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Category: Horror
Die Softly
Die Softly by Christopher Pike
Dude. This plot…
I’d like to paint you a picture of myself with both hands raised to the sky in the ultimate gesture of WTFery. Christopher Pike never ceases to make my head explode like a watermelon stuffed with dynamite. But in a good way, mind you. After I’ve sponged my brain off the floor, I usually trot up to the Master of YA Suspense and plead “Please Sir, may I have some more?”
Since Die Softly is out-of-print and you’ll probably have to scavenge the four corners of the earth to find a used copy (like I did), I see nothing wrong in engaging in a little spoiling of the plot. But first, the opener:
“His blood was hot. His thoughts were naughty. Outside, in front of the gymnasium, were Alamo High’s cheerleaders, posing prettily for Herb’s camera. Inside his head were the same cheerleaders, only in his imagination they were even prettier—they were naked. Soon they would be naked. It would be that night that he would set his plan in motion.”
Now that’s how you kick off a novel! If that doesn’t make you want to read ahead, you are dead inside! I don’t normally quote from books, but in this case, I considered this one of the best openers I’ve encountered in a long time and it is, quite simply, a work of art. Of course, if you value simple, engaging, and most importantly, entertaining writing as art, then we visceral readers are on the same page. Christopher Pike always entertains and I can’t help but wonder how many high schoolers would graduate with a life-long love of reading if they were assigned to read Die Softly in English class as opposed to say, The Scarlet Letter. But that is a topic for discussion on another day…
Die Softly is an early ‘90’s relic, a breed of YA horror that cannot exist in today’s YA market. Imagine the controversy, the banning parties, and the book burnings if this story was published today. This is prime example of pre-Columbine YA literature and it should be preserved as a slice of simpler times.
Herb, our slightly pervy protagonist, plants his camera in the girl’s shower and plans to distribute the nudy pics on graduation day. He has a crush on Alexa, one of the cheerleaders, who’s best friend Lisa (another bouncy cheerleader) perished in a fiery car crash the day before. The film Herb develops shows Alexa sneaking up to Lisa with a baseball bat.
Then a series of seriously weird shit goes down in which Herb suspects his friends of trying to KILL him to get the negatives. Also, a crack addict jock tries to CRUSH Herb at a gas station when Herb’s friend does a DRIVE-BY and saves the day.
Somewhere in the middle of the book, Herb and Alexa hide in a bush and watch a stand off between minor characters in which someone is SHOT BY A SNIPPER RIFFLE and another someone is IMPALED.
Where is this town and why are all the teens packing heat?!!!
Okay. So I promised you the plot, but I’ve gone cross-eyed.
Nudy pics. An underground cocaine ring operated by evil cheerleaders who share the same boyfriend. Snipper riffles. You can’t read this in a YA anymore…
The ending threw me for a loop and it was, dare I say, ironic? I love how Pike isn’t afraid to throw his characters under the bus, even if that means killing off his narrator and still tie up his loose ends and finish on a high note.
Bravo! A-.
Now if only I could find Master of Murder my quest to recapture my tween years will be complete!
Thirst No. 2
Thirst No. 2 by Christopher Pike
I wish Christopher Pike wasn’t so mysterious so I could have a sneak peak at his wheel-o-plots. I’m convinced Pike works with a random shit generator or else I’m at a loss to explain the WTFery in Thirst No. 2. Likewise, I secretly worship Pike’s storytelling genius. In the hands of a lesser writer, WTFery dizzies the mind. In the hands of Pike, it entertains the pants off me.
Thirst No. 2 chronicles the ass-kicking adventures of Sita, a five thousand year old vampire, and takes off where the NUCLEAR EXPLOSION vaporized the evil government base in Thirst No. 1.
World weary Sita tinkers with her Medieval-priest-lover’s alchemy force crystals, re-engineers her six stranded vampire DNA, and transforms herself into a lowly human.
Then she becomes preggers. The father, I should mention, is her teen lover who she thought perished in the gas tank explosion from the first book…or DID he?!!!
