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Superstitious: R.L. Stine (attempts to?) target an adult audience

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DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
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#1: Jan 28th 2012 at 4:46:30 PM

Okay, my first terrifying admission here is that James Patterson has the power to control me with a word. More, I'm sure this was his intent, even if it didn't play out quite the way he hoped.

Quoth Patterson on R.L. Stine's adult-aimed novel: "Superstitious moves along at trip-hammer speed and is terrifying every page of the way."

Okay, Patterson. A few things there. Firstly, I'm pleasantly surprised that the word "trip-hammer" made it into your vocabulary with a hyphen in the middle. (I really hope that thriller writers reading that sentence feel duly damned with faint praise.) Secondly, this is a trip-hammer in action. As you will see, it's not particularly fast. If you want an analogy to force, the trip-hammer is the way to go, but for speed, you might do better with, well, any other type of hammer I can think of. I must therefore conclude that whatever you meant by "trip-hammer speed", Patterson - lots of really effective offscreen deaths? a Xanatos sample platter? - it is far beyond R.L. Stine's writing capability as I know it.

So, I'm of a mind to spork this bitch. But before I do, could I get some informed opinions on whether it's a badness worthy of sporkage (or, alternately, a not-half-bad read?)

Also, I'm idly wondering whether Superstitious had anything to do with that surreal article in Time or Newsweek a few years back to the effect of "watch out, JKR - R.L. Stine may give you a run for your money."

Hail Martin Septim!
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#2: Jan 30th 2012 at 1:21:27 PM

Have you read this book? Cause it looks like you're trying to say the review is wrong despite having absolutely no actual experience with the book at all.

DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
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#3: Jan 30th 2012 at 1:43:30 PM

I've read Stine's J and YA, and I don't think he's up to the standards of the review (which was badly-phrased anyway). But before I read, I want to know if he's in a sweet spot, either for spork potential or readability. (The sweet spot for readability, in Stine's case, begins at "average".)

Hail Martin Septim!
KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#4: Jan 30th 2012 at 1:57:16 PM

Except there's still that you have no way of knowing that the book is "s up to the standards of the review," because you haven't actually read it.

edited 30th Jan '12 1:58:12 PM by KnownUnknown

DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
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#5: Jan 30th 2012 at 2:03:32 PM

I fully admit that I don't know for certain, but none of his other works I've read have a fast pace - which is impressively bad in the case of the Goosebumps books; they're all of a hundred pages long - nor do they exhibit emotional force/unpredictability/whatever else Patterson might have meant by dragging a trip-hammer into it. I outright said I hadn't read it and asked the opinions of people who had, so I don't know what you're haranguing me for, exactly.

edited 30th Jan '12 2:04:01 PM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#6: Jan 30th 2012 at 2:12:59 PM

If you want to review a work, in all fairness, you need to read that work, not other works by the same author. Especially when it's a work that falls into a demographic or genre that the author isn't known for.

And by the way, a trip-hammer pace could well mean "steady, consistent, or rhythmic" rather than "fast" or "forceful".

edited 30th Jan '12 2:13:44 PM by Madrugada

DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
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#7: Jan 30th 2012 at 2:29:22 PM

This is not a review yet. The above is an educated conjecture, and any chapter-by-chapter review including the amazingly fiction-sheltered Mark Oshiro's starts with one, and the conjecture is usually "this will probably suck". But, on the other hand, it doesn't seem that anyone on this board has read it, so I guess I'll have to go it alone anyway.

And if there is any chance that I can give it the benefit of the doubt, I will. I can be painfully optimistic at times.

I don't think that's the sort of thing Patterson would like - he's not very good about research, but he does know how to boil a pot - and anyway the Stine I've read has had less pacing consistency than it has had overall velocity. But as it's one of those annoying written-for-the-blurb reviews, I guess we'll never know the context for the remark.

edited 30th Jan '12 2:31:48 PM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!
Lemurian from Touhou fanboy attic Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Buried in snow, waiting for spring
#8: Jan 31st 2012 at 4:30:31 AM

...so, this is a review of a review of a book you have not read? tongue

Join us in our quest to play all RPG video games! Moving on to disc 2 of Grandia!
DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
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#9: Jan 31st 2012 at 4:51:19 AM

...So far. [lol]

Hail Martin Septim!
Rotpar Always 3:00 am in the Filth (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Always 3:00 am in the Filth
#10: Feb 4th 2012 at 2:57:19 PM

I read it when it was released and I wasn't impressed. I was a big fan of Goosebumps even though I had been reading adult novels since I was eight. I haven't read it again since, perhaps age has made it better.

Things I remember most about it:

  • Written and paced like a Goosebumps book with "cliffhanger"/shock-ending chapters.
  • A really bad sex scene consisting of written out "Ooohhh!" and "Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh!" moaning.

But don't give up hope. Everyone is cured sooner or later. In the end we shall shoot you.
RobbieRotten Since: Nov, 2009 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
#11: Feb 7th 2012 at 9:24:40 AM

I have not read this book, but it sounds bad just from the idea that RL Stine has an adult book with sex scenes.

DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
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#12: Feb 7th 2012 at 4:42:07 PM

Ja. I've read the prologue, and there is some very silly sex phrasing. But I'm aiming to do this every Thursday, so hold tight.

Hail Martin Septim!
DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
Three-Puppet Saluter
#13: Feb 9th 2012 at 8:08:20 PM

Prologue and Chapter One

We'll be doing two at a time, as the chapters are ridiculously short. I'll post notice in the event of a change.

The prologue throws us head-first into the "this is seriously an adult book, you guys." And I think it's trying to deter seven-year-old who think they're hardcore with a barrage of confusion, as it manages to be from the viewpoint of a jaded prostitute without using words like "sex" or "prostitute". Instead, it says things like And what did he say his name was? Did he really tell me his name was John? I think this might be one of those poetic-limitations sorts of lessons: give them rules to dodge, and they'll perform.

The book was published pre-Lewinsky, so I think I can even give the word "blow-job" a pass.

But I must quibble: if you want to portray a world-weary prostitute who just had terrible sex and is moving to better herself, and you want me to take this situation seriously, you probably don't want to make me sporfle. So avoid things like the following excerpts:

She hears him muffle a burp. His after-dinner burp, Charlotte thinks bitterly. I was dinner.

And what were those ridiculous walrus cries at the end? (Note: I think his sentence fragment count in this seven-page chapter is worth half a Goosebumps book.)

Also, there are off-hand references to drugs, in case the sex didn't baffle the kids away.

Anyway, her motion to better herself involves becoming the secretary to an Irish professor named Liam O'Connor. This is clearly a significant plot point. She's been hired for two weeks, and she's presumably still whoring because she hasn't got that first paycheck.

Also, she has an unsatisfactory roommate. Stine actually edged that in kind of subtly; let's hope it's important.

So: a block or so away from work, Charlotte gets killed via instant scalp removal, eyeball plucking and spine breakage by some... purple thing. It's written in this video-gamey, semi-immersive sort of way that isn't half-bad, especially when you consider that all the gore scenes I've read by Stine are either telegraphed to high heaven or shoved in at the end for cheap shock value.

Now, if the mysterious charming Irish professor with way too much description who works a block away and was almost going to give her her first paycheck isn't responsible for it, there may actually be hope for this book.

The first chapter proper consists largely of inane girl talk sprinkled randomly with important plot points. The characters involved, Sara and Mary Beth, are twenty-four, which is at least a reasonable age for inane girl talk, I'm looking at you, entire chick-lit genre.

So, here are things it will probably be important to know later:

  1. Sara, has just moved to Mary Beth's hometown, Freewood. It's apparently the same one Charlotte was just killed in, natch.
  2. Mary Beth works for a pretty bullshitty-sounding college movie studio.
  3. Mary Beth saved Sara's life at some point.
  4. Sara smokes. I don't know, that just seems like it'll bite her.
  5. Some tweedy guy, probably Dr. O'Connor, hangs out with a pleasant-looking woman and a red-faced big old guy with permanent wind hair.
  6. Mary Beth dumped a guy named Donny despite strong mutual feelings because he was, and I quote, hung like a hamster.
  7. Sara stopped being involved with some Chip guy for reasons yet to be cleared up...
  8. ...because someone, clearly Dr. O'Connor because he has a handsome face and brown eyes, which I know is terribly specific, but he's Stine, I know his penchant for hammering in these identifiers (that would be a sledgehammer, of course) - anyway, O'Connor threw salt over his shoulder at Sara before she could explain and committed a near-Title Drop.
  9. Despite all the effort Stine makes to distinguish these two women, I have to flick frantically through this dinky chapter, over and over, to figure out who's who.

Things we learn that will probably never be important again:

  1. Mary Beth was born in Ohio and only learned to eat shrimp recently. Sara was born in Indiana and got a better grounding in shellfish.
  2. Sara loves old-timey diners.
  3. Sara got a new hairstyle.
  4. Both women love to put way too much milk in their coffee.
  5. Sara prefers ordering clothes from a catalog, which scandalizes Mary Beth because she's recently from New York.
  6. The only local clothing shop sells only off-brand McDonalds uniforms.
  7. They're twenty-four. That's soooo ooooold.
  8. Sara may or may not dislike her new apartment. Probably, she doesn't, but girly head games make it difficult to tell.

Thus far, both chapters have been seven pages long. I guess I should probably keep track and see if Stine is doing it on purpose. At any rate... well, let's just say that it's a very good thing the prologue is in there. It's actually keeping me interested, although let me assure you that the scintillating characters of Sara and Mary Beth have nothing to add to the impact.

edited 9th Feb '12 8:12:51 PM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!
zerky Since: Jan, 2001
#14: Feb 10th 2012 at 2:29:52 PM

Five bucks on Mary Beth getting killed!

DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
Three-Puppet Saluter
#15: Feb 10th 2012 at 5:44:39 PM

No bet. Historically, Stine is very reluctant to kill main characters (can I hope that they're not actually the main characters?), but he's clearly more willing to get his hands dirty here. But if it's one of them, it would be Mary Beth, seeing as she's working at the College of Doom and all.

