I'd forgotten how much this wrecks me

 I've likely discussed Christopher Pike's The Midnight Club on here in passing, but I was given a virgin copy for my birthday, and I ended the year with the tale. 

The plot isn't typical for YA, although the themes do fit in with some of Pike's better work. We open on Ilonka, ready to turn 18, even though she has cancer and is dying in a Washington State hospice. Her roommate, Anya, lost her right leg to cancer prior to the story beginning.  Both are members of the eponymous therapy group, along with Kevin, who has leukemia; Sandra, who has lymphoma; and Spence, who has advanced skin cancer of some kind. The group meets at midnight every night in the Hospice study (the hospice is a large mansion converted for the purpose on the Pacific coast), and tells stories, varying on theme based on the teller. 

Indeed, the first one we hear is Spence's tale of Eddie, who starts shooting people from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Followed by Anya's tale of Dana, who makes a deal with the devil to split her into two identical girls, so that one can go party. Ilonka's first tale we hear introduces the concept that she remembers her past lives, although two central figures come out of those recollections... One is assumed to be Kevin, the other a gentleman named The Master, who is kind of synchronous with Jesus or Buddha. The final tale of the first night is Kevin's tale of Herme, the Angel/Muse who falls in love with Teresa while copying paintings in the Louvre. At the end of his first night, Herme is made human by God to persue Teresa. After Ilonka's tale, an oath is sworn (much to Sandra's dismay) that whomever dies first should find a way to create a sign for the others, to show that life goes on after death. 

Between this and the next night's sessions, we meet Kevin's girlfriend (who doesn't know he's dying), and see Ilonka go for more tests, convinced that her herb and vegetable diet is curing her tumors. We also hear Anya's confession of where her pessimism comes from. 

The next night's tales get started with wine, which Spence has provided, before the tales begin. Kevin and Ilonka talk a bit before Ilonka goes to bed and passes out. Anya says a few things to her before she sleeps, and when she wakes, Ilonka finds Anya dead. And a sign. Anya's belongings have vanished, much like something in one of Ilonka's past life tales. 

Word goes through the hospice not long after, that someone had been misdiagnosed. Ilonka thinks it was her, but it wasn't. It was Sandra. Ilonka breaks down, and Kevin stays with her. He finishes his tale for her alone, dying in the morning. 

In the end, Spence and Ilonka meet one last time, and less metaphysical mysteries get solved. In the end, we're left with hope, as new incarnations of Kevin and Ilonka travel to the stars above. 

As I said, this book brings up a heck of a lot of emotions with me. While Ilonka's particular set of issues are not my own, my own issues are adjacent to hers, so some of the realizations she goes through resonate loudly with me. One thing I hadn't really noticed on previous readings had to do with Kevin's alter ego in Herme, in that he had his own lessons to learn before he and Ilonka could heal their relationship and move on together. (Honestly, I don't think Ilonka noticed either.) The other major milestone, for me at least, is the fact that one of the central characters comes out of the closet towards the end. Yes, it turns out his cancer is AIDS related, but still a gay character in a YA novel in the mid 90's, who actually manages to admit to enjoying being gay... it was unheard of. 

In the end, while some of the dialogue is a bit stilted in a few places, the book still resonates very deeply with me.

A return to the return

As part of the relaunch of Fear Street, they evidently bundled the first four novels in the series by R. L. Stine into an omnibus edition titled The Beginning. Of which, I remembered the first one, but the other three I didn't.

We start with The New Girl, in which one Cory Brooks falls madly in love with the blond he keeps catching glimpses of named Anna. He eventually discovers Anna lives of Fear Street with her brother. (As a side note, these early books show that much of the background developed later. There's no mention of the Fear family, Fear Island is undeveloped, the only mansion mentioned on the street has been recently renovated...) Anyway, as I said, I remember reading this one, so the big twist about who's who at the end wasn't particularly shocking to me. 

Then we start The Surprise Party, in which Meg learns quickly that several people actually did think they knew who murdered her friend, but even they were wrong. It's kind of silly, and there's a touch of Mazes and Monsters condemnation of role playing in there, even if the geek does end up saving everyone in the end. 

In The Overnight, the Shadyside outdoor club takes an unauthorized trip to Dear Island for an overnight after their faculty advisor cancels it at the last minute. Della gets attacked by a stranger on the island, pushes him in a ravine, and buries him under leaves. Then she and everyone else get notes from the dead guy, leading to a few reveals once the advisor takes them on the sanctioned trip out to Fear Island. 

Lastly, we have Missing, wherein Mark and Cara's parents don't come home from work for several days, their cousin who lives in the attic does his best gothic wife impersonation, the place where the parents work has no record of them working there... While I agree with one review I read of this which stated this ending of the one came out of left field, I will say that it rings closer to reality in the modern age than any of the other three in here. 

