Book Review: All-Night Party by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

You may remember that, when I reviewed R.L. Stine’s The Overnight, I commented that it seemed odd that Fear Lake would have an island sitting in the middle of it and I even wondered if this was a location that Stine used frequently or if it was just something that he randomly tossed into the book.

Well, 1997’s All-Night Party features yet another group of teens spending a long night on Fear Island so I guess that answers my question. Fear Island is real! And apparently, it’s a dangerous place. This is the second book that I’ve read about an act of violence taking place on Fear Island. Both books not only featured people getting attacked on the island but they also both featured people randomly falling down hills and stuff while walking around the island. The island is not safe! Maybe it’s time bulldoze the cabin and build a barrier around the island or something. Of course, that’ll never happen because that would require too much commitment from the adults of Fear Street. I’m not all that sure that the parents of Fear Street really care that much about any of their children. I mean, someone gets murdered every week and yet, no one ever seem to move. Instead, almost every book seems to start with a new family moving in! The Shadyside High School yearbook has got to be 75% in remembrance ads.

As for All-Night Party, it’s perhaps the laziest R.L. Stine book that I’ve ever read, which is really saying something when you consider that R.L. Stine wasn’t exactly known for the great care that he put into coming up with his plots and characters. This is a novel that, for all I know, could have been written by a computer program.

The plot involves a group of teens who decide to throw an all-night party at a cabin on Fear Island. They’re celebrating Cindy’s birthday. Cindy is kind of a bitch and after she assures everyone that she hates their presents, she’s murdered in the kitchen. Who committed the murder? Was it Patrick, the member of the group who has a big blood stain on his shirt and who keeps getting caught in obvious lies? Or is the escaped lunatic that Patrick swears is on the island with them? Or was it someone else in the party, like the seemingly creepy kid who is actually nice and nerdy or maybe the temperamental rebel who has long hair and drives a motorcycle. This answer is so obvious that it will totally blow your mind when your realize how little effort was put into creating any sort of suspense.

The book feels a rushed and uninspired. It was published in 1997 and it’s probably not a coincidence that it was one of the last of the original Fear Street books because it’s obvious that either Stine or his ghostwriter were just going through the motions at this point. To be honest, the solution is so obvious and the plotting is so lazy that I nearly threw the book across the room after I finished with it.

Oh well. What can you do? It’s Fear Island.

Non-Fiction Book Review: Killer Cops by Michael Newton

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The late Michael Newton was quite a prolific author, publishing a total 357 books, which included 258 novels and 99 nonfiction books. His novels were largely pulp paperbacks, the types with the covers that my sister often features here on the Shattered Lens. His non-fiction was largely made up of encyclopedias concerning unsolved crimes, serial killers, conspiracies, and that sort of thing. I own quite a few of this encyclopedias. He was a good writer with a good knowledge of the macabre.

Killer Cops takes a look at men and women who took an oath to uphold the law but who then turned around and committed the worst crime of all. Some of the people profiled in this book were serial killers who hid their crimes behind the badge. Some were cops were just snapped one day. Some were obviously crooked while others had spotless records. Some of them were punished for their crimes. Some of them are still revered for being justice to the frontier. It makes for interesting and disturbing reading. For the aspiring horror, thriller or crime fiction writer, Killer Cops is full of potential inspiration. If there’s an overriding theme to the book, it’s that those in authority should be held to a higher standard and that certainly includes the police. The killer cops portrayed in this book thought they could hide behind the badge and the uniform and, sadly, a few of them were right. Newton warns against idealizing or blindly trusting anyone in authority, saying that it’s the individual’s action that matter more than the uniform they wear or the badge that they carry.

Novel Review: The Overnight by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Did you know that Fear Street had a Fear Island?

It’s does. It’s sitting right in the middle of Fear Lake. It’s a bit of an isolated place. For whatever reason, it’s never occurred to anyone to actually make commercial use of Fear Island, even though that seems like the most obvious thing to do. There are rumors that Fear Island is cursed and overrun with mutants and ghosts….

