to be a dog or something.

Questionable Parenting:
Nope, I can't think of a single instance of any adult in this book making a poor decision.

Questionable Employing:
"Mr. Boyd, I've called you and your wife into my office to tell you that your company dog is now your company child. If you have any parenting questions, remember, I'm a scientist. Buy a book or something. Okay see you guys l8r."

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
I'll never get tired of this. Ch. 25/26:
"You're a dog."

Great Prose Alert:
"Let's try it!" Manny repeated, grinning his crooked grin.

Conclusions:
Most Goosebumps books are dogs, but this one is a real howler.
Thank you.

#27 A Night In Terror Tower

2008-06-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

#27 A Night In Terror Tower

Front Tagline: It's gonna be a L-O-N-G night!
Back Tagline: All Locked Up And No Place To Go!

Official Book Description:
Sue and her brother, Eddie, are visiting London when they run into a little problem. They can't find their tour group. Still, there's no reason to panic. No way their tour guide would just leave them. All alone. In a gloomy old prison tower.
No way they'd get locked inside. After dark. With those eerie sounds. And a strange dark figure who wants them...dead.

Brief Synopsis:
When Woody Allen set Match Point in London, he inspired critical praise for moving beyond his comfort zone. No such accolades awaited the author of Goosebumps ten years prior though, as RL Stine remains an Alexa Chung in a Louis Theroux world.

Sue and her younger brother Eddie are American tourists in London. They've spent an average day in London, eating bangers, riding in double-decker buses, and visiting old buildings. This was written before Skins, so these kids didn't bother to do anything fun during their unsupervised jaunt around town. As the story opens, Sue and Eddie are touring the infamous ominous Terror Tower. Sue didn't want to go but Eddie begged her. Being a good sister, she does take the opportunity to tease him about his tendency to get scared a lot, especially at movies. Hey Eddie, if you don't want to get scared, I've got just the movie for you:

Inside the castle, the guide leads the tourists around the various rooms, showing them empty jail cells and torture chambers. The guide spends a good amount of time introducing the various tools of torture, such as the rack, thumbscrews, and a paperback copy of Watchers. Sue's first reaction to such horrific sights is to take a picture, but she can't find her disposable camera. Her brother produces it from his bag and it's revealed that Eddie is a gifted pickpocket. Oh now I think I remember the twist ending of this one: spiritual transfiguration.

During the tour, Sue spies a man in black following their every move through the castle. Yet she never stops to tell him "Wrong tower book," so he maintains his watch over her and her brother. The tour guide leads the group into a small barred cell and tells them the tragic story of Prince Edward and Princess Susannah of York (You gotta be kidding me-- for more than one reason), two preteens who were sentenced to death by the King. Sue tries to listen to the story but gets distracted by Eddie breaking her camera and misses the end. Well, it probably wasn't important.

Once Sue and Eddie stop bickering about the camera, they realize that the tour has left them behind. They walk out into the steep narrow stairwell and can't hear or see anything-- anything except the man in black. But instead of regaling the youngsters with gravel-voiced country rock, the man attempts to capture the children. The siblings still aren't quite sure what's going on, but the guy is wearing a cape. Even in Goosebumps books, common sense dictates that if a guy in a cape tries to capture you, you run in the opposite direction.

An extended chase down tunnels and sewers follows. Inside the sewer, a wave of rats move in on the humans, because when you're already cribbing from a few Stephen King books, what's one more? The two kids think quick and grab onto the metal rings descending from the ceiling, lifting their bodies up out of the rats. Kids learn practical life lessons in these books: If you're ever pursued by a strange man, run into a sewer and conjure a rat-wave.

Once the rat-tide subsides, the kids lower themselves down and escape out into the parking lot. They discover that their tour bus left without them, but luckily the trusty night guard tells them in a thick Scottish brogue where to call for a cab. Cross your fingers that the kids stop at a pub so we can get an Irish accent as well, as in London, every European accent abounds!

