Tune In To Terror

Strange Matter #17

by Marty M. Engle, Johnny Ray Barnes

Nexus. Virtual reality with a bite. An online video game that has taken the world by storm. Its fanatical players call it the most incredible battle simulation ever created. Billy Keen doesn't think so. He wishes he had never played it. After Billy won the largest Nexus tournament ever staged online, strange things started happening. From his television changing channels by itself, to his computer turning on and off all hours of the night. Billy was annoyed at first by the simple electronic malfunctions. Then they grew worse, from microwave mishaps to a terrifying elevator plunge. Seeking help from his video gaming friends at the Fairfield University Computer Science Center, Billy discovers the true nature of his technological terror. Now, in the labyrinthian halls of the Fairfield University Computer Science building, Billy is playing Nexus for real - against a horrifying opponent that could not possibly exist. And if Billy isn't careful, the game could end with a fatal error.

Audio CD

First published August 1, 2007

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://twitter.com/Spongey445/status...

3.5.

[Evan Purcell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A video game nerd gets terrorized by anything electric. This could've easily turned into a lame, the-microwave-is-attacking ripoff of the Twilight Zone episode "The Thing About Machines." Instead, Tune in to Terror is jam-packed with evil robots, lasers, and an awesome main antagonist named The Bloodinator. (How gloriously cheesy, right?) This is Strange Matter at its absolute best, showing a core group of kids searching for answers and struggling against some really high stakes. Compared to other 90s kid-horror, where the plots hurl cliffhanger after cliffhanger at the main characters, Strange Matter has always excelled at establishing a friend group and allowing them to dig up paranormal clues and make hard choices. Couple that with some stellar robot fights and you've got a real winner.

(Not the best title, though. It sounds like there's an evil TV.)

[Alejandro Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange Matter literally can’t miss, and this time it’s another banger with blatant similarities to Killer Computer from Spinetinglers. Heavily tech focused, this story continues to make me love this series. The characters are quite good, the threats/villain is great, the climax is awesome, and the actual action within here is both actually engaging and fun/creative (like the scene on the cover). Plus, this story is the first to have non-adult characters—kind of. Eugene and Jarvis are the youngest adults from the series thus far, being college kids. I bring this up because the five I’ve read have adult characters in them (and I mean legitimate, story-affecting roles). It’s neat for some light variation and it leads into the climax’s setting—a college basement, of all things. It’s a cool switch, and there’s some fun robotic additions here thanks to it that make sense—like the final boss, if you will. There’s also a moral here, and it’s (if ya wanna sound like a prick): touch grass. However, it fleshes it out well, with the villain—particularly in the final 25 pages, if you know, you know—being a sort of manifestation of what Billy’s life is and is going to be hence the villain’s backstory and… I guess goon cave? No less, this didn’t feel overbearing on that moral and delivered it well—and it actually makes sense, unlike The Hunted from
AYAOTD, and it genuinely applies to the main-character in a blunt manner. And, the story is fun + has a high entertainment value. As for a critique or two: there’s a defeat method to the villain that didn’t make a lot of logical sense, even I am willing to forgive that. And there’s also a chapter that basically acts as a summary of what Billy dealt with in a whole morning. Great chapter—but I would’ve preferred another prior that showed some of the stuff he dealt with to ease the reader (I, you, who/whomever) into to. But that’s it; this book rules, predictably. Overall, 9.5/10. Strange Matter matters rather strangely to my biological matter (of which is strange). Read this fucking series if you haven’t, it’s a gold mine.

[E.D. Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

All in all, Tune in to Terror is awesome. Strange Matter books had always hit for me as a child, and this one blended the right amount of 90's middle grade horror book logic, fun villains, and actual danger. Easily my favorite read of the month, and the perfect note to wrap up Terrible Technology Month.