On a remaking of the past…
Christopher Pike was one of the most popular authors in the
fantasy/thriller genre for teens back in my days of middle school and high
school in the '90’s. He wrote about
ghosts and psychic powers and ancient gods. The basic things most teens have to deal
with.
I read every one of his books back during his heyday. Then he didn’t publish anything for a few
years and he dropped off my radar completely.
I was in a used bookstore today and saw his name on the
cover of a book that I had never heard of before. Growing curious I picked it up and flipped to
the back cover.
It was his Last Vampire series that he wrote in the mid-'90s. The books have just been re-marketed to appeal
more to today’s youth. I guess modern teens just aren’t into his books with the
cheesy looking covers. They looked
something like this back then.
I guess Twilight fever has seeped into all the rest of the
vampire world. The original series has
been retitled Thirst. Thirst? Really? The name has been romanticized the way vampires are pictured nowadays. It gives it more of the yearning associated with the hipster type of vamp.
And the books are bigger now to match more with the heft of the books in the Twilight series. The series was recombined into collections. The first six books of the series are in Thirst
No. 1 and Thirst No. 2.
However, I am
pleased to see that Christopher Pike is writing again. He has added new books to the series in the last
couple of years. They make up parts four
and five.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Twilight and the other books of
today. I like the cover artwork and the
marketing. But does every vampire book
have to be like Twilight now? Do the vampire
books of the past even have to be reinterpreted to fit the Twilight model?
Or is it today’s teen market? I thought retro was “in.” Have they no sense of nostalgia? Can they not read a book just because it is a good
story? Will book cover prejudice never
end?
All in all, I’m glad that people are reading Christopher
Pike again. And a big hooray for new
Pike material!
It seems Christopher Pike is finally getting
some of the fame he deserved. It just took a bit of makeover to get a current audience swept away with vampire fever.
So how do YOU judge a book?
How much does the cover influence a book’s appeal?
