Doorway to Doom

Strange Matter #20

by Marty M. Engle, Johnny Ray Barnes

144 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1996

Reviews

[Austin Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Liked the idea for this one and it started out promising but it's way too chaotic, messy, and weird for me. I feel like it barely makes sense by the end. I think if the authors would have hit the brakes on this one a tad bit and focused more on the story it could've been really good.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Time to dive into a series I covered in my Goosebumps ripoff month once again. The randomizer picked this one and boy was it an interesting pick. Usually I'd wait on his one but it gives me a chance to talk about this series interesting take on continuity. I brought up in the review of Creature Features that it seemed to take the Fear Street approach, where it's fundamentally almost an anthology with a new protagonist each time, it's just that being set in the same city meant there would be references and cameos that usually wouldn't have a big impact on the story.

That's sort of the case here but they have a bigger impact here. In this case this book stars someone who was previously a bully character in past books. Apparently in Strange Forces stuff happened to make him mellow out a bit, and even here he recounts bumping into a monster. That leads us to the story where he is so scared of everything out there that is staying at home and not going outside much. Boy this is relatable already

But of course he does this right when a poltergeist is haunting his house, now he and a babysitter must face the dangers it brings. The approach is interesting, sort of a middle ground between Fear Street and something like Spooksville with a consistent cast. It's still done in a way where you can generally jump around and it's just nice for those have read them all.

This relies more on it but they give you enough information to understand, although I feel having greater context would have helped me a bit, I actually did a little research beforehand, not sure how it would be if I just jumped in. Anyway, that aside this book is really fun. The pacing is pretty fast and I did need to stop a few times but it was always moving and still had a lot of suspense.

They have fun with the poltergeist angle, as it manifests the memories of the person it's a poltergeist of into some wild stuff that leads to some fun scenes. I also liked that the babysitter had a decent role and they swap perspectives a few times to shake things up. The backstory for the poltergeist is solid and makes for a good parallel to Waylon. There's a few moments that remind us of how he's changed and that was nice.

The ending was slightly confusing though, but not bad. And as much as the poltergeist here, quite a bit is dumped on us at the end but enough information is given before hand so I suppose it's not like we're left in the dark then suddenly everything comes out. There's also more of the small annoying aspects to the writing, like constant CAPS and this time there's a lot of "..." where it wasn't needed.

Otherwise, highly enjoyable and decently creepy, with even some nice moments and development here and there. I said Strange Matter was the series I wanted to read more from and this certainly cemented it. Oh and speaking of Creature Features, there's a preview for the next book, Under Wraps in this and it looks the gang from that book comes back for this one! Well, guess I gotta get a hold of that one someday.

[Alejandro Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange Matter (unsurprisingly) knocked it out of the park once more, and whilst I have my light nitpicks, this story is the most thematically compelling of the series thus far. It has a great moral and one that I’ve been wanting to find in a book for a long time: don’t wallow in nostalgia and embrace the now. It delivered it so amazingly well and didn’t even fumble, of which I feared heavily; it wasn’t insulting to nostalgia, instead welcoming it whilst embracing now-memories. There’s some great theming here all around and everything here has a part to play, and I’ll dare say that this entry was plotted like a nuclear strike: insanely well, and all went well. Waylon Burst coming into center stage for this story (a recurring menace in other Strange Matter books) was a perfect fit for what was being built up here and a steady, redeeming, and welcome direction for the ex-bully. There’s a lot of mention towards the events of another book of this series, “A Place to Hide,” which just oozes the authors’ clear passion for this supposed-to-be comic extravaganza. There’s some locational orgy going on here and it works wonders, almost feeling straight out of the Backrooms and the depths of my nightmares at points, like the cardboard/blanket maze (slight spoiler, sorry). The characters all-round are great and even have some light arcs, the ending is fantastic and heart warming as all-mighty hell, and the book is insanely wild/complex/and most importantly entertaining. With all of this glaze said, there’s two things I’d like to note: the first half’s utter suspension of reason, and that I found it hard to take giant walking/talking you-know-whats-if-you-read-the-book seriously. That second one is self explanatory… but on that first regard: I couldn’t understand for the life of me where this was trying to lead us, and I think it’s not much an issue after knowing what was going on, but damn is it just borderline randothon for the first sixty pages, even if legitimately fun and interesting. But no less… this series can’t miss, and I will legitimately anticipate a book I can’t almost wholly glaze. Overall, 10/10. Strangely upholding of a great quality, the matter is. Waylon bagged his babysitter (joke).