Quick Thoughts on What We Do at Night and Nightmare on Nightmare Street

Well, it's time once again to look into the future of one Robert Lawrence Stine as 2026's list of books seems to be complete at this point. We covered my early thoughts on the cover of One Night at Camp Bigfoot in May and now we have both the second House of Shivers book for the year confirmed and the next Blackstone Publishing standalone to cover. I don't know if this will be a regular thing moving forward, but since I'm at least known for covering a lot of Stine stuff, I figured why not throw in my two cents to kill a little of the time to wait. So let's talk about what's to come from the Jovial one himself.

A few weeks ago, we got our first information on the seventh House of Shivers book. And by information, I mean just the title. No blurb, just the title What We Do in the Night. Nothing else to go by other than just speculation. On August 29th, we got some answers as to at least what this book could be about as the cover for the correctly named What We Do at Night popped up online. Still no blurb, but I think the concept seems to involve humanoid bird creatures. As the birds featured on the cover all have hands of some sort, and we have a more human-looking bird in the back. So, instead of werewolves we're getting were-birds? Is Stine finally giving us the book that we had hoped Night of the Squawker would be? Is it ANOTHER puberty allegory? Of course, this being Stine, I have learned to set my expectations way low. Way, way low. The modern grift of the "cool monster on the cover" has lost that ability to make me expect something that's a classic work. But he has surprised me in the past, so it could be good. 

I honestly really like this cover. The colors of the sky are some of the best I've seen on a Goosebumps cover. This beautiful swirl of yellows, oranges, pinks and blues. Probably the best visual of sunset on a Goosebumps cover. The birds also look creepy, especially once you notice their arms and hands. And I like the warped perspective of the street, as if we're literally getting a bird's eye view. I think this might be Robert Ball's best. And with it being a Robert Ball work, people are again accusing this of being AI generated work. And I did say I'd give Ball the benefit of the doubt after the very questionable cover for One Night at Camp Bigfoot, which felt a bit too much like it had the AI trappings about it. This one, I don't feel the same. The color blends better, there's much better symmetry with the designs, it retains a lot of similarity to how Ball designs monsters for the covers. So I don't think that Ball is using AI for his works and Camp Bigfoot was just a cover that failed to land with people. And with people justifiably frustrated with all of this AI crap, it put people's concerns up high. So hopefully it was just a lot of concern over nothing and I don't end up looking like a fool if House of Shivers 8 is the most AI-looking cover ever. 

Now for a book we do have a bit more information on, the third Blackstone Publishing Stine-dalone, Nightmare on Nightmare Street. Well his first two left me underwhelmed so I can't say this is a book that I'm super hyped for. Fool me once and all that. But I just really think this cover is dumb even for Stine. Like it feels like the most "he thought the title was funny" title in a long time. I mean, he could have finally used the 43 Freakout Street title instead. As for the plot, we have that, as it involves two kids who seem to be connected through dreams, where their worlds seem to be turning more bizarre. It feels like I Live In Your Basement! which is one of my favorite books ever. A sense of dreamlike strangeness where nothing makes sense. It at least sounds like a far more interesting premise than either Slime Doesn't Pay! or Shark Night had, so hopefully this is the case of third time's the charm. I really have to stop giving Stine the benefit of the doubt. I have touched that stove top once too many. 

The cover is okay honestly, but I don't think helps the book at all. It's an exterior of the house with the lights all on with an orange and red color glowing from them. It doesn't exactly scream "a book about nightmares". It feels like a less interesting take on the cover of Welcome to Dead House. And, yes, this too is getting AI accusations but here especially I don't see it. I think the filter of the cover doesn't help, but otherwise it all looks fine. Symmetry is decent, the color blending isn't as messy and nothing feels out of place like what an AI cover would be. I just think it's more a case of a really poor filter choice on the cover making people again think it's AI. Which, hey, I'm already tired of everything now being claimed as AI. But I also get why people are making those accusations because, again, this nonsense is being forced on all of us. Hell, YouTube put a shitty AI filter over all of their videos without anyone's consent. This last ditch effort to shove this on everyone before the bubble inevitably, mercifully, bursts. Hopefully I'll have the book covered next year and hopefully it's a good one.

Goosebumps is once again without a TV series as this month was the confirmation that the 2023 series was cancelled by Disney. I'll be honest, I still haven't watched any of it. It just never got my interest since, like I said, I prefer the books over other pieces of media for my GB consumption. I do intend to finally get it watched before Disney inevitably banishes it to the shadow realm and, of course, never give us a DVD set. What I have seen from it through other reviews and such didn't sell me, but given that there's nothing more coming from the series and it's only two seasons, it shouldn't be that hard to get through. Frankly though, this doesn't surprise me. I think there was a good idea with a serialized teen Goosebumps horror series, but I don't think it worked. Maybe because Goosebumps is looked at as a kids series, maybe the fact that it very loosely based its stories around the original books turned off a lot of people, but it clearly missed its mark. Hopefully the IP gets a third try sometime. Still hoping for a Goosebumps animated series that bases itself on the books. Finally get some of the more supernatural books televised. 

I'll end this little update on the latest Goosebumps release which is the Monster Blood Graphic Novel. It's out September 2nd officially but I lucked out on an early copy. And I really liked it. Maddie Gonzalez returns after last year's adaptation of The Haunted Mask, a book I really liked and thought was handled quite well. This year it's a book I didn't like, but I have always maintained that the first Monster Blood book was the best of the original series. And this book adapts it quite well, tweaking and modernizing a bit of the book itself to fit 2025 better than 1992. I won't spoil much, but the book does fix some issues with the original story that didn't make that much sense, namely involving Aunt Kathryn. It cuts a few minor scenes from the original book, but retains the main beats. And the art is great. Lots of fun faces and character reactions, some really good horror imagery. It's a book full of energy. If you're a fan of the original I'll think you'll like it, and if you aren't a fan of the original, you'll still like it. And if you hate Evan, the book keeps him getting his ass kicked, so that's a win as well. 

And that's really it for now. 2025's Goosebumps content is pretty much in the can and 2026, at least for now, seems to be complete. Three interesting books next year that should at least be fun to cover for the blog. Hopefully it won't feel as lopsided in quality as this year's stuff was. One can only hope. But, again, this is R.L. Stine we're talking about. Expectations waaaay low.