Trivia / Strange Matter

• Blooper: On page 48 of 'The Last One In, it says "Michelle and I", even though this is told through Michelle's first person perspective.
• Contest Winner Cameo: In 1996, there was a contest for kids to send in their own scary stories. The winner was Andy Goble, and aside from having his story featured at the end of Dangerous Waters, a character with that name appears near the end of the book.
• Executive Meddling: Word of God states the publisher pushed for the Genre Shift to sci-fi/action starting at the 27th book believing the horror fad was starting to die down.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: In 1996 a scary story contest was held for kids to submit their own tales. The winning entry, "The Abominable Snowman" by Andy Goble was officially printed in Dangerous Waters with a list of 22 other runner-ups◊ whose stories were supposedly posted on the Strange Matter website.
  • Review website Point Horror managed to find these stories from the contest: "The Journal," "Kitty Kitty," "Mogul Madness," and "Last Stand." As of right now, "Visitors," "The Secret of Lake Tuton," and "The Abominable Snowman" by Jamie Huett have been confirmed to be lost for good.
• What Could Have Been: There were several books planned in the main series had the title not be cancelled, alongside four more Strange Forces books. Only one of them, Rilo Buru's Summer Vacation, received a preview of its content and cover art. Engle and Barnes also posted on their Facebook page that they pitched a possible Strange Matter TV series, complete with Concept Art, to Disney in 1997. The books that were cancelled are as follows:
  • Rilo Buru's Summer Vacation: Following Strange Forces, Rilo Buru tries to go on vacation and gets captured by a sinister biotech company. Reportedly the book was almost finished before the series was cancelled and exists in an incomplete form. The review website Point Horror was given permission to recap the unfinished draft.
  • Shriek: Supposedly the story was going to be about a haunted playground.
  • The Scariest Show On Earth: A haunted circus appears near Fairfield Manor.
  • From The Ashes: A semi-continuation of Something Rotten about a giant lava worm emerging from the same cave that housed the Dero.
  • Stamped: About a variation of the Mongolian Death Worm, a type of poisonous worm normally found in the Gobi Desert, located near Fairfield.
  • Mission Extraterrestrial: It would've been a follow-up to the Summer Offworld trilogy.
  • The Infestors: Intelligent insects invade Fairfield.
  • There were two more books advertised after the series overhaul, called Probe and Fathom. Probe was about an alien intelligence invading Fairfield Junior High, and Fathom was a deep sea horror book featuring the return of Amanda Wheeler.
  • Beyond the scrapped books, the preview of Primeval showed Amanda Wheeler was originally named Jessica. It was also going to have a similar looking cover to the previous books before Wildstorm Studios was hired to work on the cover art.