The cab delivers them to their hotel, where they're sure their parents, who came to London on business, are bound to be back. When the kids try to use the money their parents gave them, they discover it worthless. And they don't have two forms of ID, so writing a check is out too. The cab driver agrees to wait while they run up to their room for the money. Inside their hotel room however, they discover the suite to be empty, with no record of any family having registered. Also, when questioned by the concierge, the kids can't remember their last name. Most troubling of all, these characters will take like 90 pages to figure out what became startlingly obvious to anyone reading the book the moment the tour entered that final room.

The kids dine and dash in the hotel restaurant, fleeing to stiff the cabbie as well. Running through the kitchen corridors, the man in black blocks their path. He accosts Eddie and forces him to give up the three white stones he apparently lifted from the man in black earlier. Eddie does so and the man in black uses the stones to bring the kids back in time. Yet Sue and Eddie don't realize they've gone back in time and are convinced that the medieval-looking grogshop they've wandered into is an elaborate costume party. Running out of the abbey, Sue loses Eddie but finds common sense which reveals to her that she's no longer in the twentieth century. The man in black pops up again and there's another chase. You know what has never translated well into these summaries? Action sequences.

Sue pays a peasant for a hiding space with the funny money and is shocked to discover that it's actually real gold coins. I guess Pier 1's been around a while because the peasant hides her in a wicker basket. When the man in black strolls around, the peasant wastes no time turning Sue in. The man in black commands some soldiers to lift the basket into his cart. The peasant apologizes to the basket for turning the girl in, but she just couldn't go against the man in black-- after all, he's the Lord High Executioner!

Refusing to defer defer to the Lord High Executioner, Sue is escorted back to the castle, where Sue is reunited with Eddie. The two are locked in a cell, but not before the pale man in black taunts them with his white balls. Once the dignified and potent officer, whose functions are particularly vital leaves, a sorcerer appears. I don't care if already made the list, add 'sorcerer' to the list.

The white-bearded sorcerer introduces himself as Morgred, the king's personal magician. He then shocks exactly two people with the following proclamation: Sue and Eddie are actually Susannah and Edward. No. Way. Their parents are dead and their uncle, the King, has imprisoned them to await their death. Morgred used the magic stone balls to send the two kids as far into the future as possible and gave them false memories.

Let's think about this for a second. If this is true, why do the kids not have English accents? Why do the kids not have contemporary money if their clothes somehow became contemporary? And how do the kids still somehow have money to pay for the lunch and bus trip? And seriously, why does it take until page 114 of a 129 page book for the main characters to figure out this twist?

The kids try to make a break for it out the open cell door, but Morgred bewitches the children and they freeze in place. He apologizes with tears in his eyes, but if he lets the children escape, the King will kill him. If the sorcerer dies, his argument goes, who will perform magic for the kingdom? Eh, I bet they could find someone to do magic. I mean, I doubt the Amazing Johnathan still has a job. As this blubberin' Merlin keeps wailing, Eddie reveals to Sue that he's swiped the stones again. Remembering the ancient latin words Morgred used to cast the spell (Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!), the two cast themselves back into the present.

Back on the tour, they finally hear the rest of their story: on the night of the execution, the children mysteriously disappeared. A bearded man joins the children and thanks them for bringing him with them. Morgred asks for the children to call him Mr. Morgan and offers to cast a Food Spell to cure their hunger. The book ends as Eddie wittily replies that they don't need spells when there's fast food restaurants! I could quote the final exchange, which is worse than you'd suspect, but if I did I might accidentally cast a Stupid Spell and the blog would go back in time.

But the Twist is:

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Eddie and his sister Sue, who disappears into a basket two-thirds of the way through the book.

Questionable Wizarding:
Morgred has no problem abandoning all the people in the land who counted on his wizardry so long as he gets to eat burgers in the future.