Unfortunately, even though the majority of the book takes place on Fear Island, there are no mutants or ghosts to be found in The Overnight. First published in 1990, The Overnight was the third of the Fear Street books and it’s one of those books where nothing supernatural happens! What a let down!

Instead, it tells the story of what happens when the members of Shadyside High’s Outdoors Club (really? What a lame club) sneak off and spend some time on Fear Island without adult supervision. One of the members of the club is approached and then attacked by a strange man who eventually ends up at the bottom of a ravine. The members of the club leave his body there and return home, determined not to tell anyone. They’re less concerned with getting accused of murder than they are of their parents finding out that they went on an unsupervised trip. Soon, the phone calls begin. “I know what you did,” the voice on the other end rasps. Next, two of club members are chased by a mysterious car. Who could it be?

While the members of the Outdoor Club try to figure out who is stalking them, their faculty advisor makes an announcement. They’re going on an overnight trip and they’ll be camping on …. FEAR ISLAND!

AGCK!

I will admit that I laughed out loud when the club found out that they were returning to Fear Island and that there was no way that they could avoid it. I think it’s because, by the point I reached that point in the book, I already started to imagine The Overnight as being an episode of Saved By The Bell.

“We’re going to Fear Island!” Mr. Belding announces.

“TIME OUT!” Zack says, before looking at the audience and saying, “I can’t go back to Fear Island! They’re going to hack Zack!”

Anyway, as I said before, this book is disappointing in that there are no ghosts or monsters and it’s a bit difficult to really relate to anyone who would want to join something as dorky as the Outdoors Club. (Shadyside High has a club for everything!) That said, it’s hard not to be amused by the fact that there’s apparently a Fear Island sitting in the middle of Fear Lake. Apparently, Fear Island was mentioned in a few other Fear Street books, some of which I do remember reading. So, I guess I just blocked the island’s existence from my memory.

Anyway, the important thing is that everything work out in the end. Fear Island? More like Love Island, right?

Non-Fiction Review: Disaster Movies by Michael Rose and Glenn Kay

Posted on October 19, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s the only thing scarier than being trapped in a real-life disaster?

Being trapped in a disaster movie!

First published in 2006, the full name of this guide to the disaster genre is Disaster Movies: A Loud, Long, Explosive, Star-Studded Guide to Avalanches, Earthquakes, Floods, Meteors, Sinking Ships, Twisters, Viruses, Killer Bees, and Alien Attacks In The Cinema. That title tells you pretty much everything you need to know about this affectionate but likably snarky look at all the movies that have been made about earthquakes, fires, torandoes, and …. well, basically all the stuff listed in the title.

On a movie-by-movie basis, this guide reviews disaster movies that are both well-known and obscure. All of the big ones — Airport, Towering Inferno, Titanic, Independence Day, Poseidon Adventure — are listed here but, even more importantly, so are the obscure ones. In fact, the book features a lot of films that you might not have heard about but will probably want to track down after you’ve read about them. The reviews are respectful to the conventions of the genre while also acknowledging the obvious, i.e., a lot of these are not good films. But the authors understand that sometimes, a bad disaster film can be even more enjoyable than a good one. The Poseidon Adventure is a classic of sorts but how about Beyond The Poseidon Adventure? How about Flood!, a film so exciting that it even has an exclamation mark in the name? How about Avalanche, the best of the snowy disaster films? What about Meteor? If love The Swarm but you can’t appreciate Meteor, I don’t know what to tell you.

Disaster Movies is a well-written guide. Most readers will discover the existence of at least one film that they previously knew nothing about. And, hopefully, they’ll be inspired to watch a few of the film reviewed in this book. In a disaster, it’s always helpful to be prepared.

Book Review: The Surprise Party by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last summer, after her boyfriend Evan apparently shot himself in Fear Street Woods, Ellen moved away from Fear Street and her friends were left to attend Shadyside High without her. However, a few months have passed and Ellen now feels safe about returning to Fear Street, if just for a visit. Her friend, Meg, is super excited! Meg wants to throw Ellen a surprise party! Great idea, Meg! Meg wants to throw it in Fear Street Woods, at pretty much the same location where the dead body of Ellen’s boyfriend was found. Wait, what?

