Space: The Stinal frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Bookmark. Its continuing mission: to explore bland book concepts. To seek out minor scares and lackluster content. To boldly blow where no blog has blown before.
On the bus to the observatory, we meet Murphy's friends Orly Roberts and Cleo Lambeau, while also learning that Murphy has asthma. So Murphy's almost totally breathless given how he can't wait to check out the observatory's ultra powerful telescope, hoping to see Martians on Mars. As they arrive, their teacher, Mr. Hawkins, tells them not to cause a ruckus or go too far from the group and get lost. Upon entering, they're greeted by the man himself, Dr. Sidney Rayburne. He looks like your average scientist type. White hair, wiry mustache, serious demeanor. Murphy's through the roof with excitement as he knows everything about Dr. Rayburne. From how he invented the super telescope to stories that he's not the easiest to work with.
As Dr. Rayburne begins to speak, Murphy is so excited that he keeps asking questions and even says that the Salzburg telescope is much more powerful than Rayburne's. Rayburne then introduces everyone to three more scientists, Dr. Jackson, Dr. Gonzalez and Dr. Freed. Guessing Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine and Dr. Howard were busy. While Dr. Freed talks about the telescope, Murphy gets a bit bored, given he already knows everything about the telescope, so he sneaks out of the group with Orly and Cleo. Cleo isn't cool with this since she doesn't want to get in trouble, but the other two drag her with them. They see some rooms, including one with old maps written in a strange language, and one with a 3-D map of the galaxy. But as soon as they leave, they get caught by Dr. Jackson, who tells the kids to get out. As in get everyone out of the observatory before it's too late.
The trio begin to make their way back with the group, but as expected, they wind up lost. They duck into a room to hide, but end up being caught by a man in a tan suit saying they shouldn't be here just as warning sirens go off mentioning intruders. With security on their tail, the three duck into a room with red letters on the door reading DANGER! PROHIBITED BY ALL! So, first door you leap through, always. As they see a bunch of tubes and monitors, they end up running into Dr. Rayburne, not happy at the stragglers. They ask to go back to their class, but ain't that just the darnedest thing? Their class already left without them. Reader beware, you were told to stay in the damn group!
Of course, the kids are confused, but Rayburne says that it was an emergency, so they all just rushed out the door. Though when they notice Dr. Jackson, she seems nervous as if she knows that Rayburne's not being honest. They ask to just call the school, or send a taxi, call their parents, semaphore, flare gun, stacked pile of megaphones. Okay, those last three were made up, but they still want to go home. Rayburne says that it's far too late for that as they've seen his Transition Room, and he can't just have three kids blabbing about what he has planned until he's ready. Instead he's going to keep them in the lab to take part in something called [[Title of the Book]], which means the kids are going to a distant planet. If it's Mars and there are egg blankets I'm ducking out ASAP.
Murphy thinks that maybe Dr. Rayburne is joking, but even Orly and Cleo realize that no, he's not kidding. Rayburne has invented a teleportation device that will transfer anyone to another planet. Which sounds all well and good until you transport and there's a fly in the machine. Big mess, would not recommend. And that is an apt comparison as the transition machine can break whatever is inside it to molecules that can be shifted to another location. So yeah, brundleflies all over this place. He plans to send them to Zoromisis 12, a distant, yet inhabited planet. Murphy tries to again say that this won't work and you can't break a human down like that. Sucks to be Murphy because it works and the three kids dissolve like a Thanos snap.
Murphy wakes up on a strange pink planet. He can hear the chit-chit-chit sounds of a weird six-armed squirrel. He's high up in a cave and can see a town below of humanoid-frog people who drive vehicles that have no wheels and are shaped like vitamin tablets. That's weird, but what's weirder is that Murphy sees that he's invisible. More like a strange blur of motion than a fully formed kid. Speaking of kids, he has no idea where Cleo and Orly ended up. Man, this Goosebumps Isekai is starting off strong. But Murphy soon finds Orly. Or at least her voice as she too is invisible. Same with Cleo who they find quickly as well.
The three are confused at their lack of bodies, but they can touch one another. So, holding hands, the three head down to the city below. This is also when they realize how screwed they might be if Dr. Rayburne can send them places and, possibly, not be able to send them back home. But they enter the town and notice a pair of aliens. Similar to the book cover, they have two heads and long necks while wearing some kind of pajamas while tap dancing. They can also speak perfect English, which is convenient, huh? The kids try to communicate, but the aliens can't see or hear them, because I guess they're ghosts/invisible?
Hungry, the three head into a restaurant and try the food, which look like gross worms and weird, gross blue apples. Orly eats the apple only to spew it back up immediately. Reader beware, you're in for intestinal distress. They head into a cafeteria and eat some food, which does actually taste good. Somehow good enough to turn the three visible again. Which is a bad thing as the aliens are disgusted at the "one-headers" and try to capture them. Murphy almost gets caught by a cook before Orly tickles its necks to loosen the grip. The three manage to escape and duck into a clothing store where they spot some of the outfits the two-headed aliens wear. Murphy also notices a strange red button in his pocket that says to press on, but he doesn't bring it up for now.