Appropriate Anagram of the Title Alert:
A Nitwit Regent Horror

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 12/13:
The cab driver wants to get paid his fare. But the twist is that's how cabs work, you pay to ride inside them.

Great Prose Alert:
Up the steep, slippery stairs.

Conclusions:
A Night in Terror Tower is well-written, but ultimately more jolly bad than jolly good. Get it, like Britons talk lolz it's a British book.

#56 the Curse of Camp Cold Lake

2008-06-09T13:35:00.000-07:00

#56 the Curse of Camp Cold Lake

Front Tagline: Last one in is a rotten...ghost! (Are you kidding me)
Back Tagline: Sink Or...Sink

Official Book Description:
Camp is supposed to be fun, but Sarah hates Camp Cold Lake.
The lake is gross and slimy. And she's having a little trouble with her bunkmates. They hate her.
So Sarah comes up with a plan. She'll pretend to drown--then everyone will feel sorry for her.
But things don't go exactly the way Sarah planned. Because down by the cold, dark lake someone is watching her. Stalking her. Someone with pale blue eyes. And a see-through body...

Brief Synopsis:
Sarah Maas hates water, hates sports, hates camp, yet tragically finds herself at a water sports camp. Unfortunately, the one thing she does love is complaining about Camp Cold Lake in a really whiny tone. And the book's first-person, so there's plenty of insufferable sarcastic asides to go around. Sarah is a female Evan Ross, and there is no male Andy figure in the book to counterbalance the wussery. Sarah's younger brother, Aaron, is positioned to be that character everyone likes, but just because Stine's idea of character development is literally

He likes everything and everyone. And everyone always likes Aaron.

doesn't make it so.

Sarah has trouble making friends at camp. I can't believe the three other girls in her bunk don't want to be her friend. After all, she makes such a good first impression when she forces Briana to give up her bunk because she won't sleep under a window. And then when Meg gripes about being too short, Sarah tells her that thought she gets picked on for being tall, it's still better than being short. Sarah follows that by picking up Jan's bag, spilling out her asthma medicine and revealing that medical secret to the whole bunk. I think short of peeing all over their clothes, Sarah's made the worst possible first impression.

If there's a Goosebumps book set at camp, you can be sure a bonfire scene is a given, and the book doesn't disappoint in this regard. The three bunkmates get back at Sarah by convincing her that some boys threw firecrackers into the bonfire. Sarah runs away screaming and the entire camp laughs at her. Then the girls offer to make up with her, but this too is a ploy to simply place a snake on her back. So basically there are no likable characters in the book.

The two main camp counselors, Richard and Liz, present the camp's water safety rules. Liz is described by the female narrator as being quite fetching, and all the kids give her wolf whistles when she appears in denim cutoffs and a half-shirt. So basically there is one likable character in the book.

Liz is all business and starts rattling off the twenty-item swimming safety list. Sarah frets that she'll never learn twenty rules in another of a long line of comments that make the reader embarrassed for her. Richard is a card who constantly interrupts the proceedings to make "jokes" like this, prompted by one of the preteens asking to go swimming with Liz:

Don't ever swim with counselors-- they have germs!

Which begs the question: Is it really necessary to cock-block twelve-year-olds?

Liz emphasizes that the most important rule is to follow the Buddy System when going anywhere near the water. Before Richard can make a rude gesture with his pelvis, Liz proceeds to hammer home the importance of always going out in the water with another partner. Richard follows this by leading the camp in song. Actual lyrics to the camp song:

Get in the swim
Show your vigor and vim

Which is a textbook example of why you shouldn't publish a first draft. At one point another, more familiar lyric pops up:

Wetter is better

Oh man, I know what the twist is now, Camp Cold Lake is revealed to actually be

After the bonfire, Sarah races off into the woods and scoops some spiders into her flashlight, screwing the top over the creepy crawlies. Her brilliantly devious plan is to place the spiders under the covers of Meg and Briana's beds. I don't see this prank backfiring. After she makes it back to the empty cabin, Jan catches her tucking back the covers on Meg's bed and tattles once the girls get bitten by spiders. For some reason Stine expects us to take sides with the girl who put spiders in another girl's bed.

