Thank R.L. Stine for More Dead Teenagers — Fear Street Is Back

Great news for tween readers, bad news for teenagers in Shadyside, Ohio. R.L. Stine is bringing Fear Street back, which means even more dead teenagers in the never quiet town and a whole new generation of readers who’ll stay up late to finish their book and then be too terrified to fall asleep. Six new books will hit bookstores starting in September with Party Games (I’m guessing most of the games end in death, so don’t play).

I was never into Goosebumps, but I read most of the Fear Street series as a kid. My favorite was the 99 Fear Street trilogy, because after so many teens were killed by the house, why would you return to it to film a movie? And why would you play your older sister, who was one of the teens who died, in said movie? Nonsensical in the best way. Anyway, I kind of can’t wait to see how much more terrifying these new books are. The original series was mostly written during the supposed “End of History,” after the Cold War but before 9/11. There were no Saw movies. Teens today are so much more, um, screwed up than we were. Hopefully the new series will keep pace with that. And then I will read them and never sleep again.

You can preorder them here.

Also watch this video, and then ponder something with me. One time I read a book in which the main character was on the editorial board for a series of young adult mystery novels that were entirely ghostwritten, but the “author” (who I want to say was named Bob Ross but that’s the painting dude, so I don’t know) had this entire reclusive persona and social media presence. Eventually they hired someone to pretend to be the author. Anyway, do you think this video is the real R.L. Stine or just the person they hired to be R.L. Stine? I saw him on The Today Show 20 years ago and Bryant Gumbel’s daughter interviewed him instead of one of the actual grown up journalists, but still, maybe they called him out of retirement and he had to fly in from Bermuda to pretend to be R.L. Stine again. Probably not, but then again, we are just sentient dust and nothing is real anyway.

Via Jezebel