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The Hollow Skull
The citizens of Madison are besieged by a satanic force that enters their skulls and changes them into aliens with a drive to transform humanity into a nightmarish race that exists only to inflict pain. Original.
224 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
About the author
Christopher Pike
264 books5,562 followersChristopher Pike is the pseudonym of Kevin McFadden. He is a bestselling author of young adult and children's fiction who specializes in the thriller genre.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
McFadden was born in New York but grew up in California where he stills lives in today. A college drop-out, he did factory work, painted houses and programmed computers before becoming a recognized author. Initially unsuccessful when he set out to write science fiction and adult mystery, it was not until his work caught the attention of an editor who suggested he write a teen thriller that he became a hit. The result was Slumber Party (1985), a book about a group of teenagers who run into bizarre and violent events during a ski weekend. After that he wrote Weekend and Chain Letter. All three books went on to become bestsellers.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
McFadden was born in New York but grew up in California where he stills lives in today. A college drop-out, he did factory work, painted houses and programmed computers before becoming a recognized author. Initially unsuccessful when he set out to write science fiction and adult mystery, it was not until his work caught the attention of an editor who suggested he write a teen thriller that he became a hit. The result was Slumber Party (1985), a book about a group of teenagers who run into bizarre and violent events during a ski weekend. After that he wrote Weekend and Chain Letter. All three books went on to become bestsellers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
December 18, 2012
Meh, not one of Pike's bests. Interesting but it lacks a certain satisfaction. He has much better books out there.
March 3, 2017
I absolutely loved this and almost everything else by Pike that I read in middle school.
March 27, 2023
I thought this was an ok read. It is set in a small town and I think the lesson is not to go exploring old abandoned uranium mines.
May 10, 2025
Oh no I want to write a book in Christopher Pike's style it's the end for me 😭
"He could have passed as human, but only amongst a very stoned group."
Does me thinking that this stayed surprisingly on the rails mean that my mind/brain has been eaten? After all, we learn that God had her heartbroken by a cheating professor (yepppp) and I'm still like "hm not quite top 5 weirdest Pike books."
also, "ancient aliens are actually robots" are not my fave, I'm more a fan of whatever was happening in Scavenger Hunt.
"He could have passed as human, but only amongst a very stoned group."
Does me thinking that this stayed surprisingly on the rails mean that my mind/brain has been eaten? After all, we learn that God had her heartbroken by a cheating professor (yepppp) and I'm still like "hm not quite top 5 weirdest Pike books."
also, "ancient aliens are actually robots" are not my fave, I'm more a fan of whatever was happening in Scavenger Hunt.
June 3, 2024
I am pretty much use to knowing that when I read a Christopher Pike book that I am in for something shocking in some parts and boring in other aspects. Any sort of sci-fi jargon is pretty much an overload for my brain but as long as I can find something to enjoy it keeps me from completely not liking a book.
If you read the back blurb and see the front cover art it is interesting to discover what lies inside the pages...
Cass Strobe is eighteen years old and wanting to get out of her small Nevada town of Madison, wanting to go to to UCLA and take premed classes. Smart and pretty and tough as nails but financially in a rut for a scholarship despite her brains.
One reason to get out of town is that you will be stuck in Madison until death if you don't and another is her alcoholic and abusive dad, who only got worse after her mother died.
It isn't just Cass who needs to get out...her little ten-year old sister Mary shouldn't have to be afraid of her own father even if he doesn't give a spit what Cass does. Part of Cass wouldn't mind if her boyfriend Fred Abel wanted to run off to L.A. with them...
There are old mines outside of town where they use to mine uranium and the boyfriend of Cass' best friend Jill Leper, Tim Hale, says that scientists just left after exploring what the locals call The Shaft. He says that there are tales that miners in WWII went crazy after working there and wants to explore it for himself.
What else is there to do in a small town?