One thing I caught reading the omnibus that I now wonder if it continues in the rest of the series is the minor character continuity. Cory, who shows up in book one, and Lisa, his neighbor show up at various points in the other books, as do a few other cameos. 

The books are a lot dated, having been published before the internet and mobile phone boom, and the plots are kind of corny, but they remain kind of fun. A bit of comfort food for the soul.

A return

 I was kind of shocked to find out R. L. Stine returned to one of my favorite haunts a few years back, writing a few new Fear Street Superchillers. (For those not of a certain age, Fear Street was a Young Adult horror series set in and around Shadyside, where the Fear family have a long and shady history, a street named after them, as well as other landmarks bearing the surname. Mr. Stein was quite prolific with them prior to starting series aimed younger.)(I'll also note Mr. Stine was born in Columbus, and half the town names in this twofer are around the Cleveland area.)

The Twofer is two books in one! 

We start with Party Games, concerning poor Rachel, who works at Lefty's diner to makes extra money. Brandon Fear, of the Fear family, invites her out to his 18th Birthday party at the family summer house on Fear Island. To get us in the mood, we hear about the family history at the house, what with the Fears hunting down the servants, and an Aunt taxidermying herself to death. 

Anyway, Many of the girls going to the party find a dead animal in their beds a few days before the party. Rachel thinks its her boyfriend Mac, who is mildly abusive who did it. As the party gets going with a Scavenger Hunt, dead bodies start popping up. Then two or three twists happen, along with one maybe supernatural twist added in for fun. While one of the twists I saw coming as soon as the ball got rolling, another was a surprise. However, as we're in YA Horror, we have to follow the rules of no dead teenagers. 

The other story, Don't Stay Up Late, reexplores a familiar YA trope, as our heroine Lisa ends up babysitting on Fear Street. Problem being, Lisa's father just died in a horrific car accident, and Lisa's concussion is causing her to hallucinate. Or is it?

While it is nice to see the series enter a more modern age (the protagonists have iPhones, although Fear Island has no signal), I found myself amused that in Shadyside, the legal age to drink is 18. 

Fear Street was never deathless prose, but it was a fun way to spend hours as a teenager. As it turns out, it's still a fun way to spend hours as an adult.

Where to start

 I ended up buying Michael Travis Jasper's To Be Chosen: Second Edition because the author is a Twitter friend, and I enjoy supporting my friends.I'll be gentle here.

The plot concerns Roman, Blair, and Darby, three normal humans who find themselves given powers by Jehovah themself to become God's Hammer. Roman, a businessman gains the power of healing, Blair's Witchcraft becomes amplified, and Darby gains some kind of kinetic abilities. This happens in the first 3 chapters. 

We find out demons, who turned their collective backs on G-d, live on the planet Gehenna, and most of the planets they have conquered are named after various Hindu deities or sephiroth. We have literal angels running around, friends of the Avatarn (the collective name for the trio), and quite a bit of betrayal and death. 

And mostly, we're racing around at breakneck speed with no room for character development or a chance for anyone to register as more than a blip before dying or betraying everyone else. Hell, we get two babies who grow up nearly overnight at one point. 

I mean, I see the moral he was shooting for, but it comes at the cost of narrative... we get so many deus ex machinae to give away plot points that it starts feeling like "Hey, I need this to happen, so here it is." I fond myself wishing that instead of trying to cram so much into one book, maybe perhaps it be spread across a trilogy so we had a better chance to get to know everyone and maybe care about them when they die, betray, or go nuts. Emotional moments where the dead come back to reveal plot points are blunted by the fact we didn't really get to know the dead beforehand, so them reappearing with some piece of random information feels more like "I'm sick of trying to write this section, so here's what needs to happen to get us closer to the end."

 While it held my attention, I don't know it's one I'd read again. 

Driving all night, hands wet on the wheel

 So, a while back, R. S. Belcher wrote an audiobook, and they finally made it a published paperback. (I have nothing against audiobooks, I just can't listen to them at work or home.)

And thus we come to The Queen's Road.

 We meet Ray, young drag racer/barkeep in Port Arthur, Texas, who's mother owes money to the local drug dealers. Ray is trying to pay off her debt, which requires more money than he has access to at the time. He runs across a late 60's Ford Galaxie and tries to boost it, only to find out someone's still alive inside. Said living being dies and gives Ray a ring and directions to seek out someone named Chain. 

Which leads to the fun of the titular road, kind of an intergalactic autobahn, with connections all throughout the universe. Turns out one race of worshipers of Chaos and entropy are back from exile, and it's up to Rey, Chain, and a whole host of other Rangers to stop it. 

What follows is part heist, part fish out of water, and really fun, even if it does feel a bit like Hal Jordan fighting Audrey II to defend the Frontier from the Ko-Dan Armada. 

Needless to say, it's a really enjoyable read, and everyone should read more of Belcher's work.