R.l.Stine, the stephen king of children’s literature, has now come back with a new series called: Goosebump Horrorland.
Titles from the series so far
1.Revenge of the living dummy
2.Creep from the deep
3. Monster Blood for Breakfast
4. Scream of the Haunted Mask
Biography
Stine was born in Columbus, Ohio the oldest of three children, to a homemaker mother and a shipping clerk father. Stine had a Jewish upbringing. He began writing when he found a typewriter in his attic, subsequently beginning to type stories and joke books and has been writing ever since. He graduated from Ohio State University in 1965 and moved to New York City to become a writer. He wrote dozens of joke books for kids under the pen name Bob Turdis and created the humor magazine Bananas, where he worked for many years.
career as a writer
In 1986, Stine wrote his first teen horror novel, Blind Date. He soon followed with the novels Beach House, Hit and Run, and The Girlfriend. He was a co-creator and head writer for the Nickelodeon Network children’s television show Eureeka’s Castle, original episodes of which aired as part of the Nick Jr. programming block during the 1989 to 1995 seasons.
In 1990, Stine teamed up with Parachute Press to create Fear Street, which soon became the best selling young adult series in the nation. In 1992, Stine and Parachute went on to launch Goosebumps, the phenomenal series that made the author an international celebrity and resulted in his becoming a well known writer for younger audiences. According to Forbes List of the 40 best-paid Entertainers of 1996-97, Stine placed 36th with an income of $41 million for the fiscal year.His books have been translated into 32 languages and have sold over 300 million copies worldwide, landing on bestseller lists world wide. In three consecutive years during the 1990s, USA Today named Stine as America’s number one best-selling author. Among the awards he has received are the 2002 Champion of Reading Award from the Free Public Library of Philadelphia (that award’s first year), the Disney Adventures Kids’ Choice Award for Best Book-Mystery/Horror (three time recipient) and the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards (also received three times). During the 1990s, Stine was listed on People Weekly’s “Most Intriguing People” list, and in 2003, the Guinness Book of World Records named Stine as the best-selling children’s book series author of all time. His stories have even inspired “”R.L. Stine’s Haunted Lighthouse””, “4D” movie-based attractions at SeaWorld San Diego and Busch Gardens Europe.
Also produced was a TV series that ran for four seasons from 1995-1998 and two video games; Escape From Horrorland and Attack of the Mutant.
In the first decade of the 21st century, Stine has worked on installments of three different book series, Mostly Ghostly, Rotten School and Fear Street and the stand-alone novels Dangerous Girls(2003) and Dangerous 2: The Taste of Night (2004). Also, a direct-to-DVD movie The Haunting Hour Volume One: Don’t Think About It, starring Emily Osment, based on Stine’s Haunting Hour series, was released by Universal Home Entertainment on September 4th, 2007.
In an 2007 interview with Entertainment Weekly, author Tom Perrota revealed that he was responsible for ghostwriting The Thrill Club as part of Stine’s Fear Street series
After graduating from Mt. Austin High School in 1988 and Sydney’s St. Aloysius’ College in 1992, Reilly wrote his first book Contest in 1994 whilst attending the University of New South Wales. It was rejected by every major publishing company in Sydney on the basis that his story concept was unoriginal and full of clichés and tired synonyms. This caused Reilly to self-publish 1,000 copies using money borrowed from his family. Unfortunately, some books were stolen from the back of his car and the original Contest books have become such a rarity that they have been known to fetch up to $300.
Reilly went to a bookstore in Sydney and asked if he could place the copies on one of their book shelves. They accepted the offer and placed them up. Very shortly after, the books had sold out and the owner of the bookstore called Reilly to order more books.
One copy was read by Cate Patterson, Commissioning Editor for Pan Macmillan, who immediately signed Reilly up to write Ice Station, which became an international best-seller.
In the years to come, he wrote Temple, Area 7, and Scarecrow, which have since been published in over fifteen countries, including Norway, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, South Africa, Japan and China (notably he has not been published in France, maybe because the French have been antagonists in all of their appearances in his novels).
Reilly is well known for his style of writing, which focuses entirely on Hollywood-style action scenes, relegating drama and character development to second priority. Many critics condemn this, and point out that Reilly unashamedly writes his books to read like movies, with improbability following improbability; however, Reilly’s fans argue that his writing style is what makes the books unique and exciting.
Reilly’s main influences include Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and possibly Art Bell. His latest work is a novel called The Six Sacred Stones, the sequel to Seven Ancient Wonders.
Matthew Reilly has completed an eleven minute trailer that depicts the beginning sequences of his book Contest. This trailer will form the basis of promotions in Hollywood to help secure funding/distribution for a full length film of Contest directed by himself.