So the kids all dress in the outfits, despite the obvious issue of the lack of an extra head. Murphy settles that by having them stick mannequin heads in the other head spot. Which I guess would work, that is until the aliens wonder why the other head is awful quiet. But it seems to work for a little bit, until Murphy's mannequin head just falls off, meaning that was pointless. The three kids then try to commandeer a vehicle, only they have no clue how to get the vehicle started. So now they finally do get caught. Good. Because there's like 43 pages left and we kind of need a plot, Bob.
Murphy, Orly and Cleo get captured by Planetary Guards. The kids ask what that means, to which they again reiterate "Planetary Guards". You know, hired goons. Hired goons? Turns out to drive the car you just tell it where to go. So kind of like a Tesla that won't explode on you. The guards call the kids monsters as on Zoromisis 12, one headers are too scary for kids, so they have to be locked up. So, don't worry. If you were wondering if space racism exists, oh it certainly does. The guards tell the kids to start dancing as they're about to meet their leader, the interestingly named Hoofer the Horrible.
The kids are taken to a large auditorium and see Hoofer the Horrible. A large, purple two-headed alien with flowers on his head. The guards tell the kids that they better dance if they want to stay alive, and also to not insult Hoofer. Always praise his dancing lest they see his unhappy dance and, you know, be put to death. Hoofer sends everyone away then tells the kids that he'll have transplants ready to. As in literally operating and transplanting a second head on their shoulders. But that was all a joke as they don't really do head transplants. Oh, but they'll still put the kids heads on one body. A Triple-Header. Which is what I wish we were reading right now. Seriously we're at page 95 and we're still not at whatever the fireworks factory is for this book.
As they await their fate, Murphy remembers the button from earlier. He presses it, and it's just a recorded message from Dr. Rayburne thanking them for taking part in this whole thing. Then Hoofer shows up and gets mad when he learns the kids don't speak the language of Gumbo and is mad that they claim to speak some made up language called English. The kids want to go home, Hoofer says it's likely impossible, but he does have something planned for them. That is to have them dance for him for all eternity and tell him how great he is. Oh and he gets painted in gold. Did an AI write this book?
Murphy uses his inhaler and the spray scares Hoofer and the other aliens. Which means that they're again being sent somewhere. When the trio mention they're kids, the aliens are confused. What's a kid? What's an adult? They then take them to the Good-Bye room to turn them into particles of sand. but the machine doesn't work so the kids make a run for it only to be captured again and the machine works this time. Holy hell this is "wheel spinning" the book. But yes. This time it works as the kids are brought back to Earth. Dr. Rayburne asks if everything worked to which they then say that it didn't, just to screw with him given, you know, everything.
You have an alien planet, which already has a lot of interesting ideas to play with. You have strange creatures, with a bizarre ruler. You have the set pieces to make something interesting. And all we get are multiple failed escape attempts. Chapters about the kids being given a punishment that doesn't happen. Time and time again with moments that seem like something interesting is coming and nothing happens. Hell, even the dancing doesn't matter, feeling like it's there in case you didn't grasp what the title is a parody of. If this book were an interpretive dance, it would be called the "wheel spin". spin your limbs like they're caught in a mud pit. That's this book.
Not even the protagonists are interesting. Murphy is built up as this massive space fan, but none of that really matters after they get sent to Zoromisis 12. Orly really feels here to be hungry and that's all. And Cleo exists, but does she? Like, at least Orly is hungry, does Cleo really do anything? She's the Superfluous Clay of the book. Rayburne also just stops mattering and even the stuff with Dr. Jackson stops mattering. It's like Stine hit a massive wall in making Rayburne the villain and focusing the horror in the observatory. So when he sends the kids to space, he thought he had at least an idea of what to do, but then somehow hit an even larger wall. So the end result is literally dragging the beaten and broken carcass to the finish line. The definition of Stine coming up with a clever name, then not knowing how to make it into a book.
But I do kind of get it. What the intent was at least. Honestly this would be how three random kids would probably react when sent to another planet against their will. And how confusing and bizarre things get and escalate. The fish out of water concept. The Isekai. Stranger in a strange land. So I shouldn't be expecting the kids to really know what to do in a situation like this. But when the product given also feels like it has no idea what to do with a situation like this to make it interesting, then that's where you lost me, Bob. Like, I'm the rare outlier that didn't like Earth Geeks Must Go!, but at least that book sorta tried. And sorta tried when Stine was ready to bounce from Scholastic I might add.
There is a germ of a good book in here. Make there be more of a reason for the space trip. Make there be something to drive the adventure forward. Make the threats matter. Make the protagonists more interesting. Make Murphy's knowledge about outer space matter. Tell a good story. I don't know what happened with SlappyWorld. Started slow, yes, but picked up with some really decent books in the middle before going right back into a freefall. But that's just me. You might like this one more than I did and that's cool. It just did nothing for me but make me feel bored and sleepy. Haunting with the Stars is the Nyquil of Goosebumps books.
STORY: G.5
SCARES: G.5
TWIST: GG
ENJOYMENT: G
OVERALL: 1.5 Gs
Next up is a Slappy book. Oh dear. And it's a special edition book. Oh god. It's time to finally learn the already-retconned origin of everyone's favorite naughty knot-head.
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