Stories of ultimate revenge, from freshly sold human meat and uncontrollable robots, to life-sucking MP3 players and reality TV where death is the penalty – all told with dark humour and gruesome relish, and made even more fiendish by retro illustrations, chilling facts and a puckish message from the author. This is Anthony Horowitz at his most wicked.Scared to Death: Ten Sinister Stories by the Master of the Macabre
This chilling collection of ten nightmarish and fiendishly funny short stories is a perfect read for fearless children. From a train journey straight to hell, out of control robots with a murderous streak and even a television show where death is the penalty – these terrifying tales display the dazzling wit and wicked humour of master storyteller Anthony Horowitz, and are guaranteed to make your blood curdle and your spine tingle.If you've been following my reviews for a while, you know that I'm a big of Horror and read Horrorwitz first horror stories when I teenager. I have since re-read and reviewed those stories. I thought they held up, so I brought this book from a library sale a while ago but ended up reading the ebook from the library because of Lockdown. I had been looking at the graphic novels and saw an adaption of the Hitckhiker, a story in Horowitz Horror collection. It was fine, I think it works better as a story but not worth a writing a full review but it left me curious if they had Horowitz other works. I saw these two story collections, More Bloody Horror and Scared to Death. Thinking they were completely different works, I check both them out.
These are the same books, but with changes to update them. Technically, Scared to Death ends up with less content, which is probably for the best. The first story and Intermission is left out. Probably should have left the terrible poem in as the whole intermission in the re-released. 'Scared to Death' does have its one unique story.
This has the layout out of a newspaper article, which I'm sure is very charming in a physical book but a pain in the butt for me reading it digitally from pdf. Each story has an illustration before it and sometimes a minor one after. The illustrations are well done, if not sometimes spoilerly for what ends up happening to the characters.
I wrote reviews for each story as I went so half of the review was written before I knew that Scared to Death was a re-released with some of the problematic things changed.
The Man Who Killed Darren Shan: I'm sure Horowitz got permission to plot the murder of real children's writer Darren Shan. Though, imagine if he didn't and the first you hear of it is during book festival season. How awkward. This book was about a failed horror writer deciding that the similarity between his and Shan work being too much for coincidence. 3/5 stars for taking out the competition.
Bet Your Life: So this a game show with an obvious twist, the story takes place on the finale eve which has five finalists so it's perfectly pre-dates Drag Race, including the transphobia (okay, I thought it was four when I made this joke, but it's only a matter of time with Ru). All the finalists are men, because of course, but one of the contestants is a Trans man who they call a 'woman' and use she/her pronouns for him. The exact quote describing him is 'She gave away very little about herself - although, she had let me known if she won, she wanted to become a man.' I could let this go as it being dated, but this book is also sold as comedy apparently. Also know that a Trans woman has won Big Brother, a show referenced in the opening so definitely leaves me on the alert. And I was right because we get a bit of ableist common to reality shows "Clive in his wheelchair, hoping to claw something back in a life that had been wrecked by a car accident". I guess this could count as commentary.
A prefer named is given as Melvyn, so that's what I'll use. He is referred to as 'pitless' and is made out to be the villain in this, like he's a terrible person for competition against a 16-year-old, but not that feeling towards anyone else involved.
Why would the prime minister be the final question giver? How well does pig feel compared to humans? What does this Latin quote mean? How many people am I directly responsible for killing?
Horowitz is a TV writer and there was a very negative feeling towards reality TV at the time. This does and says nothing. It somehow manages to be Cliché almost immediately. The most noticeable is the transphobia for no reason.
Replacing the transphobia is a knowledging you did something wrong but its not enough to take it out. If they had just changed the character to being an openly trans man using the correct name and pronouns, who wants the money for top surgery. That's commentary. I mean the way the character is written is terrible so you would have to actually completely re-write or make another character trans for it to be forgivable. They are no quick fix for transphobia. What I've read of Horowitz work, his books have never been diverse. He rarely writes outside his middle-class white man bubble, so perhaps its best he didn't attempt it. Realistically I'm not sure what the fix is. Maybe this story should have also been taken out of the re-release.
0/5 stars for Transphobia.
You Have Arrived: Steal a car and so it goes badly obviously. This story's illustration tells you the twist before you've read it. It's whatever. 2.5/5 stars for Dionaea Muscipula.
The Cobra: Kid is a brat in a foreign country. Gets his comeuppance. 2.5 for Anti-venom.
Robo-Nanny: Robots kidding on to be 'Mexican to get a job at McDonalds'. The twist at the end ruined it. Why would that be horrorfic for kids? 2/5 stars for Spare Parts.
Transmission: Not really, just excuse for poems.
Bad Dream: A poem about the mud coming for revenge for the father's sins. 2/5 stars.
'Why Horror has No Place in Children's Place by Wendy Grooling'- If we taking notes, besides mothers, the only femme characters have been a Trans man being misgendered, killer robot, and now this fake writer hating on horror. Here's a quote about J.K. Rowling 'It's all too often forgot that she has single-handly taught an entire generation the value of reading,' This is meant to be a joke (I think), but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the Koolaid that Just Kidding is drinking now.
Also Alice in Wonderland has horror elements, which I mean the baby that gets turned into a pig and probably eaten. Maybe that add realism as the people who write long essay about hating on a thing, never know what they talking about.