In August 2005, as part of the Australian Books Alive Promotion, Reilly penned the novella Hell Island, a close-to-100-page short story following on from Scarecrow.
Reilly owns and drives a De Lorean, modified to have the driver’s seat on the right side, one of only a few in Australia. He also has a life-size replica of Han Solo encased in carbonite.
Heroes
A common feature of all of Reilly’s major books are their central characters – strong, capable men with distinguishing features, three of them acquired during a previous life-defining experience; the exception, William Race, the hero of Temple, has a triangular birthmark on his cheek just under his left eye. Shane Schofield, nicknamed “Scarecrow”, the hero of Ice Station and its sequels Area 7, Hell Island and Scarecrow, bears two scars across his eyes from when he was captured and tortured. Stephen Swain, the main character of Contest, has a scar on his upper lip from when he confronted a gunman in the hospital where he worked. The Australian hero of Seven Ancient Wonders, Jack West Jr, has a bionic arm from when he was forced to plunge his hand through a wall of lava to escape a room. There is only one exception to this rule – Jason Chaser, the 14-year-old child from Hover Car Racer. All of Reilly’s heroes are adept at finding solutions to the many problems they encounter, even if farfetched.
Stand alone novels
1996 Contest (Self-published in 1996; published by Pan Macmillan in 2000)
1999 Temple (appears to be set in the same universe as Reilly’s other novels, is referred to in passing in both Area 7 and Scarecrow. Could be the temple mentioned in Ice station)
“The christmas box” is a book written by Richard Paul Evans and self-published in 1993. A Christmas story written for his children, the book sold by word of mouth with such success that it soon got the attention of the big publishing houses. A bidding war erupted which resulted in Evans receiving several million dollars for the publishing rights.
Released in hardcover in 1995 by Simon & Schuster, The Christmas Box proved a publishing phenomenon, becoming the first book to simultaneously reach the No.1 position on the New York Times bestseller list for both the paperback and hardcover editions. That same year, the book was made into a television movie of the same title starring Richard Thomas and Maureen O’Hara.
A journey to the center of the earth is a classic science fiction novel by Jules Verne( who also wrote Twenty thousand leagues under the sea, and around the world in eighty days). The story involves a professor who leads his nephew and hired guide down a volcano in Iceland to the “center of the Earth”. They encounter many adventures, including prehistoric animals and natural hazards, eventually coming to the surface again in southern Italy. From a scientific point of view, this story has not aged quite as well as other Verne stories, since most of his ideas about what the interior of the Earth contains have since been proven wrong. However, a redeeming point to the story is Verne’s own belief, told within the novel from the viewpoint of a character, that the inside of the Earth does indeed differ from that which the characters encounter.
The film however would be quite different: The film will transpose the novel into the present day and will be mostly live action, with only the landscape and creatures supplied by computer-generated graphics. It also stars Brendan Fraser as Trevor.
When i first saw the trailer to this movie, it got me interested in reading the book. This book, written by Jeanne Duprau, revolves around the underground city of ember. It’s the one known surviving settlement and “the only light in the dark world” that’s slowly dying as supplies run low.
Actors in the movie: Bill Murray( as the mayor), Saoirse Ronan( Lina). Harry Treadaway(Doon).
SPOILER ALERT: I POSTED THE PLOT SUMMARY OF THE BOOK AND SOME INFORMATION ON THE CHARACTERS!
Main characters: Linda Mayfleet (Lina is twelve years old, and is described as being a “slender girl with long dark hair.”. She lives in Quillium Square. Lina, and her sister Poppy, are orphans, and live with their grandmother. Her mother died during childbirth; her father died during an outbreak of “Coughing Sickness.” Lina’s great-great grandfather was the seventh mayor of Ember, and was responsible for the loss of the box containing the Instructions for Egress.) Doon Harrow( He was originally assigned the fast-paced messenger job when he was twelve, which he switched with Lina Mayfleet for Pipeworks laborer because he thought he could save the dying city by fixing the Generator. He learned later that this was pointless because no one knew how it worked. He was a helper in decoding the Instructions for Egress (escape), and was, with Lina and her sister, Poppy, one of the first people to leave.)
Plot summary
Ember is a completely self-contained, self-maintained city. All food and supplies come from giant storerooms under the city and a handful of greenhouses. All the books in the library, apart from the city history “The Book of Ember” and the schoolbooks “The Book of Letters” and “The Book of Numbers”, have been hand written by residents over the years of Ember. All the light in the city comes from lamps and floodlights; when these are extinguished, the city is completely dark, with no stars, sun, or moon. The electricity in the city comes from an ancient hydro-electric generator in the underground Pipeworks; keeping the aging generator operational is a constant task. Beyond the borders of Ember are the dark Unknown Regions, which are unexplorable because none of the Emberites can produce a mobile source of light. Ember was constructed many years ago by the Builders, but nothing is known about them other than the facts that they built the city and provided its supplies.
