Pike, Christopher 1954–

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Pike, Christopher 1954–

(Kevin Christopher McFadden)

PERSONAL:

Born November, 1954, in Brooklyn, NY. Hobbies and other interests: Astronomy, meditating, long walks, running, reading, playing with nieces and nephews, and making sure his books are prominently displayed in local bookstores.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA.

CAREER:

Writer. Worked as a house painter, factory worker, and computer programmer.

WRITINGS:

HORROR BOOKS; FOR YOUNG ADULTS

Slumber Party, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1985.

Weekend, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1986.

The Tachyon Web (science fiction), Bantam (New York, NY), 1987.

Thrills, Chills, and Nightmares (short stories), Scholastic (New York, NY), 1987.

Precious Ingredient, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1988, published as Spellbound, Archway (New York, NY), 1988.

Last Act, Archway (New York, NY), 1988.

Scavenger Hunt, Archway (New York, NY), 1989.

Gimme a Kiss, Archway (New York, NY), 1989.

Witch, Archway (New York, NY), 1990.

Fall into Darkness, Archway (New York, NY), 1990.

See You Later, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1990.

Bury Me Deep, Archway (New York, NY), 1991.

Die Softly, Archway (New York, NY), 1991.

(Contributor) Tonya Pines, editor, Thirteen, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1991.

Whisper of Death, Archway (New York, NY), 1991.

Master of Murder, Archway (New York, NY), 1992.

Monster, Archway (New York, NY), 1992, reprinted, Simon Pulse (New York, NY), 2001.

Road to Nowhere, Archway (New York, NY), 1993, reprinted, Simon Pulse (New York, NY), 2002.

The Eternal Enemy, Archway (New York, NY), 1993.

The Immortal, Archway (New York, NY), 1993.

Chained Together, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1994.

The Midnight Club, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1994.

The Wicked Heart, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1994.

The Lost Mind, Archway (New York, NY), 1995.

The Visitor, Archway (New York, NY), 1995.

The Starlight Crystal, Archway (New York, NY), 1996.

Christopher Pike's Tales of Terror, Archway (New York, NY), 1996.

Alien Invasion, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Execution of Innocence, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

The Star Group, Archway (New York, NY), 1997.

The Hollow Skull, Archway (New York, NY), 1997.

See You Later, Archway (New York, NY), 1998.

Christopher Pike's Tales of Terror 2, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Jerry Oltion) Where Sea Meets Sky: The Captain's Table, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Magic Fire, Archway (New York, NY), 1999.

The Grave, Archway (New York, NY), 1999.

Falling, Forge (New York, NY), 2007.

"ALOSHA TRILOGY" SERIES

Alosha, Tor (New York, NY), 2004.

The Shaktra, Tor (New York, NY), 2005.

The Yanti, Tor (New York, NY), 2006.

"CHAIN LETTER" SERIES

Chain Letter, Avon (New York, NY), 1986.

The Ancient Evil, Archway (New York, NY), 1992.

"FINAL FRIENDS" SERIES

The Party, Archway (New York, NY), 1989.

The Dance, Archway (New York, NY), 1989.

The Graduation, Archway (New York, NY), 1989.

"REMEMBER ME" SERIES

Remember Me, Archway (New York, NY), 1989, reprinted, Simon Pulse (New York, NY), 2002.

The Return, Archway (New York, NY), 1994.

The Last Story, Archway (New York, NY), 1995, reprinted, Simon Pulse (New York, NY), 2002.

"LAST VAMPIRE" SERIES

The Last Vampire, Archway (New York, NY), 1994, collector's edition, Simon Pulse (New York, NY), 1998.

Black Blood, Archway (New York, NY), 1994.

Red Dice, Archway (New York, NY), 1995.

Phantom, Archway (New York, NY), 1996.

Evil Thirst, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1996.

Creatures of Forever, Archway (New York, NY), 1996.

"SPOOKSVILLE" SERIES

The Secret Path, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1995.

The Howling Ghost, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1995.

The Haunted Cave, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1995.

The Witch's Revenge, Archway (New York, NY), 1995.

Aliens in the Sky, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1996.

