Daniel Stalter's Blog, page 15
August 17, 2020
FLIGHT 116 IS DOWN
Flight 116 is Down
by Caroline B. Cooney
Spoiler-Free Review
I became slightly obsessed with plane crashes last year after the whole Boeing scandal. So when I found out that Caroline B. Cooney wrote a teen horror/thriller novel in the 90s that centered around a plane crash, I obviously had to read it. I’m glad that I did because it was a thoroughly entertaining read. Flight 116 is Down moves at a lightning-quick pace. Cooney establishes Heidi and Patrick as the two main characters, then gets ...
July 21, 2020
MONSTER BLOOD II
Goosebumps #18: Monster Blood II
Spoiler-Free Review
The first Monster Blood book was a mess, but it was also a lot of fun to dissect. Monster Blood II on the other hand just felt pointless and boring. I didn’t even have a very illogical villain to make fun of this time. It’s odd how Monster Blood became such a formidable subfranchise of the Goosebumps series (becoming the only book to get 3 sequels). My theory is that they sold well based on the title and cover art because it definitely wasn...
July 7, 2020
WHY I’M AFRAID OF BEES
Goosebumps #17: Why I’m Afraid of Bees
Spoiler-Free Review
Why I’m Afraid of Bees could have easily been told in one sentence: I’m allergic to bees and one sting could kill me. But that’s not what this story is. In fact, bees were probably the least interesting part of Why I’m Afraid of Bees. I mean, I could only deal with so much of Gary as a bee yelling and trying to get people to hear him over and over again. There were some excellent body horror moments inside the beehive, so props to t...
June 30, 2020
EUPHORIA
Last year I wrote and produced a short comic called “Euphoria.” It was originally created for the anthology Crush: First Love, New Talent (Stacked Deck Press) that was edited by Tara Madison Avery and Viktor Kerney. The book did not meet its funding goal and was never printed, but I still wanted to put this story out into the world. I’m super proud of the work I did with Eleonora and Frank. It’s the end of Pride month. There’s a lot going on in the world, but the original purpose of pride feels...
June 23, 2020
HAUNTED
Fear Street #7: Haunted
Spoiler-Free Review
I really enjoyed Haunted in spite of a few really problematic aspects of it. It was well-conceived and thoroughly executed. The characters were typical of the Fear Street series but had enough nuance about them to keep things interesting. There were some genuinely creepy scenes and a premise that kept me guessing. Even though the story felt familiar, I didn’t mind. What I did mind was how shitty behavior on behalf of the two main male characters wa...
June 12, 2020
WHISPER OF DEATH
Whisper of Death
by Christopher Pike
Spoiler-Free Review
This was a twisted one, even by Christopher Pike’s standards. Overall, I liked it more than I didn’t. It was a good use of real-life trauma as a means of framing a horror story. There were some truly gruesome and unsettling scenes, which is what I’ve come to expect from Christopher Pike. There were also a few really strong characters and a few that were confusing. My main issue stems from the book wanting to be an allegorical account on...
May 15, 2020
FENCE
Reading through the first three volumes of Fence has been one of the most pleasant surprises Ive had in a while. On its surface, Fence is a light-hearted American take on sports manga with queer themes. I expected it to be fun. I expected I might like it. But I wasnt expecting it to be so sweet and sincere. If youre looking for a heartwarming escape from the dredges of reality, Fence would be a great place to start.
April 23, 2020
THE BEAST WITHIN
I still have the PowerPoint I made for a TV series called Ares. It was an assignment for my college senior seminar class. While it never got picked up, I ultimately folded its core ideas into a novel I started writing the following year. That abandoned novel was my first attempt at what is now known as Dream Crasher. The assignment was to pitch a TV series to my class. Of the twenty students, I think I was one of two that didnt pitch a reality series. My basic pitch was this: a group of...
April 15, 2020
ONE DAY AT HORRORLAND
This one was tons of fun, and it earns its reputation as one of the best books in the series. It takes the familiar family vacation gone wrong premise and gets real weird with it. It had a great sense of adventure, some solid characters in a unique setting, and it didnt waste any time with fake scares. Horrorland actually sounds like an amusement park I would go to. Hopefully, my car wouldnt explode in the parking lot and trap me...
April 7, 2020
BUDAPEST 2016
I have had some amazing opportunities to travel for my job, and I like to write about on here when I can. While so many of us are cooped up in our houses and apartments for the foreseeable future, I thought it would be a good time to look back on some past trips that I never got around to writing about. Im hoping it might vicariously satisfy some peoples need for a change of scenery. I decided to kick things off with my adventures in Budapest, which I returned from exactly four years ago this...
