Barry Hutchison

Lisa Marie and her brother Vernon are taking a trip downtown to buy their dad a present. It's not as fun as it sounds though - Vernon isn't the best big brother, insistent on reminding everyone that Lisa Marie is only his stepsister and then there's his "incessant" moaning. Lisa Marie is smart, interested in the world around her, and kind even when people are mean, but Vernon never appreciates her.

I've read a lot of books with nasty siblings and freely admit that I was delighted when Vernon show more got his comeuppance. So, they go to Create-a-Ted, because the store is giving away free bears. Lisa Marie is worried about the previous owners (she's a big teddy fan and is also in the habit of fixing the stuffing machine for the owners) and the new owner is creepy, to put it mildly, but they end up making an Elvis bear for Lisa Marie's dad and creepy Halloween bears for each other.

Halloween night, after a rather uncomfortable trick-or-treating session (Vernon's nasty friends steal Lisa Marie's candy and, as usual, he's too wimpy to stand up for her) Lisa Marie is awoken by her witch bear... coming to life.

It turns out that the "new" store owner (he tricked the old ones into leaving) has stolen a scientific invention that brings stuffed bears to life and sent all the creepy bears out into the town to steal for him. Not only that, they have evil magic and the witch bear turns Lisa Marie's parents into a toad and a slug! Things seem bad, but then they get worse - the bear Vernon made is a combination of all bad things, from demon to vampire - and it's got an even more evil plan to take over the town and then the world!

Luckily, with the help of Elvis bear and Lisa Marie's smarts, they just might have a chance - if only Vernon can do the right thing for once and stick up for his little sister.

Goofy black and white cartoons are scattered throughout the book and while there are some Britishisms, and it's definitely got that wacky British humor, it's not foreign enough to turn off the (admittedly insular) majority of my library audience.

Verdict: Funny, gruesome, and very satisfying! The story ends satisfactorily, but with enough loose ends to make room for the sequels. Hand to fans of Attack of the fluffy bunnies, Mo O'hara, and Tom O'Donnell.

ISBN: 9780593174289; Published May 2020 by Delacorte; Borrowed from another library in my consortium show less

In the first book in this series Mr Hutchison terrified us with the eponymous Mr Mumbles, a hulking brute of a character that at the time I likened to the monsters from such classic slasher movies as Halloween and Friday 13th. In his new book the scares come from a very different kind of character. I'm thinking the minds of Hannibal Lecter and every serial killer that James Patterson and Jeffery Deaver have ever written about all packaged into the mind of a little girl in a dirty white dress show more and poorly applied make-up. For Caddie, the owner of the titular doll Raggy Maggie, is evil personified; the way she tortures and hurts her victims is part of a huge game to her, a game that if they lose they pay the ultimate price - wth their lives. And never have the words 'Peek-a-boo, I see you' sounded so chilling!

I LOVED Mr Mumbles (the book, not the monster I hasten to add) and I wondered just how Barry was going to be able to follow such a fantastic series opener. However, in a conversation with Tommy Donbavand, author of the Scream Street series and good friend of Barry Hutchison, I was reliably informed that Raggy Maggie was both better and more terrifying and so ever since I have been avidly waiting to get my hands on a copy. So much so that when it arrived in the post I dropped everything to read it, although sixty pages in I did put it down...... and then finished it late at night, all alone in the house, in order to get the most from the horrors within it. For your own sanity please do not try this at home!

In my opinion Caddie is one of the greatest ever creations in children's horror literature. She is so totally deranged the reader just does not know what to expect from her next. Whereas with Mr Mumbles we always knew he was going to be very much relying on brute strength and his apparent invincibilty, just as we have seen in the past from the likes of Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees, Caddie, however, is just a child. She is small and frail, as little girls are, so surely she should be a relatively minor test for Kyle, the boy who defeated Mr M in such style? Definitely not - underestimate Caddie and it will probably be the last thing you ever do. First of all, Caddie is super-fast; one moment she is there, the next she is gone. Secondly she has powers; boy does this girl have powers. She can take over the minds of adults to use their greater physical size to aid her, turn every day toys like teddy bears and dolls into mankillers with needle-like teeth, and she can turn innocent playground activities like skipping into a game of death where you could literally lose your head. And just when you think you may have had a lucky break and got the better of her...... enter Raggy Maggie herself!

Barry Hutchison also carries on where he left off by slowly revealing hints and snippets of back story that leave the reader completely tantalized. There are already so many questions that need answering, and he is an expert at giving us just enough information to have us trying to guess what will happen next, and why. Why is Kyle's father so bitter and intent on changing the world, or 'making it better' in his words? What is the story with Ameena, who disappeared out of Kyle's life shortly after the Mr Mumbles episode, but then suddenly reappears just as Kyle needs her help the most? And just how is it that Kyle can 'leap' between his world and the Darkest Corners? I am sure that all of these answers will come eventually, but that Mr Hutchison will not make the wait easy for us in the process.