Now completely shunned by the camp, Sarah eats breakfast alone the next morning. At canoe class (?), no one will be Sarah's partner and she tattles to Liz to force Jan to be her Buddy. Out in the boat, Jan tips over the canoe on purpose, then blames Sarah. Liz swims out into the water and scornfully reminds Sarah that the presidential election of 1840 had already been decided.

Sarah's had enough and wants to run away from the camp. She tells her brother that she's going to run through the woods to the small town on the other side of the camp and call their parents to pick them up. Aaron reminds Sarah that the camp counselors specifically warned against walking in the dangerous woods, though since there weren't twenty reasons why, it must not be that big a deal.

Sarah gives up on the running away plan and hatches an even stupider plan: she'll go out into the water during free swim and pretend to drown. Since she can hold her breath for a long time, she'll just go hang around at the bottom of the lake for a few minutes, then float back up. Seemingly unfamiliar with Virginia Woolf's personal biography, Sarah thinks this will solve all her problems.

Since no one will be her buddy, she convinces Liz to let her swim alone. Sarah enacts her brilliant drowning plan by actually drowning. Whoops. As soon as she makes it back to the surface of the water, she can tell something's wrong with the campgrounds. Though it was summer when she went under, the air is a lot colder and all the leaves have fallen off the trees. What's more, there doesn't seem to be any other campers around. Sarah swims to shore and exits the cold cold water, shivering in the bitter air. As she walks around the deserted camp, flakes of snow begin to fall.

The camp is eerily quiet until a single voice catches Sarah's ear. Sarah encounters the source of the sad song she heard resting on the rickety old porch of a cabin. A pale girl wearing all white greets her, which confuses Sarah even further since though it's snowing, the date couldn't be past Labor Day. The pale girl introduces herself as Della and gives Sarah a nice warm white bathrobe. Della is thrilled that Sarah's come, because she needs a buddy before she can enter "the Other World." Great, just what getting into Heaven needed, another rule.

Della floats up, revealing that she's a ghost, and that Sarah too has died. Della tries to bully Sarah into being her buddy but Sarah freaks out and runs towards the water. She swims out as far as she can and is suddenly greeted with the welcoming image of Liz performing CPR on her.

The entire camp cheers on Liz's mouth to mouth with the girl, only to stop once she exclaims she's alive. She confides that they thought she had died. Jan spoils the celebratory mood by chiming in that she and her boyfriend George Glass are sure Sarah just drowned for the attention. The bunkmates eventually decide that they've been too mean to Sarah and offer her a genuine fresh start. Everything seems to be going so well until Sarah starts seeing the ghost of Della everywhere around camp.

Slowly losing her mind, Sarah visits with the head counselor and asks to hear about the camper who drowned at Camp Cold Lake. The counselor clams up and insists that no camper ever drowned at the camp. Sarah insists that one did, Della, but he won't listen to her. He explains that the camp has so many safety rules for swimming that some people even consider it "the Curse of Camp Cold Lake." Oh, now I get the title, it's like when you have a bad hair day!

Outside of his office, Della taunts Sarah and Sarah hurls insults at the ghost girl. Unfortunately, Briana chose that moment to walk up to Sarah in a friendly manner, and she's genuinely crushed that Sarah would insult her for no reason. Sarah tries to convince Briana that she was talking to the ghost and Briana gives her a strange look.

Richard suggested that Sarah take up water-skiing, with the idea being that the sport is so hard that she'll have to focus all her energy on performing and won't have time to think about ghosts. This is an excellent plan up until the moment where Della takes control of the motorboat and attempts to kill Sarah. At one particularly gruesome moment, Della runs the motorboat over Sarah's head, attempting to decapitate her with the blades of the motor.

