Daniel Stalter's Blog, page 4

THE DEADLY FIRE

The Cataluna Chrinicles #3:
The Deadly Fire© 1995 by Parachute Press. Cover Art by Don Brautigam.

Sequels to The Evil Moon
& The Dark Secret

 

   

Spoiler-Free Review

The Deadly Fire surprised me in that it was much more enjoyable than The Deadly Secret. It suffered from some of the same logic problems as each of the previous two books, but it managed to avoid repetition and kept things entertaining. Drag racing was the natural next step for the trilogy to take, and I think that aspect of the ...

THE DARK SECRET

The Cataluna Chrinicles #2:
The Dark Secret© 1995 by Parachute Press. Cover Art by Don Brautigam.

Sequel to: The Evil Moon
Prequel to: The Deadly Fire

 

   

Spoiler-Free Review

While The Dark Secret did reveal some new things, it ultimately stuck to familiar roads we’ve been down many times before. It opened with the most creative kill scene of the book, but overall it was significantly less violent than the first book. I did enjoy the absolutely bonkers explanation of how the Cataluna came to...

THE EVIL MOON

The Cataluna Chrinicles #1:
The Evil Moon© 1995 by Parachute Press. Cover Art by Don Brautigam.

Sequels: The Dark Secret
& The Deadly Fire

 

   

Spoiler-Free Review

The first book of The Cataluna Chronicles trilogy is an odd one. There was a lot I liked, and a few things that I wish had been more developed. I read all of these books as a kid, but remember very little aside from the fact that I named our family dog Misty after one of the characters. I hadn’t realized how much of the Netflix Fea...

HOW TO KILL A MONSTER

Goosebumps #46:
How to Kill a Monster© 1996 by Parachute Press. Cover Art by Tim Jacobus.

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Spoiler-Free Review

How to Kill a Monster was a bit of a mess, so let me start with what I liked. I liked that the titular Monster showed up early and was particularly grotesque. I also thought Gretchen and Clark were solid characters, not to mention I believe they’re the first step siblings to appear in the Goosebumps franchise. It’s too bad they were stuck in a terrible plot. The entire second half of...

GHOST CAMP

Goosebumps #45:
Ghost Camp© 1996 by Parachute Press. Cover Art by Tim Jacobus.

 

 

Spoiler-Free Review

I can tell that Ghost Camp would have been one of my favorites as a kid, right up there with Welcome to Dead House. Right off the bat, it established a really creepy setting. There was a foreboding atmosphere to the camp, and the book delivered some great scary moments. Harry and Alex were solid main characters, and it was nice to have two siblings who got along. Unfortunately, the book fell ...

BLOG DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE

The majority of my blog will be down for maintenance, I hope to have everything back up in September.

THE BEAST 2

The Beast 2
by RL Stine

Sequel to: The Beast

 

 

Spoiler-Free Review:

The Beast 2 is the sequel to one of my favorite RL Stine books. I like to think of The Beast duology as the “lost” Goosebumps books (where “lost” means “published by a different publisher”). Regardless, they fit in perfectly with the rest of the franchise. I’m having difficulty summarizing my thoughts on this one. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either. So far as RL Stine’s track record on sequels goes, this was one of the ...

SAY CHEESE AND DIE — AGAIN!

Goosebumps #44: Say Cheese and Die — Again!
Sequel to: Say Cheese and Die!

 

Spoiler-Free Review

Say Cheese and Die – Again! is a sequel we probably could have done without. It’s not that it was aggressively bad so much as it was frustrating and forgettable. It ended up being just a rehash of the first book, only with a few new evil camera tricks. There was an opportunity to do something different and interesting with the narrative that Stine almost took, but that’s not the book we got. The ch...

ONE EVIL SUMMER

Fear Street #25: One Evil Summer

   

Spoiler-Free Review

I have a vague recollection of reading One Evil Summer as a kid, but I didn’t remember any specifics. I was glad for this because it ended up being the most fun I’ve had reading a Fear Street book in a while. It had some of the familiar Fear Street tropes but avoided the most over-used ones. It was unhinged in all the right ways. Things got off to a strong start with Amanda being locked up in a psychiatric facility and no one believing he...

AMSTERDAM 2019

I was in Berlin for a long and stressful work trip, and I decided to tack on a trip to Amsterdam to the end of it. Four years later, I finally got around to recapping it.

 

Day 1

I booked a six-hour train ride across the German countryside and got cozy with a new book: My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. I saw some windmills and lots of hills. When I got off the train in Amsterdam, I was immediately greeted by a massive amount of bikes. I knew immediately I was going to like it h...