"Thoughts of Joy..."

CREEPERS

David Morrell ~ BOiPod

Personal Rating: 2/5

Yearly Count: 124

Fred. Daphne. Ring a bell? How about Velma? Now this one is a give-away . . . Shaggy. Have you guessed? If not . . . I'm referring to the cartoon show Scooby-Doo. This book was the spittin' image of a Scooby-Doo caper including the characters trying to solve a mystery in an old abandoned building, creepy sounds, unexpected visitors and, of course, hide and seek with the evil one. To prove my point more, this statement was proclaimed in the building, "Only us ghosts." Now what would a Scooby-Doo show be without ghosts? Rut-Roh. I think the operative word there is show. Don't get me wrong, I love Scooby-Doo as a cartoon character, but not disguised as adult reading material.

The Author's Note at the end of the book reveals a portion of Morrell's childhood that inspired the writing of this book. I found that note to be interesting and meaningful, too bad more of that writing didn't transcend into the plot.

ADDENDUM:

I'm NOT the only one!

After reading the comment from Ladytink, I decided to see what the sequel to this book could possibly be. First, I headed to Creepers (on Amazon) and was shocked to discover my exact feelings in the following portion from Publishers Weekly:

"Where the novel is creepy and atmospheric, Lawlor's narration is over-the-top and cartoonish-it's too much Scooby-Doo and not enough The Haunting. The overall production values are very good; the sound effects used during walkie-talkie communication are a nice touch. But this audiobook cannot overcome Lawlor's terrible miscasting, which rendered an otherwise fine horror novel into a campy mess."

Okay, so MAYBE, just MAYBE it was an audiobook version error. I can give him that. I will now consider a revisit to this author, but certainly not in the near future.

Off I go, back to what I was originally doing - finding out about the supposed sequel.

FYI: The sequel's title is Scavenger.