Sarah figures that she's had enough of Della trying to kill her in the water and revives her plan to run away. She runs into Briana on the way to the woods and Briana strangely wishes her good luck. As Sarah makes her way through the forest, she spies Della's ghost hanging out in a tree and looking very happy. Della tells her that she'll never leave her, after all she's her buddy.

Sarah is repulsed and lashes out at Della for trying to drown her just because she herself drowned. Della laughs at this and asks her why Sarah had thought she drowned? Della tells Sarah that the counselor was right, no child has ever drowned at Camp Cold Lake. After all, how could anyone drown when there are twenty different rules in place to prevent it? No, Della had wandered off into the woods and was bitten by a poisonous snake.

Della explains that she had to make Sarah afraid of the water so that she would try to escape from the camp through the woods. There are so many poisonous snakes in the woods that it's impossible to make your way through without being bitten. Sarah feels a snake wrap itself around her leg. Before the snake can bite her though, a voice cries out, warning that Della is not her buddy: Briana!

Briana rushes over and pulls the snake off of Sarah's leg and hurls it into the woods. Briana reveals that she went to the camp last year and Della tried to get her to be her buddy, but she resisted. That's why Briana came back this year, to warn whoever Della targeted next not to be her buddy. Suddenly empowered, Sarah proclaims that even though she hates the camp, she'll come back next year to warn the next potential victim against being Della's buddy. Della howls out in anger and falls off the tree limb, disappearing into the darkness.

But the Twist is:
Sarah goes to hug Briana, only to discover that her arms go right through her. Briana explains that Della killed her last summer, and the only reason she didn't become her buddy is because she didn't like her. Briana then holds up a large poisonous snake and asks Sarah to be her buddy.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Sarah Maas and her brother Aaron, who disappears like 1/8 of the way through the novel.

Questionable Counseling:
How did the other counselors not notice that the kid who died last year is now enrolled again for camp?

Minority Alert:
Briana is an African-American, and yes, cringe-inducingly, she is described as having cornrows. Well of course, because the only way to differentiate between a black person and a white one in Goosebumps world is to give the black character racist physical traits. At least he resisted the urge to have her eating fried chicken out of a hollowed-out watermelon-- though I haven't read the Goosebumps 2000 books yet, so keep your fingers crossed. Also, doesn't being a black ghost cancel out?

R.L. Stine Shows He Is Down With the Kids:
Sarah gripes that she'd rather be at the mall, eating a big bag of fries. A bag of fries?

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 7/8:
Sarah cries out as she begins to sink into quicksand. Luckily she remembers that quicksand doesn't exist and it must just be mud. Pshew.

Great Prose Alert:
Then he began talking about towels.

Conclusions:
The Curse of Camp Cold Lake is a frustrating book. On the one hand, it contains a very effective sequence in the middle with the spooky snowy abandoned campgrounds. And the twist that Della didn't drown is both clever and unexpected. But the final twist with Briana is illogical, the prose is clunky and poorly conceived, and the protagonist is insufferably annoying. So, thumbs down. Great cover though.

#57 My Best Friend Is Invisible

2008-06-02T13:58:00.000-07:00

#57 My Best Friend Is Invisible

Front Tagline: Not seeing is believing!
Back Tagline: He's Outta Sight...For Real!

Official Book Description:
Sammy Jacobs is into ghosts and science fiction. Not exactly the smartest hobby--at least not if you ask Sammy's parents. They're research scientists and they only believe in real science.
But now Sammy's met someone who's totally unreal. He's hanging out in Sammy's room. And eating his cereal at breakfast. Sammy's got to find a way to get rid of his new "friend." Only problem is...Sammy's new "friend" is invisible!