Oh, no Horowitz you really got me. The 16-year-old who would read and review this book 10 years after publication who gonna point out the transphobia and the lack of girls. Don't worry, I rate you somehow more dated than the 90s Point Horror I also read for kicks. Don't worry, you're a better adult writer than Stine but children? IDK, I haven't played enough attention to which ones weren't ghostwritten. Also definitely not the week for J.K. Rowling to be getting any praise.
Also this references the Hitchkiter whose graphic novel adaption I recently read. The adaption was fine. This is my favourite story because it's not newspaper formatted and meant I didn't have to backtrack while reading it.
There is a crossword, something as a Dyslexic I have always hated. The clues sure are something. Anyway, calls Black Panther terrorist group which is very 60s America. I mean I've not managed to find them a case of them being linked to a terrorist act. Did they go into a building armed? Sure, white people are allowed to that shit. It's fucking questionable to have in a kids book, without a conversation.
My Bloody French Exchange: This another obvious one. These stories are for kids, but definitely feel too young for the character age group. This is just a revamp of the Hitchkiter story so not for fans of the first book. 3/5 stars for the same twist and I'm gonna straight-up reference it.
SheBay: Finally the first girl protagonist, and she immediately human trafficked. Guess what it the same Twist as 'Harriet's Horrible Dream' and even references it. It's slightly different but worse.
1/5 stars because Human trafficking online is definitely real and horrifying.
Fuck, some terrible news. This is where I found out this was re-released as Scared to Death, which my library has as a decent ebook of and would have been a lot easy to read from than this nightmare one. I had already rechecked it out. The transpobia has been removed. The lone AFAB contest now wants to give all her money to donkeys. "She gave away very little about herself - although, she had let me known if she won, she would give all her money away to charity. She particularly wanted to help look after donkeys in Spain." Don't worry Clive is still there but it now references Love Island. Did I change copies when I discovered? No, because of transphobia.
Are you sitting Comfortably?: This told in first POV by our second girl main character, compared to most being in the third person. And I was right to because this book has some casual racism. "At first sight, I thought he might not be British. He was dark-skinned'. He's still described as dark-skinned in Scared to Death, but his Britishness is not questioned. This probably one of the better stories, especially as it not just a re-harsh of one of his past works. It probably shares themes with Cottage one though. 3.4 stars for life insurance.
Plugged In: "Jeremy Browne is Gay" is graffitied on a bus shelter, this is changed to him being a weirdo in StD. I get the choice and it is probably best not to use the word gay unless you're going to have a conversation about homophobia. That being said what teenager liked Take That enough in 00s to keep up with their single release schedule. That was such a mum band then. They're replaced by Ed Sheeran in 2018. None of the other bands are updated, but a line about Solar-powered MP3 players not existing is taking out. Well, they still don't and probably never will because no one owns mp3s anymore. We all have phones. I guess maybe a few joggers might have them. I guess this was taken because solar power travel banks exist.
4/5 stars for Not Trusting Your Neighbours.
Power: This is a story written by someone who doesn't know a thing about the care system. You can give up a child at any time. They will try and convince you not to. You can put a child in care at any time. The main character ending up naked which is horrifying due to the likely damage to an uncovered body. I think it didn't need to be so obvious, he says "even his boxers". This is another spoiled kid meets a terrible fate. Mixed message with the last story. I guess the moral is be a hermit and never talk to anyone. 2/5 stars for extreme sports.
The J Train: This is the new story in Scared to Death, I suppose to replace Darren Shan Murder one. This book is also dated for its Time of 2018. It mentions 're-reading those Vampire books' and Stranger Things. Really shows that Horowitz does not keep up with the business he's in. Also Hamilton tickets, but who would guess where we ended up two years later. The mother sounds like a goth with killer nails. Two or three hours doing nails isn't really that long if you're doing designs. The most horrifying thing about this story is that Horowitz felt the need to point out that Donald Trump is president and they have a photo of him for some reason. Donald Trump was a Slumlord and New Yorker really don't like him. Why not just have vague a picture of the president. It was just a weird detail. This story is told in the third person and while having a teenager daughter, the main one it follows is the dad, so maybe an effect to balance the gender split but not really.
Seven Cuts: This is a note from the publisher, in this Horowitz is a murder who doesn't take notes. I just don't any of this meta stuff really works. 1/5 stars for not respecting women.
Overall, I gave this book 1/5 stars for Transphobic Donkeys. This is definitely weaker than Horowitz Horror books. There is a reason this was weeded from a library and I'm definitely glad it was when it does have such obvious problematic things in it.
There are no girls in this book. This is a problem with "Boy books" in general, boys are not exposed to girls they own age, just being people in fiction. Girls are so often forced to be the token, even in their own fiction. Basically, we have trick parents into buying their boys books with girl main characters. So that's just a general problem, and girls do like horror as well. His first collection felt more balanced. Maybe it's just because the girl main character stories were the better ones and more spread out instead of just being in the second half of the book.
This book does raise the question, do I have to go back and re-read Horrowitz Horror in the original form I read it to see if it been problematic all along. It has definitely put me off reading any more of Horowitz's work. I've not loved what I've read since that first collection, either been okay or this. They are so many other books in the world, so why waste my time with white man nonsense?
Crossed posted to Strangeness Books. I do post reviews earlier on Strangeness Books, basically, as soon as I finished them.
Read: 8/6/2020 to 11/6/2020
Reviewed: 8/6/2020 - 26/6/2020
Medium: PDF/Ebook
Published Date: September 1st 2010 (re-released October 4th 2018)
Publisher: Walker & Company (Walker Books)
Source: Library
CW: Casual Transphobia; Causal Ableism; fatphobic; Causal Racism; Causal Homophobia;
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