*Takes deep breath* Okay. So. Sita has the fastest pregnancy this side of Breaking Dawn and expels the demon child in a shower of gore goblets. The child is a modern scientific marvel and grows exponentially within a few weeks to the equivalent of a twenty year old. Also, she is evil incarnate. Also, she THIRSTS…
Meanwhile, Sita’s friend…the nun…experiences an immaculate conception and we learn through an ancient Egyptian prophecy, this child is the next messiah. But wait! Sita’s daughter was sent to kill the messiah and not even a cult with high power assault rifles could stop her. People are defenestrated off of skyscrapers.
See what I mean about WTFery? Usually vampire stories are more or less predictable but this is so far from predictable it might as well be from another planet. Speaking of the extraterrestrial, this book ends with intergalactic time travel on a SPACESHIP.
I have nibbled on the Wonderland mushrooms and I like it.
A+
Thirst No. 1
Thirst No. 1 by Christopher Pike
Remember in Rambo II when Rambo spears some unfortunate evil dude and said evil dude BLEW UP? Something of that nature happens in this re-issue of a ‘90’s vampire classic. Rest assured, people will explode, sometimes spontaneously, sometimes on account of sniper rifles and rocket launchers, and, if you’re a pro at suspending your disbelief, Pike will take you on a high octane roller costar ride and then blow YOU up.
In a thinly veiled attempt to ride the YA vampire train to riches and glory, the publishers of Christopher Pike’s backlist have re-issued the first three novels (The Last Vampire, Black Blood, Red Dice) of his bestselling Last Vampire series in this thrilling pulp omnibus.
Sita is a five thousand year old vampire: blond, beautiful, and a certified badass. She’s also the last of the bloodsuckers and, as the story begins, she’s the new girl in Mayfair, a sleepy town in the Pacific Northwest. In history class, she meets Ray, a sensitive teen hunk and here I almost sent this book back to the library unread; I felt like I read this story before. In this case, I’m secretly beating a certain author who shall not be named with the plagiarism stick because I suspect Pike was probably rocking out to Nirvana when he penned The Last Vampire which is to say this chick came before that egg hatched at twilight. Plus, Sita glittered too…for logical reasons, radioactive fallout being one of them.
Out of loyalty to Pike, I soldiered through the “I drink blood and you must think this is unique” bit to the “So the lion falls in love with the lamb: I have no soul, but he has soul enough for two” crap and I am glad. There are…HELICOPTER CHASES, DEADLY FLUTE PLAY-OFFS, RABID VAMPIRE DOGS, and someone gets SPEARED with a JAVELIN (I do love a good spearing).
Let’s speak plainly. Ray—Sita’s mortal lover and ‘soul mate’—was such a sniveling wimp he makes Bella Swan look like Chuck Norris. I doubt I’m the only reader who felt this way, which is why it was so cool when Christopher Pike, probably sensing the inherent lameness of this character, BLEW HIM UP!!!! Have you ever come across a character you can’t stand and wish the author would make him or her (*cough* Bella) spontaneously combust and then the author READ YOUR MIND and plopped this annoying character next to a leaky gas tank and lit a match? This…and helicopter chases, is why Christopher Pike is the king of YA pulp.
Count me in for Thirst No. 2. I have to find out what happens after Sita launched the nuclear warheads and nuked Vegas. Don’t you dare laugh! The way I see it, vampire stories are already far-fetched; why not crank the lever to full-throttle and juice the horror/sci fi genre for all it’s worth? Pike holds nothing back. And it shows. I suspect Pike had as much fun writing The Last Vampire as I had reading it.
This series may win no awards, but an annoying character is blown up and that’s the biggest award of all. Suffice to say, many a coma-inducing classic could use an unnecessary explosion.
As for a rating, I give this a B+ for Blockbuster.
R.I.P Challenge IV
I’ve signed up for Carl’s R.I.P Challenge. This is my first time!
Here’s my reading pool:
1. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne de Mauier
2. Nothing but Ghosts by Beth Kephart
3. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
4. Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink
I’ve picked Peril the Second, which requires me to read 2 books of a spooky nature between September 1-October 31. First challenge, baby steps. I might read all 4 from my pool and promote myself up to Peril the First. We’ll see.
