I f there’s anything more horrific or mystical than watching my entire collection of paperbacks by Christopher Pike (aka Kevin McFadden the author, not the fictional USS Enterprise captain) disintegrate in my very hands, it’s the tales contained within those pulverized pages themselves.
(OK, maybe not so mystical—it was termites—but it brought me to my knees all the same.)
The adaptation of young adult-horror-mystery “The Midnight Club,” published in 1994, recently premiered on Netflix. For a lot of Pike fans, it would be an understatement to say we’ve been waiting for this for most of our lives.
But for a scaredy-cat like me, having Mike Flanagan—bringer of chilling thrillers “The Haunting of Hill House,” “The Haunting of Bly Manor” and “Midnight Mass” to life—at the helm is both a blessing and a curse. Already, “The Midnight Club” has snatched the Guinness World Record for most jump scares in one episode with a total of 21 for the first episode alone, a strange feat considering his reported admission of hating jump scares.
The 10-episode series set in the ’90s is about how a group of terminally ill teenagers, who come together in the dead of night to tell disturbing stories, make a pact for the first one among them to die to send a sign from the afterlife.
Pike’s extensive body of work is chock-full of mysterious thrillers served with a healthy dose of enlightenment and despair.
A number of his other novels also find their way into the series, masquerading as plot points or stories shared or hallucinations had. Here are a few of his other memorable YA and adult titles that have stayed with me long after my treasured tomes have turned into termite townhomes:
- “Remember Me” follows the ghost of Shari after falling to her death as she tries to pin down her own murderer, who might just be one of her friends.
- “Master of Murder” is often suspected to be inspired by Pike’s own experiences as a prolific writer but hopefully the similarities end with struggling with deadlines and harmless fan mails as secret author, teenager Marvin Summers, gets embroiled in a real-life murder in his town that strangely mirrors his book.
- “Sati” is about a young, shapely, blue-eyed blonde who claims to be God.
- “Seasons of Passage” starts out like it could be about space vampires but ends up being about warring ancient races and reincarnation.
- “The Cold One” is brutally graphic yet mystical in its storytelling that’s so riveting, I’m still waiting for the “promised” second book (alas, the announcement was a misprint).
- “The Last Vampire,” which has been reprinted as the “Thirst” series, is about a 5,000-year-old bloodsucker who tries to keep her vow to Krishna never to create new vampires ever again. INQ