The girls aren't as excited as their boyfriends and once they reach the bottom, it is cold and chilly and dark. The vibe of it is enough to drive Jill crazy to get back out and the teens find a dead-end cavern with a pool filled with black liquid, surmised to be an oil build up over the years the mine had been boarded up...before the scientists came.
Jill pushes Tim away and he lands in the oily water, getting a bad and bleeding scrape on his hand.
Living in such a small and isolated town, it takes the on-call doctor forty-five minutes to reach the clinic because Tim's cut is deep and needs stitches. He also advises antibiotics and a tetanus shot along with the ten stiches he ends up giving Tim and all of the others pull money to pay for the visit and antibiotics.
Cass' night doesn't end with the trip to The Shaft because she comes home to find her sister upset and Daddy drunk again. They get in a battle of words and Cass kicking her father with the declaration that she is taking Mary with her and they are leaving tonight with every scrap of money she has secretly saved and all the money her dad could buy booze with.
Sobered up a little, Mr. Strobe begs Cass not to go but she knows that it is better for her and Mary if they do...
The following day, Jill and Tim go swimming at the reservoir after fighting last night. Jill only gets glimpses of her boyfriend acting strange without knowing all the horrific images we as the readers find traveling about Tim's mind...disgusting and visceral things.
Until he disappears under the water and then tries to drag her under before kissing her with a satisfied grin on his face. Jill is super pissed at Tim and abandons him at the reservoir, leaving the cooler behind and Tim still swimming in the water, naked by the way.
He gets out, pops open two glass bottles of Coke with his thumb under the pop top and downs both of them. Discarding one bottle, Tim takes the other and uses a boulder to grind the glass down and mix it into the sand.
He proceeds to lick down the mixture until it is gone and he is vomiting up blood...
Cass has taken Mary to Fred's trailer and it is where Jill comes to see her, troubled in her swimsuit and having drove back into town. While explaining what happened with Tim, the girls see an ambulance driving into town and a worried Jill makes Cass follow it and they bring Mary in tow.
The ambulance arrives at the home of Mr. Chavez and it isn't for him or any of his children as he rushes outside with a naked and bloody Tim. He is rushed to the hospital and Cass leaves a distraught Jill with Mary as she finds the room where a team of doctors are working on Tim as he continuously thrashes and vomits up more blood.
Some of the blood splatters onto Cass and she watches horrified as Tim flatlines...then sees the heart monitor beating a moment later.
To tell anything else would be going into spoiler territory but if you have seen The Faculty or Invaders From Mars...it isn't hard to pick that vibe up. It is when you have to get down to who isn't human anymore where most of the most gut-wrenching scenes are found...and the ones that will have your own gut churning in horror.
Getting to the climax is where we get all of the gobbledygook that makes my head hurt in exposition as to why and WTF was going on through most of the book. The ending is also ambiguous but easy to figure that fate will not be kind...to anyone.
The Hollow Skull isn't bad but some of the subject matter was too much for me to call it amazing or find it as something I would go back to in the future.
2.5 stars rounded up to 3 because it is still Christopher Pike...poignant prose buried beneath the weirdness and pulpy horror is just kind of his thing.
If you read the back blurb and see the front cover art it is interesting to discover what lies inside the pages...
Cass Strobe is eighteen years old and wanting to get out of her small Nevada town of Madison, wanting to go to to UCLA and take premed classes. Smart and pretty and tough as nails but financially in a rut for a scholarship despite her brains.
One reason to get out of town is that you will be stuck in Madison until death if you don't and another is her alcoholic and abusive dad, who only got worse after her mother died.
It isn't just Cass who needs to get out...her little ten-year old sister Mary shouldn't have to be afraid of her own father even if he doesn't give a spit what Cass does. Part of Cass wouldn't mind if her boyfriend Fred Abel wanted to run off to L.A. with them...