Cold People, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1996.

The Dark Corner, Hodder Headline (London, England), 1996.

The Little People, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1996.

The Wishing Stone, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1996.

The Wicked Cat, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1996.

The Deadly Past, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1996.

The Hidden Beast, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1996.

The Creature in the Teacher, Minstrel (New York, NY), 1996.

The Evil House, Minstrel (New York, NY), 1997.

Invasion of the No-ones, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Time Terror, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

The Thing in the Closet, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Attack of the Killer Crabs, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Night of the Vampire, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

The Dangerous Quest, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Return of the Dead, Minstrel Books (New York, NY), 1997, published as The Living Dead, Minstrel Books (New York, NY), 1998.

The Creepy Creature, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Phone Fear, Minstrel Books (New York, NY), 1998.

The Witch's Gift, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1999.

FOR ADULTS

Sati, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1990.

The Season of Passage, Tor Books (New York, NY), 1992.

The Listeners, Tor Books (New York, NY), 1994.

The Cold One, Tor Books (New York, NY), 1995.

The Blind Mirror, Tor Books (New York, NY), 2003.

COLLECTIONS

Final Friends Trilogy (contains The Party, The Dance, and The Graduation), Knight Pub. Co. (Los Angeles, CA), 1993.

Christopher Pike Boxed Set (contains Immortal, Wicked Heart, The Last Vampire, and The Midnight Club), Simon Pulse (New York, NY), 1994.

Christopher Pike Boxed Set (omnibus; contains Gimme a Kiss, Starlight Crystal, Bury Me Deep, and Phantom), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.

Christopher Pike Boxed Set ("Spooksville" omnibus; contains The Witch's Revenge, The Dark Corner, The Little People, and The Wishing Stone), Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

The Last Vampire, Books 3 and 4 (contains Red Dice and Phantom), Hodder Children's Books (London, England), 1998.

The Last Vampire, Books 5 and 6 (contains Evil Thirst and Creatures of Forever), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1998.

Also author of Getting Even, 1985, the second book in Scholastic's "Cheerleaders" series. Author of short stories. Pike's works have been translated into Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, and Norwegian.

ADAPTATIONS:

Fall into Darkness was adapted as a television movie by J.B. White in 1996. The film, which was released by NBC, starred Tatyana Ali as Sharon McKay and Charlotte Ross as Ann Price.

SIDELIGHTS:

Young adult novelist Christopher Pike has made a name for himself as a master of mystery and suspense. With over half a million books in print, Pike—who took his pseudonym from a character in the Star Trek television series—reaches his audience through stories that offer a grisly scare coupled with interesting teen protagonists and themes.

Pike did not set out to write horror novels for young adults. He originally wanted to write adult mystery and science fiction, but had little luck getting his book proposals accepted. By chance, an editor at Avon Books saw some of Pike's work and was impressed enough to suggest that he try his hand at writing a teen thriller. The result was the popular novel Slumber Party. Pike wrote two follow-ups to Slumber Party— Weekend and Chain Letter. By the time Chain Letter appeared, word-of-mouth had made all three books best sellers. In the years since his first thrillers were published, Pike has produced an impressive number of titles whose thrills and chills delight young readers, much to the dismay of conservative parents, who often recoil from the graphically violent themes in the books.

Teenagers play a big role in most of Pike's novels. His early books were especially noted for the presence of young female narrators whose observations about people and events were important to each novel's plot. Pike explained his use of female narrators to Publishers Weekly contributor Kit Alderdice: "I romanticize a lot about females because they seem more complex, and because in horror novels, it's easier for the girl to seem scared." Scaring his audience is a prime motivation for Pike. He grabs his readers with plots that often involve such disparate elements as murder, ghosts, aliens, and the occult. A St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers contributor identified the common elements in Pike's fiction: he begins with a group of teenage characters, whom he places in a "deserted setting." Pike then creates several "unexplained happenings" for both characters and readers to ponder, during which some characters begin to disappear. He then adds "a supernatural element," leading to the climax, which usually reveals that the villain was amidst the characters since the novel's beginning. Writing in the same publication, contributor Patrick Jones pointed out that Pike's plots are also "normally built around righting a past wrong or keeping a secret at all costs," calling them "complex and clever." Above all, Pike is savvy about what interests teens, to the point of including current youth trends and concerns in his books. "Pike doesn't talk down to kids; he treats them as individuals," noted Pat MacDonald in Publishers Weekly. She added: "He writes commercial stories that teens really want to read."