Hail Martin Septim!
DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
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#16: Feb 16th 2012 at 6:23:37 PM

Note to interested parties, if any: Dropped my laptop; it's spectacularly unusable if not dead; you'll probably have to wait until Saturday for me to get enough computer time to post the next chapters.

Hail Martin Septim!
zerky Since: Jan, 2001
#17: Feb 17th 2012 at 7:08:04 AM

zerky's watching this at least!

DomaDoma Three-Puppet Saluter Since: Jan, 2001
Three-Puppet Saluter
#18: Feb 19th 2012 at 1:01:59 PM

Well, the seven-page thing isn't on purpose.

Our second chapter confirms that it was, in fact, O'Connor. He starts shamelessly hitting on Sara while the pleasant-faced woman and the red-faced guy - vividly described all over again and to spare, because the reader won't remember them from three pages ago - both try to talk him down. The first move he makes is to comb the salt out of her hair with his fingers. The second move he makes is to take out a hair, wet it, and declare with conviction she's destined to eternal poverty. The way it's written, I could actually see it as a smooth move - if I weren't as nail-bitingly money-conscious as Sara is. But it gets her instantly, and that's okay: he's probably working some kind of glamour, as the considerably more jaded Charlotte also had these fuzzy, rosy fantasies about him.

Also, Sara's rosy images include his voice invoking "little leprechauns dancing under toadstools in emerald green grass". I certainly hope she didn't conjure that up on her own.

We also learn that he teaches folklore, fancy that, and that Mary Beth made an inane clip of him for a college promotional video.

The pleasant-faced woman turns out to be his sister, Beryl. I mean, Margaret. Anyway, with the subdued, terrified vibes she's giving off, I'm amazed she's tending towards laugh lines.

The red-faced guy... hooboy. Well, firstly, I was apparently supposed to pay more attention to how massive he was. He's referred to, until formal introduction, as "the hulk". Just to rub it in, Sara wonders why he isn't a professional wrestler or something, and then muses that his neck looks like it should belong to a football player or Frankenstein.

...Our prolific celebrity horror writer doesn't know who Frankenstein is, folks.

Or, alternately, Sara doesn't. Yeah, let's go with that. But if her complete ignorance of basic horror doesn't come up later, we'll revert to the previous paragraph.

Now, the first description of his hair back in chapter one mentioned "white hair billowing up on his head as though it had been caught in a windstorm". Which was deuced odd, as Margaret was wearing a raincoat, but my inferral that there wasn't a windstorm seems to have been borne out: the next description refers to "a pile of white hair flying up from his head".

I'm... I'm kind of thinking soft-serve ice cream right now.

"His white hair rose up like a blob of whipped cream on top of cherry Jell-O."

Well, okay then.

And I guess he's, like, really red, too. And the white hair and the raspy voice don't seem to equate to age in Sara's mind here; I think Stine must be missing out on some basic narrative sleight-of-hand. So, he's some kind of monster who hangs around Liam, and he looks like a negative of the Incredible Hulk with whipped cream on his head.

Terrifying.

He's also by far the most entertaining character of the lot, cheerfully digging into his steak and beer and declaring everything bullshit at the slightest provocation. He turns out to be named Milton Cohn, the new Dean of Students (man, I wish the word "bullshit" escaped college deans' lips more often), and promtly offers Sara a job as an assistant to fill in for his other, pregnant assistant three days out of five.

N.B.: He's not the guy whose assistant just got scalped to death. So this is a step up from Goosebumps and Fear Street.

Sara's reaction is a rather awkward acceptance of an interview, including the following thought:

He's staring at my tits. Why is he staring at my tits?

Because he's a randy male, or a flesh-devouring demon, whatever. Anyway, it doesn't exactly presage a comfortable work environment, Sara.

Then someone standing behind Sara shoots Milton twice in the chest.

...I admit I didn't see that one coming.

. . .

And then chapter three reminds me that this is R.L. Stine. Ha ha, it was just a practical joke! ...In reaction to a house specialty alcohol glass that makes exploding noises when slammed on the counter. Right, then.

Sara doesn't quite come to the reasonable conclusion that Milton would totally sexually harass her and is still considering the job; she does pick up on the fact that Liam is flirting with her (he offers to kiss her, which is, I guess, a better indicator than running his fingers through her hair, but Sara is still a moron.)

Liam and Margaret live in a rooming house formerly occupied by two random girls Sara and Mary Beth used to know. Probably important, but I can't even be bothered to care about Sara and Mary Beth, let alone their old aquaintances vaguely remembered as "Jessica Goldblatt and the red-haired girl".

During this, Liam spouts a couple more ominous superstitions. I don't think they're relevant outside of making sure we know that Liam is doom-laden and superstitious, but if there's a zombie crab attack at the diner or somebody gets transported into a hell-dimension after sneezing on Sunday, don't say it wasn't established.

More on Thursday, I hope.

edited 19th Feb '12 1:18:55 PM by DomaDoma

Hail Martin Septim!
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