Meltdown

Mindwarp #10

by Chris Archer

Toni wakes up in the hospital only to discover that everyone around her believes her name is Denise and that she is losing her mind, and anticipating an Omega invasion, she seeks to find her friends and avoid commitment. Original.

Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Time Travel

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Alex Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

The most important episode in any series is the finale. You have to wrap up every loose thread and conflict, and give your characters a fitting close that you hope your audience will be satisfied with. Chris Archer’s finale to the Mindwarp series does… something different. I want to say I thought this was gonna be dogshit just off the blurb, and it’s not quite “dogshit” but more so just… upsetting. I’m very disappointed yet somehow at peace with the finale to Mindwarp. I guess I’m happy it’s over lol, but man, this is…NOT a good conclusion to what has been a phenomenal children’s work. I’ll sing my praises real quick: I think the emotional beats I wanted (grappling with suicide in terms of the dues ex machina, emotionally completing our characters and leaving them on a ambiguously uplifting note, and so on) were all present. They were here and I liked them a ton when they rolled around. There’s some good action pieces and great writing from Chris Archer, but… oh, man, Chris Archer. The greatest sin of this ending is the approach of the first half of the book: Toni wakes up in a hospital to find out the previous nine books never happened, and in actuality, are IN-UNIVERSE BOOKS WRITTEN BY CHRIS ARCHER, and she believes she’s Toni when she’s apparently someone else who thinks they’re Toni. And Chris Archer briefly becomes a character in the book. Not only does this commit the cardinal sin of saying you just wasted your time and stretch it out to sixty pages, rug pulling after or not, but this is the final book in the fucking series and Chris tried to slap some sloppy meta sewage into it. It’s really depressing, and it takes a giant shit on what could’ve been one of the best finales in the kids’ horror/sci-fi genre. But then we get a (admittedly decent) return to form albeit rushed and missing a thousand remaining story beats, unanswered questions, WHERE IS THE TODD CLONE?, etcetera, with the next chunk of the story where most of my positives lie…. Which then leads into one of the most confusing storytelling choices I’ve ever come across: the choose-your-own-ending segment. Wrapping a meta bow on the story, you can pick two endings (or so they seem, until the true, non-exchangeable ending occurs) that both end darkly, involving Toni having red or silver blood. I think both segments are pretty dumb, and the choice to do THIS of all things in the final moments of the most intense kids’ series I’ve ever read… yeah, fuck off. And then it bails on it with a useless revelation that either one was a dream, which is just annoying and makes me question why it’s there (though I have a theory why). Also quick note: Toni being the protagonist is so off-putting for the finale; it should’ve been Todd, if anything, since he started it all, or third-person omniscient. But on my theory: I think Chris Archer leaving a foreword to Denise Butler and this meta-GYG thingamabob at the end AFTER we’ve passed that whole ordeal by then it just more agonizing fuel for the “whole series was a series in itself” narrative, which I personally don’t believe but it’s sending mixed signals. It sucks no matter what.

So the dust has settled and I’m feverishly mixed on this finale. The only rating I can give proper to this mess of a wrap-up is a 5/10. I am thoroughly somber right now as this was a whole year of build-up for me going into the midder (ha), but at least it’s over, and whilst I am NOT tolerating it—don’t get it twisted, buddy—………it could’ve been worse.

R.I.P. Mindwarp. The Todd Clone was the friends made along the way….

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes an author has some nifty little ideas but really cheesy execution. I can see myself being really into the whole Mindwarp series if I were younger, say 9 or 10 years old.

Book 10 was ultimate cheese. At least Chris Archer didn't rely on stupid cliffhangers like R.L. Stine did in the Goosebumps series. But really, self-insertion of the author? I thought that was an amateur trick.

Ending a series can really be tough. I'm not sure the little choose-your-own-ending bit really worked. I would have preferred something like what K.A. Applegate did when she ended Animorphs (truly a great, innovative kids' series that I personally have not seen equaled to this day).

Yes, I'm 25 and I still read kids' books. Trust me, a lot of them have more merit than some of the adult crap I've read in the last 2 months. So much fluff out there.

[Joe Kessler · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird end to a chaotic series, and probably the first one that really earns the "Mindwarp" title. These books have always been like a middle-grade sci-fi sampler project, and so it's only fitting that the final volume introduces its younger readers to another few classic genre tropes on the way out. First, the story starts with its heroine Toni waking up in a hospital, where she's told that she's just confused, her powers aren't real, and none of the adventures she's been on with her friends truly happened. It's gaslighting, as that ploy always is, but before she sees through the illusion she's introduced to a man calling himself Chris Archer, who says that her memories are a fiction she's read in the Mindwarp novels he's written.

The meta twist is fun, but it falls apart the longer you think about it and doesn't ultimately add much to the plot. (Same goes for a surprise appearance of a choose-your-own-adventure choice late in the text, where both branches turn out to be a dream and lead to the same place after all.) The bigger issue is that by the time the protagonist has figured out it's all a lie and escaped from her capture, the book is already two-thirds of the way done. That's the bulk of the finale spent with just one character, and the remainder with everyone else comes across as a perfunctory rush to tack on a conclusion that only vaguely resolves the wider narrative. There aren't really any satisfying callbacks to earlier installments, farewells to previously recurring characters, or payoff to arcs like Toni and Jack's flirtatiously squabbling banter. The other kids don't even get one last heroic use of their special abilities, although Toni's electricity-manipulation and time travel at least get a solid workout.

It's better as a story about her than as an ending, and I suppose I might be grading on a curve for the intended audience when I award it a passing grade of three-out-of-five stars. This is a series that's alternated between good and great for me, even coming back to finish it as an adult reader, but it's sadly unable to stick the landing in the ultimate analysis.

This volume: ★★★☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Volumes ranked: 6 > 3 > 5 > 9 > 7 > 2 > 1 > 8 > 10 > 4

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[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, this guy did not know how to end this series. Didn’t even pretend to.