I’m also doing the Short Story Peril.
My selection: Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories
Christopher Pike Reissued
Big news! Christopher Pike’s Last Vampire series receives a cover makeover.
Before…
After…
The first edition, Thirst No. 1 includes 3 novels: The Last Vampire, Black Blood, Red Dice.
The second edition, Thirst No. 2 includes: Phantom, Evil Thirst, Creatures of Forever.
Release date: August 4, 2009.
While I’ve read my share of Pike in the ’90’s, I haven’t read his Last Vampire series. Frankly, I’m a little over the entire vampire YA craze, but it’s Pike, folks! I guess I could squeeze in one more vamp book before I put the ban on vamps altogether.
The Midnight Club
The term “Emo” didn’t exist when I was in 7th grade, but I suspect I must have been a bit Emo because one of my favorite books at that time was about a group of teenagers dying of terminal cancer. No need to do a double take, you read that sentence right. This book was called The Midnight Club by Christopher Pike and despite the seemingly depressing subject matter, I read it multiple times.
It’s been years since I’ve last read it, but I can still remember the plot and some of the characters’ names. There’s a hospice located on a rocky cliff where a group of terminally ill teens meet at midnight to tell stories. They tell scary stories, stories of life, love, hope, friendship, and life after death. One night, they make a pact that the first one in the group to die will try to come back and tell them all what it’s like on the other side. For some strange reason, I remember the characters by what type of cancer they had. Isn’t that morbid?
I mention The Midnight Club now, not so much because I want to discuss the book, but more so because I’ve still got my mind on cover art.
The Midnight Club front cover and backside blurb is a perfect example of false marketing. Since the author is Christopher Pike, publishers marketed this book as a supernatural thriller about people coming back from the dead. In actuality, this whole “he who dies first must come back” catch is only a small part of the plot and when it does happen, it’s done in such a tasteful way that it leaves you feeling sad, not scared.
The cover is deceptive. Nowhere in the book does Death appear in front of the dying kids and teach them a lesson in what appears to be charades.
Looking back at all the Christopher Pike books I’ve read, I realized that Pike was deeper than you would expect from a YA horror/suspense fiction writer. There was always something more to his YA stories than your average teen scare-fest. He wrote about reincarnation, forgiveness, friendship, first-love, loyalty—oh, I’m getting nostalgic just thinking about it.
That being said, whatever happened to Christopher Pike anyways? I haven’t seen him publish a book in years and whenever I journey over to the YA section at Borders or Barnes and Nobles, I don’t see any of his old books in print anymore. Nowadays, the only place you can find Christopher Pike books are online or at the library. My library still has a copy of the first edition hardback of The Midnight Club and other early ’90’s hardback editions. Paperback copies are non-existent. The dated cover art probably discourages today’s teen readers from checking out the book; do they even know who Christopher Pike is anymore?
This cover creeps me out
I never thought I’d say this, but the cover of A Certain Slant of Light creeps me out. Another way of saying it is: this cover scares the crap out of me! Guys, I’m serious. I’m not even trying to be sarcastic.
I currently have this book faced down on my TBR stack, buried under harmless covers such as The Goose Girl. I’m even contemplating not reading it because a) I have a very active imagination b) do I really want some macabre image of a tripped-out Ophelia lurking around my head when I use the bathroom in the middle of the night and hear a drip in the bathtub?
The cover art seemed harmless enough when I checked it out. Just a girl taking a bath, right? Ironic this book is titled A Certain Slant of Light because if you look closely, it appears to be some girl with lackluster hair drowning herself in the bathtub. And let’s not mention that unsettling gauzy white nightgown in her hands. Oh yeah, and the chipped Victorian-era bathtub doesn’t help alleviate the chill factor.
A while back, I posted on how I use to be a big horror fiction fan. But I seemed to have forgotten that I’ll have these twisted, macabre images circulating in my head for years! Everything is fine during the day, but on nights when I have trouble sleeping, these images tend to seep out of my head like some ghostly smoke and merge with the shadows on my wall.