Meg is shocked when she starts to get phone calls from a mysterious stranger, telling her to cancel the party. She’s even more upset when someone destroys the invitations that she spent so long working on. Meg does exactly what I would do in those circumstances. She makes a list of all the people who she thinks might be responsible. A few people are put on the list for understandable reasons, i.e., being near the invitations before they were destroyed. The rest are listed because Meg dislikes them personally. One kid is listed because he’s way into playing Wizard and Dragons. Meg’s extremely petty suspect list is probably the most realistic thing about The Surprise Party. My suspects lists are always a combination of people who have blocked me on twitter and celebrities that I’m sick of hearing about. My Congressman is usually on the list because he supports the ProAct.

Anyway, it does turn out that there is more to Evan’s death than anyone originally realized. And yes, the truth comes out at the surprise party. And yes, all of the twists don’t really make that much sense. First published in 1989, this was the second of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books and, to be honest, it’s a little bit disappointing. There’s nothing supernatural about anything that happens. Instead, it’s just one of those mysteries that can’t be solved because Stine doesn’t give us all the clues until the very last minute. I spent the whole book thinking Meg was the culprit because throwing a surprise party in the woods where your friend committed suicide is just incredibly insensitive. And, if this was a later Fear Street book, I have no doubt that Meg would have an evil twin or something. But no, this is an early book and Meg’s just dumb.

Oh well. That’s life on Fear Street!

Book Review: Haunted Places: The National Directory by Dennis William Hauck

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I’ve said before, you don’t necessarily have to believe in ghosts to have fun searching for them.

Myself, I don’t believe in Ghosts, UFOs, conspiracy theories, or Bigfoot. But I still enjoy reading about them and occasionally visiting the places where they’ve supposedly been spotted. In fact, I would say that being a skeptic makes it even more enjoyable to visit a haunted house. On the one hand, you would think that, because you don’t believe in ghosts, you wouldn’t be frightened about the possibility of running into one of them. However, from my own personal experience, I’ve found the opposite to be true. Haunted houses are even scarier when you don’t believe because you’ve always got that voice in the back of your head saying, “What if you’re wrong?”

Haunted Places: The National Directory is just what the title on the cover says it is. It’s a listing of places across the country that some believe to be haunted. Some of the places are said to be inhabited by ghosts. Some of the places are better known for the UFOs that have supposedly visited. Some places have been visited by Bigfoot. There’s a few lakes that are rumored to be home to underwater monsters. It makes for interesting reading and, like many paranormal directories, it’s a treasure trove of potential inspiration for the aspiring horror writer. The latest edition of the book as published in 2002 so don’t expect to find information of recent hauntings and some of the locations may have been torn down in the past twenty year. It happens. That said, Jeff and I used this book to plan a road trip a few years ago and we had a great time, even if we didn’t see any ghosts.

Novel Review: The Thrill Club by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s hang out with The Thrill Club!

The who club?

The Thrill Club! They’re the group of high school students who are at the center of R.L. Stine’s 1994 novel, The Thrill Club. They get together at night and they read the scary stories that they’ve written. Perhaps the most macabre of all the writers is Talia, who always comes up with stories about people getting cornered by scary ghosts and ripped up into little pieces. The other members of The Thrill Club are a bit upset because Talia keeps using them as a characters in her gory horror stories. (Of course, what they don’t know is that Talia’s boyfriend, Seth, has secretly been writing Talia’s stories for her.) I’m not really sure why that would upset anyone, especially people who are supposed to be horror fans. Part of the fun of reading a scary story or watching a horror movie is imagining what you would do in that situation and why it would inevitably lead to your horrible death. Anyway, Shondel asks Talia not to use her name in any more scary stories. A few days later, Shondel is dead …. murdered …. and somebody’s responsible! (Yes, that is a line from Plan 9 From Outer Space.)