Brief Synopsis:
You might think that a Goosebumps book that fulfills its scientist quota so excessively would have a lot going for it. Protagonist Sammy Jacobs has two scientist parents and a scientist-in-training younger brother, Simon. But all the bunsen burners in the world can't ignite a single spark of interest in this book. See, Sammy's the black sheep of the family because he doesn't care about science, he cares about science fiction. He busies himself reading books about ghosts and aliens while his brother, who apparently caught Porky's on USA Up All Night, is fast at work measuring the growth of his body every day. C'mon, every single day?

Sammy's parents can't deal with the fact that the son of two losers is somehow an even bigger loser than they are, so they spend their time at home ignoring him, opting to pour over Science Reports instead of parenting. Sammy's so unpopular lately that even the family cat, Brutus is ignoring him, a situation to which he wittily quotes Shakespeare, "Now is the winter of our discontent."

Luckily for Sammy, he does have his friend Roxanne, who comes over to berate Sammy for being such a poor athlete. Apparently Sammy lost a track meet earlier in the day and Roxanne wants to make sure he does a better job at the mini-Olympics later in the week. Sammy says he merely let her win and assures Roxanne that he will both run faster and put on the red light.

With that settled, Roxanne and Sammy get to work brainstorming about their English term project. Sammy suggests studying the life cycle of a moth or charting the growth of plants. Roxanne wants to film a haunted house over the weekend. At no point do either of them consider any project related to English for their English project.

Their wild speculation is interrupted by a mysterious light that appears in Sammy's room. The source of this light is revealed to be a special magic flashlight belonging to Sammy's dad that allows invisible organisms to be made visible. For some reason this light scared Sammy and Roxanne, perhaps because they have a phobia about telegraphed twist endings.

Roxanne resumes trying to sell Sammy on the haunted house idea by quoting a bunch of "facts" from books about hauntings. The haunted house is called the Hedge House because there are hedges in front of the house. Expectant mothers, I think you can cross any paranormal investigators off your list of people to ask for baby name suggestions. Instead of visiting a haunted house, Sammy would much rather spend his Saturday watching the new horror movie School Spirit. His father overhears and confuses this with his son actually having school spirit. Wow, a father who only cares about sports, really knocking those cliches out of the park with this one, Stine. Get it, more sports

After Roxanne leaves, Sammy becomes convinced that someone's messing with him, as his window is open and his papers scattered around the room. He's sure that a ghost is responsible, but maybe he just lives in the Watergate apartments. The next morning he discovers that Brutus opted not to sleep in his room as per usual, as though a cat doing whatever it wants was in any way news. He sits down for a nice bowl of cereal, only to discover that while his head was turned away from the bowl, the ghost has eaten all of his cereal. The ghost ate his cereal.

At school, Sammy is called to the front of the class to solve a math problem. The polynomial equation takes a quadrastic turn though as an invisible clammy hand grasps Sammy's and he runs from the room in hysterics.

Back at home, Sammy witnesses the scene depicted on the cover of the book. The cover art really captures how totally lame a ghost eating pizza is, though to Stine's credit he didn't include the pictured church-key soda can. Sammy's mother takes a pause from not paying attention to him to scold him for eating pizza. She then tells him to clean up his room. When he heads upstairs to do as instructed, he discovers that someone has strewn cereal and lunchmeat and other foodstuffs all over his floor. After checking in the hallway for precocious youngsters or feuding heterosexual couples who don't realize their feelings for each other, he comes to the conclusion that only a ghost could have caused this food fight. Then the ghost speaks up and confirms this.

Except the voice is not a ghost at all, but an invisible boy named Brent Green. He's twelve too and wants very badly to be Sammy's best friend. He explains that he doesn't know how he got to Sammy's house or who his parents are, but he's hungry and wants to be Sammy's friend. Sammy tries to get his family to come see his invisible friend, but you can imagine how well that goes. Not even Roxanne believes him, though she does tell the entire student body about it so they can mock him properly at school the next day.