So to anyone who has read A Certain Slant of Light, please tell me that the content is not as creepy as the cover art. Should I give it a chance? Yea or Nay?
And while I’m on the topic of macabre subject matter, here are a list of things that also scare the living crap out of me.
Don’t get any ideas and send me the following in the mail!
- Creepy Historical Eras.
- Puritan Era, 17th century. I’ve always thought Puritans were scary. Their solemn clothes, fanatical beliefs, stockades, and witch hunts chill me to the bone. Imagine if you woke up and saw a Puritan looking down at you, tell me if you don’t pee your pants then!
- Victorian Era, 19th century. I think a lot of the creep factor has to do with their dour clothing and solemn sepia portraits. Oh yeah, they also prop up the dead and dress them up for pictures in a freaky practice called Victorian post-mortem photography. An image search on Google produces some disturbing photos which, for your sake and more for my sake, I will not post up.
- Glassy-eyed dolls and marionettes. Glassy-eyed dolls give the impression that they can come to life at any moment and call you “Mommy.” They are always watching! Marionettes dangle around like a hanged man. They also have that wide, grotesque painted mouth that looks like a smile, but is really a sneer. These toys just look evil.
- Children singing demented nursery rhymes in the middle of the night. “Ring around the Rosy.” (Not that I’ve ever been scared witless by a demon child, but I’ve seen it in movies…)
- Jack-in-the-box. Okay, what kind of sick sick sicko invented this toy? Do you think it’s funny to have some psycho clown jump out at you and take out an eye?
- Clowns. I can’t get near clowns. I’ve always thought they were psycho killers in disguise. Their big red mouths remind me of the portal to hell! Get the <insert F word> away from me Bozo!
- Historical houses. I always want to live in an old Victorian mansion or an English manor house. That’s my line of thinking during the day. Imagine the terror if you were to stay in one overnight, what with the stuffy old house smells and the ancestral portraits of unsmiling dead people…
- Remarkably, only two movies scare me.
- The Sixth Sense
- The Others
I believe that’s all I can think of for now. I’m sure my next insomniac night will produce more bullet points. If I keep thinking along these lines, I may grow up to be the next Stephen King or Edgar Allen Poe…
Oh, one more bullet point: Edgar Allen Poe. Need I mention that the Travel Channel says he’s haunting some Baltimore hotel room. And just to let you know, Virginia Clemm, his thirteen year old child bride, fell victim to consumption. While singing at the piano for Edgar, a blood vessel burst in her throat and she started bleeding profusely during her song. But she kept singing for a few moments longer, unaware that she was bleeding through her mouth. Yeah, think about that…
I’m not posting Edgar Allen Poe’s daguerreotype up either because quite frankly, his picture scares me. We all know what he looks like.
Do the same things that scare me scare you? Or can you think of something creepier? Let me know; share with words, don’t send pictures. If I receive even one picture of a dead Victorian, so help me God…
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
One year ago, I was at the movies when I first saw the trailer for Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. The trailer gave me chills; I immediately went out and got the book, which gave me chills on top of my chills. I couldn’t stop talking about Perfume and I yearned to watch the movie. Unfortunately, the movie was in limited release and that yearning to see the book visualized went unsatiated for a year…until today.
Patrick Suskind’s Perfume is one of the most original works of fiction in publication. Who would have thought of writing a book entirely devoted to scent? The sense of smell is something we take for granted, it’s certainly something I’ve never thought about. At least while I was reading the book, I developed a new-found appreciation for the ingredients in my hand lotion.
The book’s antagonist, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, fascinates me. He’s born with an unparalleled olfactory ability, but no scent of his own. He spends his youth scurrying like a rat in the bowels of 18th century Paris until one evening, his nose crosses paths with the intoxicating scent of a young girl peeling plums by the river. It is the sweetest scent imaginable: the scent of youth, innocence, beauty. He must somehow capture it, but how does one go about capturing the essence of a person?
I like to think of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille as a pitiful creature who lives in hell but dreams of heaven. He has no scent of his own, which makes him non-human— all humans have their own unique smell. So he steals the scents of others and wears it as a mask in order to make himself blend in. In the book, his existence is compared to a parasitic tick feeling on those around him.