Pike is the author of a number of series. In the "Final Friends" series, the story revolves around a series of major teen milestones, each of which involve some sort of celebration. The trilogy starts with The Party, which features a get together where the purpose is to get to know each other a little better. The party ends in tragedy, however, when one of the revelers ends up dead, a supposed suicide. The series continues, with the tension escalating, first in The Dance, and then concluding with The Graduation. As the school year comes to a close in the last book, it is nine months since the death that began the trilogy, and only now is it beginning to be investigated as a murder.

Even though the emphasis in his novels is on murder and other ghastly deeds, Pike also presents well-defined characters whose motivations, good and bad, are examined in detail. Most of his characters are high school students whose experiences mirror those of contemporary teens. Pike's characters go to dances, throw parties, fall in and out of love, and sometimes have difficulty talking to their parents and teachers. However, Jones wrote that Pike's characters "aren't all ‘good kids,’ they are rarely innocent, some are sexually active, and most of them have a mean streak." Perhaps this is the reason Jones considers Pike gifted in this genre: "Pike better than most ‘mainstream’ young adult novelists captures the daily drama and roller coaster emotion of his teen characters ping ponging back and forth between emotions and conflicting desires." Jones went on to say: "While [Pike's] not writing morality plays, he is writing stories where kids find themselves trapped between intense feelings of love/lust and hate/vengeance." The difference between these young people and most teens lies in how some of the fictional characters choose to solve their more difficult problems. In Gimme a Kiss, Jane tries to recover her stolen diary through a complicated plan of revenge that ultimately involves her in a killing. Melanie wins the lead role in a school play only to find herself playing detective after real bullets are placed in a prop gun in Last Act. In the "Final Friends" trilogy, the merging of two high schools results in new friendships, rivalries, and the violent death of a shy girl.

Pike differs from other writers of young adult suspense novels in that the violence in his books is graphically detailed. For some critics, and for conservative parents, such excessive brutality does more harm than good. Amy Gamerman, writing in the Wall Street Journal described Pike's mysteries as "gorier than most," noting that they are guaranteed to make "Nancy Drew's page-boy flip stand on end." In an article in Harper's on the current state of children's literature, Tom Engelhardt claimed that Pike's books "might be described as novelizations of horror films that haven't yet been made. In these books of muted torture, adults exist only as distant figures of desertion … and junior high psychos reign supreme…. No mutilation is too terrible." Pike once addressed criticism on the use of gore in his writ- ings, stating that in the genre of thriller fiction, "it's only because the villains are so atrocious that the heroes can be so great."

Pike has also been criticized for his treatment of certain themes, including teen sexuality and life after death. In his defense, Pike offers books such as Remember Me, in which a young murder victim tries to prove her death was not a suicide with the help of another teen "ghost." Pike told Gamerman, "Teenagers are very fascinated by the subject of life after death. I got very beautiful letters from kids who said they were going to kill themselves before they read that book." James Hirsch, writing in the New York Times saw the popularity of young adult mysteries with more realistic, action-filled plots as reflecting a teen audience that has "revealed more sophisticated—some say coarse—reading tastes." Hirsch commented: "Topics that were once ignored in … mystery books, like adolescent suicide and mental illness, are now fair game. Graphic violence raises few eyebrows, and ghosts have become, well, ghosts." Michael O. Tunnell offered a similar opinion in Horn Book, noting that "as readers mature, they graduate to a more sophisticated mystery story…. Such books employ the ‘rules’ of mysteries more subtly. Readers must take a far more active part in unraveling plot and understanding characters."

