Thoughts on How to Train Your Dummy

So before we get off the bat, sorry for like a month of inactivity. Nothing's wrong, just decided to take a break. We should be back on track very soon. But in the midst of that break, we got the news of a new Goosebumps House of Shivers book. The first of 2027's pair. And to say my expectations were low as soon as I read the book's title, I felt the need to talk about it, like I have the last couple upcoming HOS books. But I felt that it would be better to wait it out until we got the cover art to finally see just what we're dealing with here and hoo boy, I have some thoughts. 

The eighth book in the House of Shivers series is the clunky title of How to Train Your Dummy. I've always been mixed on titles that are just references because you can tell that it's a title Stine thought was funny, then had to go through the task of actually writing a book for it. The premise of the book, at least in its initial synopsis, is a story about two sisters, Poppy and Ivy, whose cousin Austin is visiting. Their uncle, Uncle Sass (given we just got an Uncle Squatch makes me feel Stine didn't put much effort in names this time around) brought with him a dummy named Gregory. The girls decide to prank Austin with Gregory and it all goes well until it seems like the dummy may be alive. 

So yeah. You knew we weren't going to escape the grasp of yet another Dummy book. And given it's been just around four years since the last appearance of Slappy in the books following the end of Slappyworld, it felt like only a matter of time. And yet, the synopsis seemed to throw a curveball at the reader. Hyping Gregory up as the next big thing in the evil dummy world. You thought Slappy was scary? Well, get ready to meet Gregory. Which already bodes bad for this book when you are essentially trying to sell the reader on a new character who will no doubt be just as iconic as the cash cow of the series. Like when Capcom initially removed Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter in hopes of making Alex the next big protagonist of the franchise. Which hey, wouldn't be the worst thing ever, until you realize that this whole plot is just a rehash.

Night of the Living Dummy III features a pair of siblings who have to deal with their cousin who has a dummy that may be alive but soon does come to life. Which feels like we're right back to the dummy books with no effort or any attempt at being unique. SlappyWorld really felt like it tried to buck the Slappy trend for a while with books that at least felt unique enough. This feels like we're playing the classics again and not very well. But, hey, the book at least sounds like it's trying to be something unique with a brand new villain. And hey, it might mean that Slappy's finally done as the main Dummy villain. Which is what I was hoping for... 

WERE HE NOT ON THE FRIGGING COVER!

I'll get into the cover in a second, but I have to say that the cover art featuring Slappy doesn't immediately mean that Slappy is in the book itself. By all means, he's on the cover to sell the book because when you think evil dummies and Goosebumps you think Slappy. But it also sort of proves my point that Gregory, right off the bat, isn't that interesting an antagonist. Certainly not one interesting enough to be the lone cover dummy. It shows a complete lack of confidence with not just this book but House of Shivers in general if we've reached the point already where confidence in this series selling is at such a low point that we have to have the familiar faces show up to boost interest. I'm seriously hoping this is the extent of Slappy in this. I was already having this weird vibe of that one story in Slappy, Beware with the return of "Mr. Wood" only for it to be Slappy. And the days of trusting Bob to not be redundant went away a long time ago. And especially after Nightmare on Nightmare Street, I just have this foreboding feeling we're in for a bad one. I could always be wrong and it could end up good like Camp Bigfoot was, but nothing about this book bodes that feeling of benefit of the doubt right now.

Now on to the cover. I don't like this cover. Off the bat though I don't hate Gregory's design. I like the cracked head, the cobwebs, the grin. He is creepy, but still lacks the real creep factor that made the original Night of the Living Dummy art work so well, but it's fine for what it is. If the detail was better and he were, again, the solo focus, this wouldn't annoy me. It's everything else I hate. The weird shadow ropes on the ceiling, this random white rectangle on the left of the rafters, The really ugly blending of orange and blue that don't complement each other all that well. Then there's Slappy. He looks so cut and paste, so last minute, so like he shouldn't be here to begin with. Which if this was a Scholastic mandate then that would make all the sense in the world as to why we have us a slapdash Slappy. I don't hate the idea to continue with the movie design since it's become his default look in the franchise for the most part. I think him entering with the background just being random lightning and no real background at all also feels rushed. Like did he arrive from another dimension or something? I'm again not saying that Robert Ball is using AI. Minor issues aside, they still feel like something that was human-drawn. But things are just not adding up here at this point when it comes to certain issues the cover art has compared to the far stronger earlier works of his. It really does feel like Slappy Kramer-ing in to this cover just absolutely threw off its groove. 

I think why I'm just not clicking with this comes down to my feelings about Stine's work from Nightmare on Nightmare Street finally coming to fruition. We are in Slopbumps era. Content of middling quality now seemingly dependent on iconography from the series to try to keep people interested. Again, it's unclear if Slappy really is in this story or not. We won't know for at least another ten months. And we still have a second 2027 House of Shivers book that should be announced sometime in the summer or early autumn. I could be proven wrong about having these concerns. But if we're resorting to shoehorning Slappy onto covers to save sagging sales, then it doesn't make me think we have much for fresh ideas on the way. Granted, this franchise will be 35 next year and its days of fresh ideas said cheese and died years ago. But I fear that this is what the series is doomed to be, especially with Stine at the helm ready to copypasta his old books til the final days. Again, maybe this book ends up a surprise hidden gem, but I have my massive doubts at this point. Will it be the nadir of Goosebumps in general? I doubt that's the case. I think it's ultimately going to be a mid book, which doesn't make me feel all that enthusiastic about the future. Though, if Stine's just going to play the hits at this point, at least gives us that damn Happy Holidays from Dead House book already.