The HOLLOW SKULL

Rating:
Summary: Yet another classic Pike novel
Review: This book begins simply set in the small town of Madison in the middle of the desert. There 4 friends discover a black puddle at the bottom of a mine shaft. The mine has been closed down for years and is even being investigated by a group of scientists. When one of the boys is infected with the black liquid he begins to change, for the worse. He becomes a robot like monster who eats glass and kills his girlfriend and buries her in the desert. Like all Pike novels there is a lot of blood and gore. Then he threw in the Sio character and things got confusing. The alien who wanted to destroy humanity for no other reason than her own pleasure and to see men suffer. The climax and finale of the novel are a little predictable and not unexpected. This book would probably intrigue young adults who are looking for a little scare, but this is not Pike's best horror novel to date.

Rating:
Summary: THIS BOOK WAS WELL WRITTEN BUT NOT BRILLIANT!!
Review: This book is very scientific and it gave me the impression that he was planning to write this for the adults to read because if you do not read it a few times, you will never understand what he is talking about. I realise that ever since he started writing adult novels, his stories are far too complicated to understand.Is it very difficult to adjust back to writing teenage fiction, it seems so. I prefer him writing about this time period, and not about the past or present or fiddling with the supernatural. His books now lack romance to spicen things up and complicate things which make it more suspenseful. Like in the FinalFriends Thrilogy, there was a lot of romance going on and it not only made the book more intriguing, it spiced things up. This book lacked all this and was very gruesome not like all his other books. Even though this book made me think a lot because it was so real yet so supernatural. Another thing I diliked about this book is that the ending was VERY complicated and it made me very confused about some things. Anyway, if you want to understand what I am talking about, go buy the book and judge it for yourself !!

Rating:
Summary: It was pretty good
Review: This book was good, not as good as some of his other ones, but better than others. The thing I don't like about his books that in a lot of his horror stories he explains the characters actions are caused by evil forces from another universe, or that they are monstors, or that they are possesed by aliens. I like the books when the crimes are being commited by actual people and not by some kind of evil outside force that has invaded the human.

Rating:
Summary: decent - a bite off of MONSTER though
Review: this book was severely creepy. it really freaked me out. bleah. anyway, from the beginning it totally struck me as a repeat of C.P.'s earlier book, Monster," and it sort of upset me that he was essentially revamping an old story to create a new one. granted this one is different enough to merit being a book, but the difference is hardly distinct. Whatever, it was decent, i didn't like it that much, and is it just me or has his characterization gotten a little sloppy? i felt that he was starting to recycle a certain formula. BUt dang, this was still a creepy book.

Rating:
Summary: Great story
Review: To those who didn't 'get it' Sio is an alien, who live several millenia ago. She figured out how to make people/mice etc. Super intelligent with AI chips. She got cheated on by her boyfriend, got mad, killed him, used chips to conquer her world and then millions more. In the time it took, she became Godlike and then turned up on Earth. She was testing Earth's responses by using Cass and friends to see if they were worth her time. Okay lecture over. Brilliant novel by Pike as usual.

Rating:
Summary: I'm sorry to say that I am disappointed.
Review: While I would rate many, if not most, of Mr. Pike's books at a 10, I have to say that the last 2 have been huge disappointments to me, especially The Hollow Skull. Mr. Pike, what's going on? I have always looked forward to each new book that I read about on the back of the last. I looked for The Star Group for months. Now, I don't know what to think. It seems like you are more concerned with getting a book out than the quality of the book. The last two stories have left me with more questions than anything. The story ends, but it's not completely resolved. In The Hollow Skull, the reader is given very vague information. What exactly was the stuff in the mine? How was it put there? How did Tim manage to get infected? And what about the rest of the town? Who/what was Sio? What did she do that made it possible for her to come back? When and where was she from? Yeah, there were answers to some of these questions, but they were not very specific. And the basic premise of the story is vaguely familiar. Anybody ever read Midnight by Dean Koontz, or even Mr. Pike's very own book,The Eternal Enemy? I hope that Mr. Pike isn't just spitting out books to satisfy a contract, because the readers who know what kind of work he is capable of, the ones who have been reading the longest and have seen his talent develop, are going to be the most disappointed.