The movie didn’t disappoint. It was visually stunning and faithful to the book.
Ben Whishaw’s plays Jean-Baptiste Grenouille with an icy cold stare that is unnerving yet strangely appealing at the same time. Although, it must be said that Whishaw’s rock hard abs contributed to the appeal (I don’t recall that particular physical attribute in the book, but I’m grateful for addition to the movie).
There’s something so seductively macabre about the unlikely combination of perfume and murder. In the end, I can’t help but imagine a loathsome animal, rooting in the muck, but sniff sniff sniffing its way into the light.
Goosebump Contraband and Stephen King
I didn’t like to read until I was 10. Prior to that, I’d shy away from books completely, reading only when I must or at least pretending to read when I’m under the stern eye of a teacher who loveth not idleness. I’d whittle away my spare time watching afternoon cartoons and Save by the Bell reruns. I don’t know what bought upon this sudden love of reading, but I’m willing to attribute it to rebellion.
My mom is superstitious and one side effect of her superstitions is a banned on all objects of the macabre. Black is strictly forbidden in the family wardrobe, stray cats are promptly shooed away from our garden, and there is a strict rule against bringing home any objects associated with death and the otherworldly. It’s almost as if the mere possession of these objects is an official invite for ghouls of the afterworld to merge with our reality. There goes my Halloween projects…
Around that time, R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series were the popular literature amongst the 5th grade crowd. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be interested in reading at all, but the temptation to piss off my mother was too great. So during the summer of ’95, I’d visit the library and industriously file through the big bin of tattered Goosebumps paperbacks, smuggle the literary contraband home in my backpack, and read them secretly on the porch or at night, stashing them away whenever my mother entered the room. What a thrill! The access to forbidden stories, the unauthorized merging of realities.
Of course, R.L. Stine never scared me with his cheesy stories and even at 10, I was skeptical about my mother’s unfounded beliefs that the dead flitted unseen among the living. But at night, with images of haunted masks and headless ghosts swirling in my head, with stray cats fighting in the garden below my window, their vicious purrs like the wailing of sickly infants, it wasn’t so easy to laugh at the existence of ghosts, demons, and bloodsucking fiends. Unable to sleep, I’d look over at those Goosebumps covers, harmless and even laughable in the day, but then there was something about that dummy’s wooden mouth, a grotesque elongation of the oral orifice that revealed a black, bottomless void made many times more sinister by the moonlight streaming in through my window. It was like staring into the eye of a hopeless, abominable abyss. I quickly flipped the book over and vowed never to fall asleep next to Goosebumps again.
In a year’s time, I’d read all the Goosebumps at the library, I even saved my lunch money to buy the newest Goosebumps from the bookstore, but I’d read those in less than 2 hours. It became apparent that the prolific Mr. Stine and his monthly installments weren’t enough to satiate my obsessive need to consume horror stories. Then began the brief transitional period of reading R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series and Christopher Pike; it wasn’t until I was nearly 12 that I discovered Stephen King in my childhood quest for the next twisted image.
And Stephen King provided plenty of twisted images—twisted images, dismembered corpses, wife-beating men, bloodsucking prostitutes—I’ve officially exited Sweet Valley High territory. Stephen King covers weren’t as obviously “horror” as Goosebumps covers, so my mom was okay with me reading King over Goosebumps. I’m just fortunate enough that my mom never heard of Stephen King and his penchant for foul language and fictional gore.
Was my mind sullied after reading Stephen King at age 12? Like a white handkerchief trampled in the muddy thoroughfare, my impressionable young mind was sullied through and through. I can confidently say that my imagination is more elastic (and by elastic, I mean twisted) because of Stephen King.
You wouldn’t think, what with all my blogging about Jane Austen and Diana Gabaldon, that I was a horror novel fanatic. When I turned 13, I had one foot in horror and the other in romance. How did this dramatic change in genre occur? For that, I credit V.C. Andrews for bridging the thin line between love and the macabre with a genre I would like to coin as “Horror-Romance”…but that is a topic best saved for another post.
The Lit Connection 