Things get so bad for Sammy that he has to eat lunch alone in the library. That doesn't work out so well, as Brent followed him to school and starts eating his sandwich. Sammy begs him to go away but Brent insists that he's just trying to be his friend. Brent proves his friendship by ruining Sammy's turn in the relay race, costing his team the game. With friends like this, who needs visibilities amirite

To make it up losing the race to Roxanne, Sammy is forced to agree to accompany her to the haunted house that weekend. Beforehand though, Sammy tries every trick in the book to convince Brent to leave. He tries to get him to live with Roxanne because she has better food but Brent doesn't want to be friends with a girl. Ruh roh, no one tell Jessica Valenti about this book!

Brent sees that Sammy's trying to get rid of him and attempts to throw him out the window. He stops himself before he actually murders Sammy though and explains that he was just goofing around in a familial way, which makes perfect sense only if you're a cast member of Dallas. Brent finally leaves after Sammy turns up the radiator high enough to produce steam in his room, proving the old adage true: if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the house of the boy you're bothering.

Anyways, Roxanne and Sammy are at the Hedge House, ready to bust some ghosts. And whadaya know, a ghost does show up. Upstairs in the spooky house, the ghost angrily picks up Roxanne and starts throwing her around the room. Then the ghost picks up a pillow and tries to smother her. Oh my God, the ghost is Albert Finney!

Roxanne and Sammy flee from the house, having learned an important lesson about just writing five paragraphs on Of Mice And Men instead of getting murdered by ghosts for their English project. Back at home, Brent reveals that he was behind the whole charade. Shocker. The invisibully refuses to leave.

Sammy's parents announce that his erratic behavior has caused them to set up an appointment with a mental institution for their son. Before he can be taken away though, Sammy breaks free and runs down to his parents' basement to grab the magic flashlight. He forces the rest of the family and Roxanne to follow him to his room, where he shines the light on Brent, revealing...

But the Twist is:
A HIDEOUS MONSTER. Brent reveals that his mother made him invisible so it would be easier for him to make friends.

Okay, there's more. Take a deep breath.

Sammy and his family can't figure out how Brent can survive with only one head, two eyes, and two short arms that aren't even long enough to wrap around his body. They can't stop being disgusted at how he has hair on top of his head instead of suction-cupped tentacles. Sammy's father explains that this creature is a human and its their duty to call the zoo, as humans are an endangered species. What.

the Platonic Boy-Girl Relationship:
Sammy and his "pal" Roxanne, who doesn't buy that Sammy has a disappearing friend halfway through the book, primarily because it would involve assuming someone would want to befriend Sammy.

Questionable Parenting:
Simon quips that they can use the magic flashlight to search for Sammy's missing brain, causing the entire family to burst into laughter. I'm not upset about the parents mocking their son, I'm upset that the joke wasn't funny.

Questionable Teaching:
Even Sammy's teacher mocks him by pretending to call on an invisible student. That's going to really blow her credibility concerning attendance sheets.

R.L. Stine Shows He Is Down With the Kids:
No one has an ear for the natural dialog of children like Stine:

"How could you -- you stupid clumsy cretin!" she shrieked.

Out of Context Text Alert:
"I bet we hear moaning soon. Make sure your camcorder is ready."

Memorable Cliffhanger Chapter Ending:
Ch. 3/4
There's nothing on the floor. Nothing except... nothing.

Great Prose Alert:
A regular flashlight didn't shine with a shimmery, white, blinding light.

Conclusions:
An extraordinarily obnoxious book where nothing happens, every character is grating, and the final twist makes absolutely no sense, My Best Friend Is Invisible is reference-level terrible.

iStockphoto Strikes Again

2008-05-26T23:58:00.000-07:00

Due to unforeseen delays, there will be no
update this week. Regular entries will return
to normal next week, Monday June 02.