There are old mines outside of town where they use to mine uranium and the boyfriend of Cass' best friend Jill Leper, Tim Hale, says that scientists just left after exploring what the locals call The Shaft. He says that there are tales that miners in WWII went crazy after working there and wants to explore it for himself.
What else is there to do in a small town?
The girls aren't as excited as their boyfriends and once they reach the bottom, it is cold and chilly and dark. The vibe of it is enough to drive Jill crazy to get back out and the teens find a dead-end cavern with a pool filled with black liquid, surmised to be an oil build up over the years the mine had been boarded up...before the scientists came.
Jill pushes Tim away and he lands in the oily water, getting a bad and bleeding scrape on his hand.
Living in such a small and isolated town, it takes the on-call doctor forty-five minutes to reach the clinic because Tim's cut is deep and needs stitches. He also advises antibiotics and a tetanus shot along with the ten stiches he ends up giving Tim and all of the others pull money to pay for the visit and antibiotics.
Cass' night doesn't end with the trip to The Shaft because she comes home to find her sister upset and Daddy drunk again. They get in a battle of words and Cass kicking her father with the declaration that she is taking Mary with her and they are leaving tonight with every scrap of money she has secretly saved and all the money her dad could buy booze with.
Sobered up a little, Mr. Strobe begs Cass not to go but she knows that it is better for her and Mary if they do...
The following day, Jill and Tim go swimming at the reservoir after fighting last night. Jill only gets glimpses of her boyfriend acting strange without knowing all the horrific images we as the readers find traveling about Tim's mind...disgusting and visceral things.
Until he disappears under the water and then tries to drag her under before kissing her with a satisfied grin on his face. Jill is super pissed at Tim and abandons him at the reservoir, leaving the cooler behind and Tim still swimming in the water, naked by the way.
He gets out, pops open two glass bottles of Coke with his thumb under the pop top and downs both of them. Discarding one bottle, Tim takes the other and uses a boulder to grind the glass down and mix it into the sand.
He proceeds to lick down the mixture until it is gone and he is vomiting up blood...
Cass has taken Mary to Fred's trailer and it is where Jill comes to see her, troubled in her swimsuit and having drove back into town. While explaining what happened with Tim, the girls see an ambulance driving into town and a worried Jill makes Cass follow it and they bring Mary in tow.
The ambulance arrives at the home of Mr. Chavez and it isn't for him or any of his children as he rushes outside with a naked and bloody Tim. He is rushed to the hospital and Cass leaves a distraught Jill with Mary as she finds the room where a team of doctors are working on Tim as he continuously thrashes and vomits up more blood.
Some of the blood splatters onto Cass and she watches horrified as Tim flatlines...then sees the heart monitor beating a moment later.
To tell anything else would be going into spoiler territory but if you have seen The Faculty or Invaders From Mars...it isn't hard to pick that vibe up. It is when you have to get down to who isn't human anymore where most of the most gut-wrenching scenes are found...and the ones that will have your own gut churning in horror.
Getting to the climax is where we get all of the gobbledygook that makes my head hurt in exposition as to why and WTF was going on through most of the book. The ending is also ambiguous but easy to figure that fate will not be kind...to anyone.
The Hollow Skull isn't bad but some of the subject matter was too much for me to call it amazing or find it as something I would go back to in the future.
2.5 stars rounded up to 3 because it is still Christopher Pike...poignant prose buried beneath the weirdness and pulpy horror is just kind of his thing.
April 21, 2018
it’s so sad how books i absolutely loved as a 12 year old just aren’t impacting me the same. it was still good though, i remembered a lot of it. heartbreaking parts.
January 20, 2017
I’m a life-long Christopher Pike fan. He’s in my top three favorite authors, and it can’t just be a nostalgia thing because I really enjoy his new stuff too. His writing isn’t always terrific, but he’s a wonderful storyteller, and I think that’s what draws me most about his work. I never know how to describe him when I’m trying to explain. Science fiction? Horror? Spiritual? It’s usually some combination. I honestly wouldn’t know who to compare him to. (Do not say R.L. Stine. We will fight. Completely different tone/agenda.) There isn’t a lot of 90’s Pike that I haven’t read (and re-read, probably), but this is one of the few that never made it into my garage sale or library hauls.
