A Case of the Bumps: Oh, You're Such a Card!

It's time to shuffle the deck with yet another Case of the Bumps. Series 2000 is such a weird enigma, even for the bizarre world that is Goosebumps. And I don't think any book fits that bill more than Be Afraid—Be Very Afraid! AKA The book with "YOU FINISH THE STORY". Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I was reading a Goosebumps book not being told to do work for NaNoWriMo. I still don't get what happened here. Was Stine trying to be meta, was this a strange lashing out to those who were criticizing him, or did he hit the mother of all walls? Because ultimately, it has a great idea in it. Perhaps one clearly too big for a Goosebumps book. But let's see if we can do what Cody Rhodes couldn't do and FINISH THE STORY. 

#1. THE PLOT

Connor Buckley, Emily Zinman and Kyle Boots are bored and snoop around a garage sale of their neighbor, the totally not a wizard named Mr. Zarwid. Connor finds a deck of cards for a game called "Be Afraid" and steals them. He plays the game with Kyle and Emily. They play the game with Connor becoming a king, Emily a goth, or spellcaster, and Kyle a Krel, a goblin creature. But the more they play the game, the more strange things seem to happen, and with each monster card used, the more monsters show up. A deadly Krel, a fisherman army and finally a rampaging dragon. Each disappear whenever the cards are put back in the deck. Connor decides to take the deck back to Mr. Zarwid, then discovers a card for Mr. Wizard, which looks like Zarwid. Wait, Mr. Zarwid's a wizard? Who could have guessed?

However, instead of taking back the deck, Mr. Zarwid punishes the kids by sending them into the world of the card game. They get surrounded by creatures named Jekels, plant elk creatures named Stelks, and another dragon. And then the story just ends. YOU FINISH THE STORY. Of course it doesn't end, and instead we have another group of kids named Mark and Amy mentioning that this was all the events of a story. However, they then find the deck and get transported into the world, where they also meet Connor, Emily and Kyle, but get caught by strange walrus men. And then the story ends again, we focus on a pair of kids named Brenda and Ross who complain about the book, give it back to Mr. Zarwid, who gives them the deck of cards. 

#2. Alice in Blunderland

I think the thing that kills this book is the addition of the card game world. Not because it couldn't work (more on that in a bit), but because it's so late game in the book that there was never going to be a chance to do anything with it. Which is a shame because the Jekels, the Stelks, the walrus people, they're all such cool ideas for what would ultimately be a Goosebumps Isekai style story. Stranger in a strange land and all. There is again no explanation as to what this place is, but the obvious answer might be Mr. Zarwid's real land. The universe of the card game which he rules over. Perhaps he was able to escape the realm of the cards due to his magical powers and now uses the card game to trap unsuspecting victims into his realm.

It also likely could have made this whole story a morality tale about stealing being bad, even if Zarwid just leaves the powerful deck of cards in his garage sale for anyone to take. It also makes me wonder what other objects from the garage sale contained magical properties. What other items have cursed those who took them? Like, I don't know, a magic coffee maker that transports you to a planet of ant people or something. If the wizard's got a magical deck of cards, it stands to reason, don't you think? 

#3. I KNOW YOU ZAR BUT WID AM I?

I really wish we got more of an answer about what Mr. Zarwid's deal was. Again, was he an evil wizard all along since he doesn't care for kids, or was he just punishing Connor for stealing the deck? Because he reminds me an awful lot like Mr. Chameleon from The Haunted School. Powerful magic wielder with a hatred for children and a yen for punishing children for the lightest of transgressions. It also sort of explains the deck and Connor and the kids from both cases being sent to an alternate medieval dimension. Because it sounds an awful lot like Grayworld and the class of 1947's fate. Only less strange black goop orgies and more walrus men. 

#4 META? I DON'T EVEN KNOW HER!