Raggy Maggie hits the reader on a psychological level in ways that the gore-ridden output of the likes of Darren Shan just cannot manage. Don't get me wrong, I love a bit of gore just as much as the next boy, but these chills are oh so much better. I once taught a pupil who had a phobia of clowns - she was terrified of them; I have a feeling that in a few years time I could be teaching whole classes who suffer from pediophobia, the fear of dolls, if this series becomes as popular as Shan's work as it certainly deserves to. show less

I feel I must offer my apologies in advance for the brevity of this review. However, there is a very good reason for its relative shortness: to write as much as I normally do would create spoiler after spoiler as in The Beast a number of our Invisible Fiends questions are answered, and there are also a handful of "What the.....?" moments that you really will not see coming. If I had read a review where these were revealed to me in advance I would have been livid! In the words of Lord show more Melchett the plot of The Beast "twists and turns like a twisty-turny thing" and I am sure that you will need to be picking your jaw off the ground at least once during the story.

The Beast is possibly Barry's least scary Invisible Fiends book to date. However, this isn't saying much considering how pants-wettingly terrifying the first four books in the series have been and there are still more than enough nail-biting scenes to keep you balancing precariously on the edge of your seat. This time around the nasties that kyle finds himself up against are zombies, or Barry's own take on the ever-popular monster at least. I have likened each of the books in the series so far to a genre of horror film, and this one is most definitely a tribute to zombie movies, even if Barry does stray from the traditional by making his zombies super-fast moving. I had a brief Twitter chat with Barry about this, and I know he shares my opinion that zombies should be slow moving. As such he instead christens then Screechers (as a result of the noise they make), and as it is their fast speed is fully justified.

This is the penultimate book in the series and Barry uses it to treat us to a number of huge revelations, answering some of the questions that have been bouncing around in my brain ever since I first read Mr Mumbles. However, not ever loose end is tied off, and there is more to come in the final instalment, The Darkest Corners, scheduled for release in August of this year. This means that we are left on something of a cliffhanger at the end of The Beast, but Barry can be completely forgiven for this as I am sure he is setting us up for a truly epic finale to the story (no pressure Barry!). I for one can't wait to read it, although as I mentioned in yesterday's post there will be a certain degree of sadness that there will be no more Invisible Fiends books to look forward to again. This is definitely one of my favourite series of books for the 9 age group of the past few years, if not of all time. show less

Whenever I start to write a review I am determined that it will be succinct and straight to the point. Invariably they end up over-long and somewhat waffly, but no matter how hard I try I can't seem to write less, even when a book is so good all that really needs to be said is "It's brilliant, get your hands on a copy now!". The 13th Horseman, the first book in a new series by Invisible Fiends author Barry Hutchison, is one such book.

And now for the waffle (I just can't help myself). I love show more Barry's Invisible Fiends series - it has become one of my favourite series of the past few years - and so I couldn't help but be excited when a copy of The 13th Horseman arrived through my door. I had been following the progress of this book through Barry's blog and his tweets, and at the time it was fast becoming one of my top five most anticipated books of 2012. I was not disappointed.

The 13th Horseman is something of a departure for Barry, away from the realms of horror and into those of fantasy, and it certainly shows that he is no one-trick pony. Other reviewers have already likened it to the stories of Terry Pratchett, but I don't think that this is an entirely accurate parallel to draw. I haven't read the entire Pratchett series, but in my opinion it would be more accurate to liken The 13th Horseman to Pratchett's early Discworld novels, such as The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. Like these, The 13th Horseman is a fantasy story that just happens to be very, very funny, as opposed to being a comedy story set in a fantasy world. The Invisible Fiends series do have their comedic moments, especially the most recent in the series, The Beast, but in this new book Barry is able to let his talent for writing comedy shine.

Barry showed in his previous books that he has immense skill in creating great fantasy characters (think Caddy and Doc Mortis) and he continues to demonstrate this flair in The 13th Horseman. Barry's take on three of the horsemen of the apocalypse - War, Famine and Pestilence - will have kids giggling all the way through this book. Barry is coming to talk to the Year 7s at school in ten days and so I read the first two chapters to a group of them yesterday morning, and they were still chuckling and talking about it as they left the lesson.

This is the first book in Barry's Afterworlds series. This is not planned to be a series that tells one linear story, but in stead, like Pratchett's Discworld books, a series that tells a variety of different stories that are set in the same fantasy universe, with characters crossing over and making cameo appearances. The Invisible Fiends books are fabulous, but horror is not to every child's taste and so Barry's books are possibly not as widely read as they deserve. However, with this new book Barry is very much staking a claim as one of the top authors writing for the 10 age group today and I hope that The 13th Horseman will garner him the wider readership and great acclaim that he richly deserves. show less