Who killed Shondel? Everyone in the Thrill Club suspects that it was Talia and isn’t that the way it always goes? You write a few stories about your friends being brutally murdered and then, once they are, who is automatically the number one suspect? Of course, it also doesn’t help that, on the night of Shondel’s murder, Talia comes to the Thrill Club meeting wearing a blood-stained sweatshirt. And then there’s the fact that someone claiming to be Talia called Shondel’s mother and confessed to the crime….

Oh my God! Could Talia be guilty!?

The mystery is eventually solved, of course, and it’s all pretty dumb. Anyone who remembers the episode of Saved By The Bell were Zach thought he had brainwashed the entire student body into wanting to take him to the school dance will automatically see The Thrill Club‘s twist coming from a mile away. That said, I enjoyed the book because I used to write short stories featuring my high school friends as well. Of course, in my case, everyone always ended up having fun at the mall or shoplifting makeup from Target. I enjoyed high school.

I was thrilled to also enjoy The Thrill Club.

Non-Fiction Review: Encyclopedia of the Strange by Daniel Cohen

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Many years ago, I found of a copy of this enjoyable little book at Recycled Books of Denton, Texas. I bought it, despite not being a believer in any of the things discussed in the book. I actually have a fairly large collection of books about the paranormal and it always amuses me when people assume that, just because I own them, that means that I believe in them as well. So, just to make clear, I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in vampires or werewolves. I don’t believe in UFOs. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. I believe in art, love, imagination, and dance.

Now, back to the book:

Just as the title suggests, The Encyclopedia of the Strange a collection of entries about things that most people would deem strange, like the occult and UFOs and secret societies and all of that good stuff. None of the analysis is particularly in-depth but the entries do provide a nice introduction and an overview to the topics that many would consider to be paranormal. Fortunately, the entries are written from a skeptical point of view. One gets the feeling that the author understood that the majority of this stuff was nonsense but he also understood that it’s always enjoyable to read about this stuff and let one’s imagination run loose.

The book is divided into sections, each dealing a with a different paranormal subject. My favorite section was the Strange People section, which featured entries on Pope Joan, The Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, Cagliostro, and Saint-Germain. For those who are not into “strange people,” there’s also entries on everything from the Great Pyramid to ancient astronauts to the curse of the Hope Diamond to Atlantis and the Kingdom of Prester John. It’s an enjoyable read and for the aspiring bauthor looking for inspiration, it’s potentially a valuable tool.

Despite the fact that the book was written in 1987, most of the information felt up-to-date. (It is obvious that Daniel Cohen wrote about the Illuminati long before the start of their current fame.) One good thing about ancient mysteries is that you don’t ever have to worry about them actually being solved. They serve as a Rorschach test of both one’s sense of humor and one’s gullibility. They can be whatever one wants them to be.

Book Review: The Sleepwalker by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 12, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

With the last R.L. Stine book that I read, I was really upset when a cat was killed in the service of the plot. In fact, I was so turned off that I pretty much just skimmed the book after the death of Mr. Jinx.

So, when I started reading 1991’s The Sleepwalker, I was understandably concerned with a black cat named Hazel made an appearance and started hissing at the main character. “Oh no,” I said, “not again!” Fortunately, Hazel not only survived the entire book but turned out to be a total badass! Hazel is exactly the type of cat that you want on your side. Not only will Hazel hiss at anyone who tries to go through your stuff but Hazel is also willing to use her claws if anyone gets out of line. Go, Hazel, go!

As for the rest of the story, Mayra is a teenager who is totally in love with Walker, who is this weird kid who is into magic. Unfortunately, Marya has a creepy ex-boyfriend named Link, who is also totally into magic. (Link, I should mention, has a sister named Stephanie who is — get this — totally into magic!) With Walker on vacation and Link acting all whiny, Marya gets a job working as a homecare assistant to old Mrs. Cottler. Mayra’s mom once worked for Mrs. Cottler and apparently, it’s good to keep these jobs in the family.