Whisper of Death, published in 1991, begins as teenaged Rox and her boyfriend take off for another town where she is to obtain an abortion. When they arrive back home, a mysterious thing has happened: their town appears deserted. Only three other teenagers are still there, everyone else having vanished. When the five teens gather to determine what links them, they discover that they all are in some way connected to a girl who recently killed herself, Betty Sue. Betty Sue was known as an elaborate storyteller, and so the five teens set out to find her stories. When they do, they are horrified to discover that they describe how each of them will die. Slowly but surely, the kids begin to get killed off in just the ways that Betty Sue described, until ultimately Rox is the last one standing. It is up to her to find out if Betty Sue is still alive, and if she is, how she has killed off Rox's companions.

In 1999, Pike examined the warped mind of a pyromaniac in his young adult novel Magic Fire. Mark Charm is a high school senior who has little to feel good about except lighting fires. He usually targets abandoned houses and other locations devoid of life, but when he suffers a personal tragedy, his target area broadens to include a large portion of Southern California during its dry season. "The really interesting thing about this book is not so much the story … but the fact that Mark Charm is the central character—the hero," wrote reviewer Darryl Sloan on his Web site. "Everything is told from his perspective, and the reader is forced to sympathize with him." Many of Pike's characters have been likeable until they are revealed as the villain, but in Magic Fire, Pike lets his readers establish a fondness for the "bad guy" from the start by making him the main character as well. Pike also surprises readers with the supernatural in Magic Fire's seemingly concrete plot. Sloan concluded that the book is "a welcome change from the usual nice-guy-beats-evil-guy stereotype."

With Alosha, Pike kicks off another short series of books for young adults. Thirteen-year-old Alison, the protagonist of the story, is a junior environmentalist, actively protesting the loggers she believes are decimating the nearby forest. When a strange man helps her, she learns about her true destiny, that of Alosha, the Queen of the Fairies, a role she may only take on after facing her deepest fears. To prove herself worthy, she has to undergo seven tests that help her transform into her true self. Donna Marie Wagner, writing for the School Library Journal, remarked that "the writing is smooth and flows easily, and the author captures well the friends' dialogue and thought." Kliatt reviewer Michele Winship wrote that "this modern quest tale balances realistic fiction and fantasy moderately well."

The Shaktra serves as a sequel to Alosha, and continues Ali's quest to become Queen of the Fairies. This installment finds her traveling to rescue her mother, who has been captured and held in the Elemental worlds. She is aided by the friends she acquired in the earlier book, including a troll and a leprechaun. Sherry Hoy, reviewing for Kliatt, commented: "This offers a fast-paced storyline and unique and compelling characters, plus a real gotcha at the end." The Yanti, book three about Alison's quest to become the Fairy Queen, picks up from the cliff-hanger ending that closes the action of The Shaktra. In this installment, Ali Warner, both teenage girl and an incarnation of the fairy queen, must defend herself against false accusations of killing her friend Steve, as well as work to stop a war that is imminent. In order to do so, she scrambles to learn more about what it means to be a fairy, how her sister has become the Shaktra, and finally, just what the Yanti talisman is capable of. School Library Journal reviewer Christi Voth dubbed the books a "mix of magic, technology, and social message."

During the 1990s, Pike tried his hand at writing some books aimed specifically at adult readers. The first was Sati, a "sprightly contemporary parable" about the second coming of God, according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. In this story, a blonde, blue-eyed woman named Sati is picked up by a trucker while hitchhiking through the Arizona desert. He takes her back to his Los Angeles apartment, but instead of the sexual favors the trucker expects, Sati bestows upon him the news that she is the Supreme Deity. She does change the lives of those she comes into contact with, and then is suddenly slain by one who doubts her identity.

The Season of Passage is a suspense/horror book with leanings toward science fiction. It concerns an unmanned space probe that discovers gigantic footprints on the surface of Mars and a medical officer's search for the creature who made them. In The Cold One, Pike puts together "a unique combination of horror, mystery, and Eastern metaphysics" to create "a fascinating journey through the ‘dark side of mysticism,’" noted a reviewer for Rapport. The story begins with a series of grisly murders and follows a newspaper reporter who is pulled into the police investigation of the crimes. The trail leads to the Cold One, a humanoid being that creates zombie slaves by taking the breath from its victims. "It's impossible to describe the intricacies of the various subplots and the well-drawn minor characters that drive them," stated the Rapport writer, "but they all tie together nicely in the end, and remain entirely credible throughout the novel…. The Cold One makes for a well-spent, literary vacation from the many books that make you feel overcome with deja-vu." Pike is "a terrific read," concluded MacDonald, adding: "There's not much out there that is…. Every book he does has its own identity."

