History Literature / StrangeMatter

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs: ''Primevil'' has a hidden valley filled with various species of dinosaurs.
** The toy store in ''Toy Trouble'' has a robotic brachiosaur at the entrance that gleefully greets visitors...unless you break in at night, in which case it gleefully tells you that you and your friends are all going to die.
** ''Strange Forces #2'' features the Chipekwe, a dinosaur-like creature. But, rather than being a survivor of a lost prehistoric era, the Chipekwe herd phases here from another world and briefly passes through the Congo.

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: Book 3, Driven to Death. Starts out as a story about a possessed car and three ghostly teenagers tormenting the two sibling protaganists, then [[spoiler: it turns out the teenagers are actually ghost pirates from THE Flying Dutchman, come ashore to steal supplies and shanghai unsuspecting humans, and the story shifts out to sea]]

* RealityEnsues: By the events of ''The Off-Worlder'', both Kelly of ''Fly the Unfriendly Skies'' and Patricia of ''Second Sighting'' are showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of their respective hostile encounters with aliens. They've even joined a therapy group for people who had similar experiences, which is where the two met and became friends.

''Strange Matter'' is a children's horror series that ran 1995-1997 and was writen by Marty M. Engle and Johnny Ray Barnes Jr. It followed the students at Fairfield Middle School' encounters with supernatural phenomena. While similar to ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' in overall concept, many of its plotlines were noticeably darker. Deaths of human beings, including teenagers, could actually happen onstage, particularly in the ''Strange Forces'' series. It didn't shy away from very frightening imagery and FateWorseThanDeath scenarios were common. It also shared R.L. Stine's penchant for {{Twist Ending}}s.

** The titular protagonist of ''Knightmare'' is frightening to behold at first, but actually isn't the villain; he's come to our time to stop an evil sorcerer.

** The ''Strange Forces'' series has a battle between the supernatural powerhouses of The Collector, Makkal Monard, Vicade and Guerendet. Each has their own distinct army of supernatural beings. They're willing to put their differences aside to attack the Fairfield kids and Rilo Buru, but they're always plotting to stab each other in the back. [[spoiler: Then Langdon shows up and things get ''really'' ugly...]]]

** The girl(Natalie) who gets turned into a doll in ''Toy Trouble.'' on page 102. She's even described as screaming and having tears pouring from her eyes!

* LovableAlphaBitch: Kelly from ''Fly The Unfriendly Skies''. She's the protagonist Morgan's sister and is really pretty and popular, whereas he's quite a nerd. She even comes across as a BigSisterBully at times, but is becomes clear throughout the book that [[AwwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachother she really does care about him,]] and he even mentions one incident where [[TheBully Kyle Banner was threatening him]] and she was the only person who helped him out. Also, when Kelly [[spoiler: gets turned into a horrible alien monster,]] Morgan is downright devastated.

* CrisisCrossover: The ''Strange Forces'' mini-series brought together the protagonists from the first 10 books to fight a larger threat.

** Book 7: Fly the Unfriendly Skys [[spoiler: ends with the reveal that Morgan is infected with a Cepheid, and his alien friend Krell racing back to Earth to help him. Morgan appears in later books, with no mention of how he was saved.

* NamesTheSame: There are two protagonists in the series with the last name Drake; Jonathon Drake, and the unrelated Russel Drake, son of the local Sheriff.

** Book 18, The Fairfield Triangle, features a local writer who is currently researching a book on the strange goings on in Fairfield. Russel Drake gets to visit his study, and observes his research notes and photographs of various locations that were prominent in previous books.

** Book 10 mentions that the school library has finished being fumigated for bugs, referencing and incident in Book 1. The protagonist also mentions a past event where he was threatened by Kyle Banner and Trey Porter, protagonist of book 4 and previously described as a target of bullying, stepped up to defend him, nodding to Trey's growth in his previous adventure.
** Book 11 mentions that the replacement conductor hired to run the Fairfield Express was a Deschaul, descendant of the villainous Count Deschaul from book 10.