Draft:Strange Matter (Book Series)

Strange Matter is a children's series of thirty books by authors Marty M. Engle and Johnny Ray Barnes. These are horror novels, each about 120 - 130 pages long, for readers from the age of 11 to 16. It was created as a tribute to the old comic book series by EC Comics, such as Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt. However, the Goosebumps series of books, wrote around the same time, were another influence.

Published from 1995 to 1997, the books became massively popular with teenagers , so much so that a fan club was formed, named Strangers. The club offered similar things to Goosebumps' own fan club. A website was run by the authors themselves, and would eventually go defunct in the 2010's, although it is still possible to view it via the Internet Archive. The series sold millions of copies worldwide. Recently, the series has been republished as e-books, available on Amazon Kindle.

Premise

The series takes place in the fictional town of Fairfield, where the students attending the town's middle school, who are faced with paranormal and dangerous situations and creatures. Each book had different characters than the last, with the exception of a few. The later books would also star Rilo Buru, an extraterrestrial refugee who is the town's protector and guardian.

List of Books

1. No Substitutions: Curtis and Shelly find their lives in danger when they encounter a sinister substitute teacher hiding a book about werewolves.
2. The Midnight Game: Tyler sneaks out of his house at midnight to attend a very special football game. However, He is the only one in the stands when the players come onto the field, crawling up out of the ground.
3. Driven to Death: Three ghosts from a phantom pirate ship try to enslave Darren and his older brother David.
4. A Place to Hide: While searching the Dark Woods for a lost fort, twelve-year-old Trey and his friends encounter horrible, scaly monsters that seem intent on stopping them.
5. The Last One In: Thirteen-year-old Michelle, her older sister, and a neighbor boy explore a lakeside cavern searching for a monster which some people believe is only a hoax.
6. Bad Circuits: Stephanie's cousin Daniel is determined to win the Fairfield Junior Science competition. Even as his project becomes more and more terrifying, Stephanie tells no one about the Electronic Brain, which has become too smart. Too cunning. Too alive...
7. Fly the Unfriendly Skies: After being abducted from their plane, Morgan and Kelly discover sinister alien space visitors battling to secure the survival of their race.
8. Frozen Dinners: Left alone in the mountain home of their uncle during a blizzard, three children struggle against an attack by a pack of abominable snowmen who attempt to break into the house.
9. Deadly Delivery: Simon and Sarah are at home with a hopeless babysitter when a mysterious late night delivery arrives, putting the children through a true night of terror.
10. Knightmare: Dared to by a school friend, Mitchell steals a valuable artifact from an elaborate suit of armor at the museum, beginning a series of terrifying nightmares about a black knight that turn out to be all too real.
11. Something Rotten: Rock collector Joe Alister ventures into an unexplored section of the local underground cavern complex and discovers not only what happened to the missing owner, but something even more terrible.
12. Dead on its Tracks: At first, sneaking on board the Fairfield Express was just a harmless diversion. But after Elizabeth and Jacob are mistakenly locked in, the engine begins to move. Right before their eyes, the train transforms into a chilling, haunted, death ride.
13. Toy Trouble: When avid toy collector Karen Sanders and her friends find a new toy store in town, they are overwhelmed with excitement, but their feelings soon turn to horror when the treasures they bring home take on evil lives of their own.
14. Plant People: When a strange family moves into the empty house in Rachel Pearson's neighborhood, she begins to notice some unusual behavior, but nothing prepares her for the monstrous plants that threaten to devour the neighborhood, and soon, the world.
15. Creature Features: Jonathon Drake and his friends get sucked into the big screen at an old, run down 50's drive in theater.
16. The Weird, Weird West: An earthquake unleashes Clayton T. Motley, an undead gunslinger looking for revenge on Shane Reece, whose ancestors killed him 150 years ago.
17. Tune in to Terror: Billy Keen wishes he had never played Nexus, the on-line video game that has taken the world by storm, after a poltergeist of a enraged player begins to haunt him, turning household appliances against him. And if Billy isn't careful, this game could end with a fatal error.
18. The Fairfield Triangle: Things always turn up missing in the Fairfield Triangle, and Russell Drake wants to know why. His search, assisted by the Barker sisters, is more successful than he had hoped--they find themselves trapped in a never-changing landscape with no way to get out.
19. Bigfoot, Big Trouble: Oliver Tuttle has an ulterior motive for going to camp this summer. On the long bus-ride through the mountains, he can only concentrate on one thing--Oliver is going to catch a monster. Now, far off a hiking trail, in a remote area of the forest, He finds what he was looking for. . .and hopes to live to regret it.
20. Doorway to Doom: Waylon Burst is afraid of his own shadow. He's convinced that monsters, ghouls, and ghosts lurk around every corner of his hometown of Fairfield. To ensure his own safety, he's become a hermit. He doesn't leave his house unless he has to, and he stays in his room most of the time. Recently, however, Waylon's heard strange noises in his house. Strange, ghostly noises...
21. Under Wraps: Attending an exhibition of mummies at the school gym, Jonathan Drake and his friends, Albert and Nate, are dared to prove that the mummies aren't frauds by reading a reanimation scroll. The scroll works way too well, however...
22. Dangerous Waters: Wendy O'Darby and her friends discover that the stories of the squirming cactus, the giant alligators in the sewers, and other urban folktales are true down in the sewers.
23. Second Sighting: When Sean Edwards and his sister, Patricia, pick up a dazed and frightened hitchhiker on their way home from a lecture on UFOs, they find out more than they ever expected about extraterrestrials and the men in black who are determined to hunt them down.
24. Nightcrawlers: Howard Peel finds a mysterious gold ring that gives him the power to control insects, at least until the ring's rightful owner comes looking for it.
25. Splitting Image: Though he knew better than to try out the software e-mailed to him from an unknown source, Alan couldn't help himself. It was the coolest virtual-fighter game he'd ever seen, but he didn't realize he would soon begin morphing into it's characters.
26. The Headless Rider: Max Chandler and his friend, Micheal, are looking to do something on a day off from school. When they decide to go to Carson Creek, they instantly regret it when they are chased by the headless ghost on a motorcycle.
27. Primeval: Warning! Campers in the Lost Cove Nation Park are advised to use extreme caution while in the area! Unconfirmed reports indicate the presence of large, unknown, potentially dangerous animals.
28. Off Worlder: Kelly Taylor and Patricia Edwards join intelligence agent Marlon Walker and an Man in Black to track down a dangerous alien from another world.
29. Shadow Chasers: The unwilling recipients of dangerous knowledge, Kelly Taylor and Destry Robbins are tracked down by a dangerous extraterestrial who will stop at nothing to silence them.
30. Escape from Planet Earth: Destry can still sense that the Off Worlder, the murderous alien that terrified her friends, is still alive. She's not wrong...