The Blind Mirror is Pike's 2003 novel for adults. Main character David Lennon is an artist recovering from a bad break-up with his beautiful ex-girlfriend Sienna Madden. While revisiting one of their old haunts, David discovers a woman's dead body washed up on a California beach. The FBI takes over the investigation, revealing that the woman was the victim of a ritualistic killing. When the woman is identified, David is crushed to learn that it is Sienna. However, he returns home to find her voice on his answering machine—the first of many messages Sienna will leave for him. The suspense builds as David searches for Sienna and tries to identify the dead woman. "Though somewhat filled with an unnecessary variety of fear generators, The Blind Mirror is a fine horror tale that hooks the reader," stated reviewer Harriet Klausner on the Books ‘n’ Bytes Web site. "Fans will ponder several times over whether the story is a psychological suspense thriller starring a flipped out killer who murdered his girlfriend, a supernatural tale, or science going berserk." Klausner concluded her review with the statement: "Christopher Pike keeps the chills at a high level with this exhilarating story." In Booklist, David Pitt questioned David as an unreliable narrator, stating that readers are "never quite sure whether we should completely trust [David]" because the narrator is a murder suspect himself, but added that readers "sink into the novel, losing touch with our own world as we fall deeper into Pike's." While some have criticized Pike's use of gore in his young adult novels, it is absent in this adult novel. Library Journal reviewer Jackie Cassada observed: "Pike delivers a moody, grim horror mystery for adults that relies more on atmosphere than gore for its emotional impact."

Falling is another Pike novel for adult readers. It features an FBI agent whose last case involved tracking down a serial killer, an investigation that has left her shaken and disturbed. She throws herself into her next assignment, a search for a kidnapped baby, in hopes that it will distract her, but when she begins to get to know the kidnapper and actually becomes his friend, it is clear that she is more seriously unhinged than was previously suspected. Writing for Booklist, David Pitt noted that the scenario was unlikely, but added that should a reader accept the premise, it makes for a "suspenseful exploration of love and redemption."

In an article published in the St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost, and Gothic Writers, David Mathew mused that "one of the secrets to [Pike's] success is that he does not water down his material for his younger audience." The contributor also observed that "Pike proposes a sort of alternative world (or a set of alternative worlds, his books having many different slants on modern-day teenaged life) in which children are the adults; as such they must be expected to understand the ways of the world," including sex and violence. "Pike explores the feelings, secrets and morals of young adults who are suddenly forced to do a lot of growing up very quickly." Mathew suggested that adults, as well as children, can enjoy Pike's novels: "Children's books in general are more tightly plotted than their adult equivalents, their sense of pace often better, with their authors less likely to try to splash their opinions and philosophies willy-nilly on the page. Pike delivers tight, informed prose, and the messages are there only if we want to read them into the work."

Ultimately, Pike writes mysteries because he enjoys the work. His attraction to the young adult genre is partially due to the fact that he finds teenage characters "extreme," more prone to exaggerated actions and reactions. At times, Pike is surprised by the celebrity status his readers have given him. "A bunch of kids found out where I lived and I had to move," he told Gamerman. "It spread like a rumor where I was…. It got weird. I have very intense fans."

Pike's suspense and horror novels are celebrated by young adults and children alike. As readers who first read his novels as young adults move on to his adult fiction, a second generation of adolescents continue to build their Pike collections, perfect for reading under the covers with a flashlight. Pike's books deliver desired amounts of shock and suspense, but they also teach valuable lessons about truth, trust, deception, betrayal, and other important aspects of human nature. Pike once reflected on the manifestation of his craft, coming to a simple conclusion: "I just love writing books," he said. "I don't think I could do anything else."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Children's Literature Review, Volume 11, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1986.

