The Stinal Countdown: Goosebumps SlappyWorld #7: It's Alive! It's Alive!

Time for another SlappyWorld visit. This time we're going to be dealing with robots. Something that we've seen for many a book, so it's definitely a territory Stine has tread before. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. Will this one be a work of genius, or back to the drawing board? Either way it's got a catchy title. Time to talk about It's Alive! It's Alive!

Cover is neat. Another of Brandon Dorman's better works, which SlappyWorld has quite a few of. In this case it's Francine, our robot of the book, tearing herself apart in a shock-filled rampage. I like the design of Francine with the slick white android features and her glowing green robot brain. Definitely gives the impression of a robot on the rampage. I'm not super fond of the pinkish-purple background. And the original art went with an easier on the eyes blue, but regardless, a top not effort as usual.

Livvy Jones starts our story by telling her friend Gates Warwas about her dream about a robot that goes out of control and goes on a rampage. Might be a bit prophetic as even Gates thinks it means they shouldn't have made a human-like robot. You see, the two are part of their school robotics team and have been working on a robot which they've named Francine to compete with their rivals, Swanson Academy at the Springdale Robotics Meet. Their team is led by the basketball coach, Harrison Teague, who isn't really good at robotics, he was more or less given the job because I guess no one else would? Also get used to everyone asking why the robot is being called "Francine". Somehow that's the biggest concern.

Livvy and Gates head to the Jones workshop to begin working on Francine, but she's missing. She's in the possession of Chaz Fremont, one of the kids from Swanson's team. He mocks them a bit, but says that this whole thing is still a friendly cooperatition (cooperation/competition). Livvy claims that Francine can make omelets and turns the robot on, only for the robot to grab Chaz's hand and injure it, making a weird laughing sound after. Chaz claims Livvy did that on purpose, but she says that she didn't plan that. 

Confused as to what happened, Livvy and Gates try again, only in the kitchen, much to the anger of the housekeeper Mrs. Bernard. They power Francine up, but the robot smashes the eggs over their heads, laughing yet again. Livvy's parents, both computer and robotics programmers themselves, are livid over the mess, but check Francine's code, and sees that she's been programmed to smash eggs. Neither Livvy nor Gates remember programming her to do that. There's no way Francine programmed herself to do that, right? Or, I mean it could have been Chaz. That, that makes more sense. But we're only at page 24 so of course we're not getting any real answers yet.

That night, after another dream about a rampaging Francine, Livvy wakes up to see Francine has walked up the stairs to her bedroom. The robot's laughing wakes up her parents. Livvy tries to tell them that Francine walked up here on her own, but they don't believe her because Silicon Valley Parents. They doubt that a robot could simply do these things on its own, because they're such great experts in the field yet don't appear to know what a malfunction is apparently. 

At the robotics club meeting, Livvy's mind is still concerned about Francine, which means she ignores what her teacher, simply named Ellen, is saying. In the club is also Rosa Romero, who is sort of a bully, or at least likes to make an enemy out of Livvy. She also took away one of Livvy's friends, Sara Blum, so that's another reason that Livvy dislikes her. Coach Teague shows up to see the progress the club has been doing. Another student, DeAndre Marcus, has a robot that can attach metal parts to a box. Rosa and Sara's robot builds a tower out of legos. And Livvy and Gates' robot... does nothing. Not even causing a mess this time, Francine just doesn't move. They put in new batteries, but nothing. Everyone laughs at Livvy and Gates, who wonder what's going on. Are they being sabotaged?

It also seems the parents are also the kind of tech minds that think on two different sides. Mrs. Jones thinks robots could get smart enough to enslave humanity while Mr. Jones doesn't, with Livvy at least feeling that way about Francine so far. Her parents check on Francine to see what's going on, but see no memory in the robot at all. Like it had been erased or something. Livvy at first thinks it may have been Rosa, but after Francine seems to trip her down the stairs, she's starting to think that maybe Francine really is alive.

The next day, Livvy and Gates test Francine again when Rosa arrives to brag. Suddenly, Francine comes to life and throws Gates, then grabs Livvy, but that was just a dream. That was just a dream. That's me in the corner... After waking up, she then begins to suspect what we kind of suspected early on. Maybe Chaz sabotaged Francine. They take Francine to Chaz's house to get an answer if he gave their robot malware or a virus, but he says he didn't. Why would he, when his small egg carton robot can play basketball. Or could play basketball because Francine suddenly crushes it. 