The story begins immediately after the construction of the city. Two of the Builders discuss what will happen when supplies run low and conditions become bleak, and decide to leave instructions for escape in a special sealed box, which will open automatically after 220 years, when it will be safe to leave the city. The box is entrusted to the Mayor of Ember, who passes it down to the following Mayor when she leaves office. While the Mayors do not know what the box contains, they keep it safe over the years and do not tell anyone about it. However, the box is lost and forgotten when the seventh Mayor unsuccessfully tries to open it and then dies before he can pass it on to his successor.
The action then shifts to the year 241 in Ember. It is Assignment Day at the Ember school. On this day, the 12 year olds finish their education and enter the workforce. They are assigned jobs at random by the withdrawal of pieces of paper from a bag held by the mayor. One student, Lina Mayfleet, draws the job of Pipe-works Laborer; which will require her to work underground in the huge Pipeworks that power Ember and deliver its water, repairing lights and pipes as needed. Another student, Doon Harrow, becomes a Messenger. The Messengers are Ember’s communication team, who run around the city relaying personal messages between citizens.
Both Lina and Doon dislike their chosen jobs, and therefore exchange them. Doon wishes to work in the Pipeworks because he is seriously concerned with the state of the city. Blackouts and power outages are becoming common in Ember. In addition, supplies are dwindling, buildings are crumbling and the city seems to be breaking down piece by piece. On the job in the Pipeworks, Doon explores the tunnels and tries to discover a way to save Ember. He even sneaks into the room containing the giant Generator, but realizes at once that he has no idea how it works, much less how to repair it.
Lina is thrilled to have the job of Messenger because it allows her to run and explore every corner of Ember while she delivers her messages. She works hard, puzzling over secret messages passed to the Mayor from a strange man named Looper. She also copes with her grandmother’s ever failing health, and cares for her little sister, Poppy.
Poppy discovers an ancient piece of paper in a box in the Mayfleet apartment. By the time Lina manages to pry it out of the toddler’s hands, the paper has been chewed and torn to pieces, and the writing has been obscured in many places. Lina hangs on to the scraps, and becomes convinced they hold a special message. She shows the paper to certain friends and neighbors, including her old classmate Lizzie Brisco, but nobody has any clues as to its significance.
Lina’s grandmother cannot explain the paper either, but incoherently rambles on about finding “something that was lost”. Her health continues to fail, and she dies. One of the Mayfleet family’s neighbors, a kindly woman named Mrs. Murdo, offers to take Lina and Poppy in. Lina accepts this offer.
Eventually, Doon and Lina piece the paper together and a friend tells Lina that the message contains “Instructions for Egress”–instructions to leave Ember. They descend into the Pipeworks and discover that the instructions are indeed valid, and that the underground river holds the key to escape from the city. They also discover that a man named Looper is stealing the disappearing resources of Ember from the storerooms and giving them to the Mayor in a secret room in the Pipeworks. They report the Mayor’s theft to City Hall, confident that he will be arrested.
However, the Mayor sets his guards upon the pair, and orders their arrest for “spreading vicious rumors.” Before they can tell the residents of Ember about the Instructions for Egress, they are forced to flee the city. Lina manages to take her little sister Poppy, and, with Doon, goes down into the Pipeworks and flees Ember by boat on the underground river.
The river eventually leads to a great rock slope. Poppy discovers a book on the riverbank; Lina and Doon keep it and bring it along to read later. After a long and arduous climb, Lina, Doon and Poppy emerge from the rocks into a new world, where they discover sunlight, moonlight, stars and nature.
This discovery is followed by another one, their history. The battered book turns out to be a personal journal; reading it, Lina and Doon learn that their city was founded by a group of one hundred adults and the same number of children as a measure to guarantee the survival of the human race in a disaster that obliterated civilization.
Doon and Lina explore a nearby cave. Looking down from a high cliff in the cave, they are amazed to see Ember below them–and realize that they have been living underground all along. In a last-ditch effort to save their city’s citizens, the three write a note with the Instructions for Egress, wrap it in Doon’s shirt, and hurl it down into Ember. It is found by Lina’s guardian, Mrs. Murdo.
Sequels: The people of sparks, the prophet of yonwood, and the fourth book, which is coming out on August 26, 2008, is The diamond of Darkhold.
Hopefully the movie is as good as how the trailer made it out to be. If anyone had read this book and/or its sequels, please comment about it.
1ST and BESTSELLER 