St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost, and Gothic Writers, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1998.

St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers, 2nd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 1990, review of See You Later, p. 327; May 1, 2003, David Pitt, review of The Blind Mirror, p. 1552; January 1, 2007, David Pitt, review of Falling.

Books for Keeps, November, 1989, review of Chain Letter, Spellbound, p. 13; November, 1994, Jonathan Weir, "Christopher Pike: Master of Murder," pp. 8-9.

Emergency Librarian, January-February, 1989, Sue Tait and Christy Tyson, "Paperbacks for Young Adults," pp. 53-54.

Harper's, June, 1991, Tom Engelhardt, "Reading May Be Harmful to Your Kids," pp. 55-62.

Horn Book, March-April, 1990, Michael O. Tunnell, "Books in the Classroom: Mysteries," pp. 242-244.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 1986, review of Weekend, p. 392; November 1, 1994, review of The Cold One, pp. 1439-1440; April 1, 2003, review of The Blind Mirror, p. 502.

Kliatt, July 1, 2004, Michele Winship, review of Alosha, p. 12; January 1, 2007, Sherry Hoy, review of The Shaktra, p. 30.

Library Journal, December, 1994, review of The Cold One, p. 139; April 15, 2003, Jackie Cassada, review of The Blind Mirror, p. 130.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, April 30, 1995, Tim Sullivan, review of The Cold One, p. 8.

New York Times, October 9, 1988, James Hirsch, "Nancy Drew Gets Real."

Publishers Weekly, April 25, 1986, Diane Roback, review of Chain Letter, p. 83; April 29, 1988, Kit Alderdice, "Archway Launches Christopher Pike Novels in Multi-book Contract," p. 49; June 24, 1988, Kimberly Olson Fakih, review of Gimmie a Kiss, p. 115; August 26, 1988, Kimberly Olson Fakih, review The Party, p. 91; April 28, 1989, Kimberly Olson Fakih, review of Remember Me, p. 82; January 12, 1990, Diane Roback, review of Fall into Darkness, p. 62; June 29, 1990, Diane Roback and Richard Donahue, review of See You Later, p. 104; August 17, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of Sati, p. 53; November 23, 1990, Diane Roback, review of Witch, pp. 66-67; January 6, 1992, review of The Season of Passage, pp. 52-53; February 15, 1993, review of Road to Nowhere, p. 240; June 14, 1993, review of The Immortal, p. 72; January 24, 1994, review of The Midnight Club, p. 57; November 21, 1994, review of The Cold One, p. 69; March 24, 2003, review of The Blind Mirror, pp. 52-53.

Rapport, Volume 18, number 6, review of The Cold One, p. 22.

School Library Journal, December, 1986, review of Slumber Party, p. 121; November, 1988, Ruth Sadasivan, review of Last Act, pp. 130-131; January, 1990, Bruce Ann Shook, review of Remember Me, p. 121; August, 1990, Molly Kinney, review of Scavenger Hunt, p. 164; March, 1995, Mary Jo Drungil, review of The Last Vampire, p. 225; November, 1995, Susan R. Farber, review of The Lost Mind, p. 120; August, 1999, review of Magic Fire, p. 160; October 1, 2004, Donna Marie Wagner, review of Alosha, p. 176; February 1, 2007, Christi Voth, review of The Yanti, p. 126.

Time, August 2, 1992, Paul Gray, "Carnage: An Open Book."

Voice of Youth Advocates, August-October, 1986, review of Chain Letter, p. 150; August, 1988, JoEllen Broome, review of Spellbound, p. 135; February, 1990, Joyce Hamilton, review of Scavenger Hunt, p. 346; June, 1992, review of Bury Me Deep, pp. 113-114; December, 1993, review of The Immortal, p. 312; October, 1998, review of The Hollow Skull, p. 286; August, 1999, review of Magic Fire, p. 194.

Wall Street Journal, May 28, 1991, Amy Gamerman, "Gnarlatious Novels: Lurid Thrillers for the Teen Set," p. A16.

Wilson Library Bulletin, October, 1991, Cathi Dunn MacRae, review of Die Softly, p. 101.