I find myself stymied with "YOU FINISH THE STORY" more than any other thing that Stine has ever put to Goosebumps, save for Revenge R Us. Because there's this feeling to it that no other Goosebumps book has ever felt like, and that's the feeling of desperation. That's the feeling of giving up. That's the feeling of a man who is in the middle of a legal quagmire with the publishing company he's making the book for. Because the timeline certainly fits, right? This was around the time that the Stines and Scholastic were both trying to claim legal ownership of the Goosebumps brand. It's also around the time that Stine was being accused of ghostwriters and flat out admitting he used outliners for his stories. And there's another reason why this all feels like it comes at the exact same time:

This feels like Stine writing a book without an outliner, or that he couldn't make an outline work. 

It explains the pacing problems and dumping all of the travelling to the world of the cards at the end of the story where nothing gets a chance to breathe. And even how more passive aggressive commentary gets squeaked in at the last moment. Though, if he did have an outliner, he couldn't find a clear way to make the book's pacing benefit the mid-book swerve. And that shows itself in droves with the first swerve just giving us the same characters and ending up in the same situation. He had no idea what to do with this story, and so we try to get Stine being cute and winking to the camera, only it's a book and not a camera so it doesn't help his cause. 

#5. OKAY, I WILL FINISH THE STORY

So, how do we finish the story? Well, I'll try with two unique routes. One is the card game route which has the book always focus on the cards summoning creatures. The other is transporting the kids from the get go. I won't do the second version of the story with the new characters, just the ones presented before the first attempt at this spin of YOU FINISH THE STORY. 

The first way is simple. Connor, Kyle, and Emily discover that the game makes any creatures played come to life, and that Zarwid is the one behind them. So, the only way to end this madness, is defeating Mr. Zarwid in the game. If they win, the magic is negated, if they lose, they become monsters in the deck. Connor becomes the one to challenge Zarwid and the two battle, with the focus being an all-out war between the creatures Connor summons and the creatures that Zarwid summons. Zarwid seems to always be able to overcome Connor, until at the very end, Connor finds a way to outsmart Zarwid and defeat the wizard, sending him back into the game. The twist can be that Connor, now having beaten Zarwid, starts to summon the creatures from the game. See, he was the King of Evil after all, and he knew what he was doing from the start, right down to the defeat of the only one who could stop him, Mr. Zarwid. Tweaking the story to have Connor act naive to what's going on then making the reveal land makes for a strong final knife twist. It also has precedent of Stine having us follow a monster who knows they were a monster from the start. 

The second way has the kids play the game, finding their character types and starting to play, when they get transported into the world of Be Afraid. But they possess the abilities of the characters they picked when they started the game. Zarwid is the one who tells them that the only way to escape the game is to battle through as their characters. That way the Jekels, Stelks and walrus men can still play a role in the story. Each set piece more harrowing, with the kids having to use their abilities to overcome the odds. The final challenge is Zarwid himself, who is a powerful entity in the world of the game. It takes all their cunning, but the three manage to defeat Mr. Zarwid, who makes good on his promise to take them away from the world of the card game. However, the kids find themselves transported to another strange world. Zarwid didn't lie, he sent them out of the game world. He never said anything about sending them to their world.

Both have enough set pieces and thrills to pad through the 120+ pages needed for the story. Each has the kids play a pivotal part in the story, and each has a chance to give us unique monsters to encounter. It also doesn't just end, giving the reader a twist that at least feels like a twist. 

#6. CONCLUSION

There are a lot of Goosebumps books with missed potential, but this one is the most glaring case. A unique idea with the card game, an interesting idea with an adventure in a game world. And the crushing reality that R.L. Stine has no frigging idea what to do with either. And what we're left with is perhaps the ultimate case of a quota book. A book that's far from finished, and is in a state of complete disarray, but this month needs a book out, so rush out two fake outs and hope the kids will enjoy it. And if they don't, well you sure showed them by mocking them in the book. But I will admit, that's also why it sticks with me so much. Sometimes a disaster is one that will always stay with you, no matter how much time passes. And no book better exemplifies disaster quite like this one. Yeah, this was a cut and dry conclusion, but YOU FINISH THE ASSESSMENT.