So, now Livvy and Gates are in trouble. Coach Teague and the others think they did this on purpose. Why? Because now Francine's program now reads to step on things. This means that Francine's disqualified from the competition, but Livvy and Gates can still help with other robots. They could still compete with a new robot, but that doesn't seem possible. So instead they have to junk Francine. When Livvy pulls the robot's head off, it keeps laughing. The parents decide to take Francine to their secret lab in the basement to tear her apart. But Livvy can't see since the lab is super top secret. Gee, what does this remind me of? But that doesn't stop Livvy who goes into the lab to check on her parents, only to see Mrs. Jones working on Mr. Jones, who has wires sticking out of a flap in his neck. GEE, WHAT DOES THIS REMIND ME OF?

They go to find Mrs. Bernard, but see her in a pool of bloo-no wait, ketchup. She had a bit of an accident. She seems to believe them about Livvy's dad being a robot, but won't elaborate further. Livvy's parents show up and she asks if dad's a robot, but they deny it. When Livvy checks for a flap in the back of his neck, there's no sign of anything. The parents do say they don't know what's wrong with Francine either. Everything seems normal enough, but her programming seems to have screwed up a bit. The next day, Rosa apologizes to Livvy about the whole tension they've had before giving Livvy a copy of Robotics For Dummies. Good lord, haven't thought about those books in decades. 

That night after dinner, Mr. Jones washes the dishes, but cuts himself on a knife. Only the weird thing is he's not bleeding. Later that night, Francine returns to Livvy's room, and tries to tell her something before the parents arrive, furious that Francine's been reassembled and once again blaming Livvy. Livvy and Gates go downstairs to the lab and see Mr. Jones' head is on the table. Livvy and Gates run in, demanding to know the truth when Mrs. Bernard then shows up to tell them what's going on. Both of the parents are her robots. Mrs. Bernard is a mad scientist.

She spent her whole life working on Livvy's parent robots and managed to get them working so that they could replace Livvy's real parents, which we don't get much of an answer about right now. She's also been the one sabotaging Francine. Mrs. Bernard sends the parent robots to attack the kids. Livvy calls the cops, but they don't help. Especially when the cop finds no neck flap. After the cop leaves, Mrs. Bernard has the parents attack, but they rebel, removing some sort of disk from their ears. Mr. Jones then grabs the head of Mrs. Bernard and pulls it off, revealing that she was a robot all along, because at this point who ISN'T a robot in this book?

 

So, the parents had invented Mrs. Bernard, but she gained too much control and created robot clones of the parents that are still in the basement, all while using some sort of mind control disc to control the human parents. Instead of destroying the obviously evil robots, and Francine, they decide to keep studying them instead.

Despite, you know, everything, Livvy and Gates are able to enter Francine in the competition. But before they can do anything, the robot goes rogue and locks the doors of the gym. She says that she's in control now, listen to her and no one gets hurt. 

It's Alive! It's Alive! It's okay! It's okay! I will say I wasn't expecting this book to turn into Stay Out of the Basement, but that's not a determent at all. If you should rip off any book in Goosebumps, that's the best one to rip off. I like how the book sets up its mystery well, making you unsure who the real culprit is until the end. Like in a way that makes it obvious it's not any of the kids, but the adults, and you don't immediately think Mrs. Bernard either. The past few blogs I've railed on Stine for not being a good mystery writer and I think his work is at least passable here. 

Granted, this book suffers from a lack of originality, despite all the robots. But I think it's paced well, never feeling like a lack of energy or Stine not having a plan in mind. You could argue the mid-book reveal of the parent bots might be an example of that, but if it was, Stine still veered in the right direction. If it had all just been about Francine, then I think this would be too close to a Dummy book instead of anything fresh. But adding that extra layer helped keep this from turning into a slog. 

Livvy's just okay as a protagonist. Suffers like most others from being pretty bland. The twist is also pretty mediocre, but I can't see how else you'd end this book, so it's not offensive. Though if the book just had her end with saying "Stop calling me Francine! I hate that name!", I think I'd have enjoyed that more. A payoff to that being a sticking point through so much of this book.

I do also feel like there's a weird "anti-technology" feeling in this book. Like Stine's always been weird when writing about science in these books, often portraying it as evil. Not sure if that's just because it's easy to write about science going too far or some of the man's own feelings on the subject, but it's very noticeable here. At least no one's laying eggs, I guess. So, in the end, I liked It's Alive! It's Alive!, but just feel it's missing something truly dynamic to make it one of the more clever creations. It's not a failed experiment, but it's not going to win any scientific awards either.

STORY: GGG.5

SCARES: GG.5

TWIST: GG

ENJOYMENT: GGG

OVERALL: 2.5 Gs