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Retro Author:
Christopher Pike...
When I was a child, the library was my best friend. I could spend hours there just looking at the book covers, and then I would literally leave with twelve books at a time. Of course, they were nothing like War and Peace or The Odyssey, so the two-week allowance for checking out books was good enough for me. It was during my childhood that I fell in love with Christopher Pike.
SCAVANGER HUNT
Features: A scavenger hunt Suprise: Lizard people
Suprise #2: Incestous siblings
Rated: 4 out of 5
LAST ACT
Features: A high school play Suprise: It's a real gun
Suprise #2: It's not a real play Rated: 4.5 out of 5
Christopher Pike was the Stephen King of my generation. In an eighteen-year span, he's written over sixty novels and anthologies for young adults. Most of them were probably released with little fanfare, but to me, a new Christopher Pike book was a hot commodity. I think the first book I ever read was Chain Letter (1989), which centered on a chain letter. Really, that's all I remember. And then some people started dying, maybe because they received the chain letter, maybe because they didn't send it out in time, or maybe because they forgot to attach postage.
He wrote young adults from an adult point-of-view, which resulted in teens more mature than their years. And for some reason they were always seventeen, seniors in high school, and obsessed with sex, although a majority of them were virgins. Now you see why I liked his books so much. He also tried his hand at adult novels, but somehow they just ended up sounding like his other books, just with older characters.
Christopher Pike wasn't always Christopher Pike. The pen name derives from a character in the first "Star Trek" episode. Née Kevin McFadden in 1954, he began his writing career at twenty-one, but it wasn't until he was twenty-eight that his first book, Slumber Party (1985), was published. Before that he had dabbled in other genres, but found his niche with science fiction and horror for young adults. Apparently some of his books have gone on to become bestsellers, and one of his better books, Fall Into Darkness (1996), was turned into a made-for-television movie starring Tatyana Ali.
What lured me into Christopher Pike's world were his characters. The protagonist, usually a teenaged girl with a generic name like Sharon or Jessica, was dumb enough to entangle herself in a web of deceit but smart enough to survive at the end. Admittedly, the stories were a little sensationalist and far-fetched, but I usually didn't care about that. All that mattered was that the good guys won and the girl got her boy at the end. The meticulous way he developed his characters and built up the suspense gave his young readers more credit than other teen novelists out there.
Because I read his work extensively, his style of writing began to have great influence on me. He was first and foremost a storyteller, and that's what I admired most about him. Most of his books could easily translate into Hollywood thrillers, and it's a wonder that more of them haven't been picked up by any studios - the plots would more than compensate for what's out there right now.
The book I loved the most was Whisper of Death (1992). The first time I read through it, I couldn't sleep for days, and I certainly couldn't read it alone in my room at night. It freaked me out more than most of the horror movies that I'd seen. The book had a spooky surreal quality about it - you know it could never happen to you, and yet you wonder anyway. I also loved his Final Friends series (1988), which followed a group of friends on their last leg of high school. There's romance! There's backstabbing! There's a love triangle! There's a crazy girl! There are secrets and lies! And by the end of the trilogy, you will find out who killed Polly, who chopped down the school tree, who crippled Maria, and who Clark really is. And since this book came out way before "Twin Peaks," I'm going to say that the show borrowed heavily from Mr. Pike.
I recently picked up Magic Fire (1999), and was sadly disappointed by the whole thing. Since I've read all of Pike's earlier work, I've noticed that he's starting to recycle some of his plots. Which is understandable, considering that he's such a prolific writer and some of his books were just so good that copying them would make sense. Also, upon reading some of his interviews, I have to say that the man sounds a little off. Which, again, makes sense since some of his characters seem too complexly twisted to have been spawned from imagination alone. My childhood dreams of marrying Mr. Pike and writing books together have been forever shattered, but I will never forget the beautiful memories we shared, which are currently tucked away on my bookshelf. ¤ C.Ho.