An additional five books were written but not published following the series' cancellation.

Strange Forces

Following the immense success of Strange Matter, spin off book entitled Strange Forces was released. The book, double the size of a normal Strange Matter book, united multiple characters together, introduced the character of Rilo Buru, and featured the mysterious villain known only as The Collector. The book was a massive success, so Front Line Publishing, who published Strange Matter, ordered a series of four books to be made out of it.

The Strange Forces books were double the size of the books from it's parent series. The violence and scares were also increased.

1. Strange Forces: The students of Fairfield Junior High have noticed that the strange things happening in their town are becoming more common and more dangerous. With each dreadful encounter, they are further convinced the monsters are real. Even worse, a evil entity known only as "The Collector" is dead set on destroying Fairfield. With the help of a a small lizard-like monster named Rilo, the kids must band together to stop this paranormal being.
2. Strange Forces 2: The evil Collector's supernatural invasion of Fairfield has been stopped. The battle is over . . . but the conflict has just begun. Just outside the battle-worn town, a renegade monster has taken up residence in Fairchild Manor. Rilo Buru has found a new home. He is often visited by his human friends, the students of Fairfield Junior High. They have come to rely on Rilo to teach them to use their new supernatural power — a gift from the Buru to help guard against the resurgence of monstrous evil in their town. An evil they will face again.
3. Strange Forces 3: Fairfield's Problem Just Got Worse: It's Halloween, and Fairfield has been voted the "Most Haunted Place in America." Media mania descends on the town, along with the powers of evil. Can Rilo Buru and his strange force of kids save the night, or is this the last macabre holiday Fairfield will ever see?
4. Strange Forces 4: The Last Buru: Rilo is challenged to a mysterious contest, and discovers that his people are alive, but enslaved. Rilo must find a way to free them.

Similarly to it's parent series, the books were a huge success. This warranted Marty Engle and Johnny Barnes pitching a television adaptation to Disney Channel. Despite reported interest, they were turned down.

Similarity to Goosebumps

This series is similar in tone and style to R. L. Stine's `Goosebumps series. Other children's horror series from the 1990's include Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Bone Chillers, Deadtime Stories, Graveyard School, Shivers, Spinetinglers, Spooksville , Shadow Zone, Spine Chillers, and Fright Time.