Mayra, however, soon comes to suspect that Mrs. Cottler is a witch! Afterall, Mrs. Cottler has a lot of strange occult-themed books and she also owns a black cat. (Yay, Hazel!) After one of Mrs. Cottler’s neighbors complains about her peach tree encroaching on his property, he suffers a broken hip. Soon, Mayra is having dreams about walking into the middle of a lake and, when she wakes up, she discovers that she has been sleepwalking! Could it be because Mrs. Cottler put a spell on her and is now trying to destroy her for some weird reason?

(Actually, considering that Mayra has dated two guys who are both into magic tricks and also how quickly Mayra jumps to the conclusion that Mrs. Cottler must be a witch, I think it’s far more probable that Mayra herself is using her interest in the paranormal as a way to deal with past trauma. I mean, it’s kind of remarkable that it never seems to occur to her that there might be a non-magic answer to all of her problems. I get the feeling that her belief in magic is her way of avoiding having to confront anything. That’s just my theory. For the record, I don’t believe in magic but I do enjoy reading about it.)

Anyway, even by Stine standards, this is a silly story. No one turns out to be who we originally believed them to be and it all links up to a mysterious death that occurred years before. This is one of those things where almost every issue in the book could have been resolved by people just not being stupid. But, and this is the most important thing …. HAZEL SURVIVES!

YAY HAZEL!

Book Review: Strange Crimes and Criminals by Carl Sifakis

Posted on October 12, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Are you familiar with the Astor Palace Riots?

In 1849, an English actor was selected to play MacBeth at New York’s Astor Place Opera House. Capt. Isiah Rynders, a politician who had built up a following by denouncing the rich as being wannabe Englishmen, claimed that an American actor should have been given the role and he led a protest outside the theater. When the play started, his followers pelted the stage with eggs and insults and the show had to be stopped. When another attempt was made to perform MacBeth a few days later, Rynders and his people returned. This time, the protest led to one of New York City’s biggest riots. At least 23 people died and over 130 were injured. The crowd attempted to hang the actor who played MacBeth but, fortunately, he was able to catch a train to Boston and then sailed back to England. This, of course, was not the only time that Shakespeare would be linked to violence in America. Abraham Lincoln would be assassinated by one of the country’s most popular Shakespearean actors, with some contemporaries alleging that John Wilkes Booth was inspired by Julius Caesar.

How about the 1857 police riots, which occurred when two different groups claimed the right to police New York City and spent so much time fighting amongst themselves that criminals were often allowed to go free in the confusion?

How about Kitty Ging, who was murdered by a man who claimed that another man had hypnotized him and ordered him to commit the crime?

Or the Lady Gophers, an all-female gang who developed a reputation for being tougher and more deadly than any of their male counterparts?

Or Carter Harrison, the most corrupt mayor in the history of Chicago? Everyone knew that Harrison was crooked but, when he was assassinated, the entire city mourned.

Speaking of Chicago, Chicago’s first official riot was in 1855, when the city ordered that saloons close on Sunday. It was called the Lager Beer Riot and it nearly destroyed the city.

Did you know about the attempt to abduct a school bus full of children and hold them for ransom? Did you know about Boston Corbett, the man who was celebrated for killing John Wilkes Booth but who then turned out to be a crazed religious fanatic who mysteriously vanished after performing a self-castration and then firing his pistols while standing in the gallery of the Kansas Legislature? Speaking of disappearances, whatever happened to Judge Crater?

Everyone knows about the Hatfield-McCoy feud but what about Texas’s far bloodier Horrell-Higgins Feud?

All of these crimes and many more are discussed in Strange Crimes and Criminals, which is an encyclopedia of the odd, the bizarre, and the illegal. Some of the entries are humorous. Some of them are disturbing. Some of them document man’s inhumanity to man. Some of them celebrate the spirit of people who refuse to let something like the law get in their way. It makes for interesting reading and, for the aspiring writer, it’s a treasure trove of inspiration.

It’s a strange world, isn’t it?