Holy. Shit. Sometimes I forget how gruesome Pike can be. I should have realized when I was four chapters in and going, “Wow, this is really fucked up,” what trajectory this novel was on, but I’m fantastic at deluding myself. It’s reminiscent of Scavenger Hunt in the small town, desert setting, with teenagers who just can’t wait to get out. Cass is planning to move to L.A. as soon as possible with her younger sister, Mary, and her boyfriend, Fred. Just days before they leave, Cass and her friends go exploring in an abandoned mine, where Tim is infected with a virus that is more like an otherworldly consciousness that spreads to the rest of the town. The first chapter alone is more claustrophobic than the entirety of A Journey to the Center of the Earth, and it sets the tone for the graphic violence of the rest of the novel.
The Hollow Skull definitely doesn’t read like Pike at his best. The narrative is stilted and choppy, the dialogue is wooden even before the Pod People take over, and he doesn’t waste a lot of time on character development or relationships. Cass is supposed to be a strong female lead, and her relationship with Mary is the most important and loving in her life, but there are few moments when I felt either of those. The villain, Sio, is basically a scorned lover who decides to take over the universe–bit of an overreaction, but power corrupts and all. The novel is also on a level with Whisper of Death and Die Softly for nihilism. Like the characters, you realize much too late that there is absolutely nothing they could have done to escape their circumstances; they were damned from the beginning. While Pike is often violent, this is an unusually grim outlook, and I struggled to take much from the novel other than a vague sort of well, that sucks.
I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.
Holy. Shit. Sometimes I forget how gruesome Pike can be. I should have realized when I was four chapters in and going, “Wow, this is really fucked up,” what trajectory this novel was on, but I’m fantastic at deluding myself. It’s reminiscent of Scavenger Hunt in the small town, desert setting, with teenagers who just can’t wait to get out. Cass is planning to move to L.A. as soon as possible with her younger sister, Mary, and her boyfriend, Fred. Just days before they leave, Cass and her friends go exploring in an abandoned mine, where Tim is infected with a virus that is more like an otherworldly consciousness that spreads to the rest of the town. The first chapter alone is more claustrophobic than the entirety of A Journey to the Center of the Earth, and it sets the tone for the graphic violence of the rest of the novel.
The Hollow Skull definitely doesn’t read like Pike at his best. The narrative is stilted and choppy, the dialogue is wooden even before the Pod People take over, and he doesn’t waste a lot of time on character development or relationships. Cass is supposed to be a strong female lead, and her relationship with Mary is the most important and loving in her life, but there are few moments when I felt either of those. The villain, Sio, is basically a scorned lover who decides to take over the universe–bit of an overreaction, but power corrupts and all. The novel is also on a level with Whisper of Death and Die Softly for nihilism. Like the characters, you realize much too late that there is absolutely nothing they could have done to escape their circumstances; they were damned from the beginning. While Pike is often violent, this is an unusually grim outlook, and I struggled to take much from the novel other than a vague sort of well, that sucks.
I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.
August 10, 2021
Fast paced (the ending is so fast it feels rushed) and fun. Not amazing but well worth the read. It's very bleak so if you like the spiritual Pike you may dislike Hollow Skull. I'm not certain how I feel about the ending. So Sio leaves seeds of life on planets that will evolve twice: once to create humans and then again with microchips near uranium deposits so that when man kind has developed enough it will stumble upon the microchips and get infected? It's an awful long time frame for Sio's revenge lol. I'll get you back sometime in the next 4 billion years.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 20, 2016
A little too Sy-Fi for my taste but still kept me reading it and I wanted to finish it.
May 10, 2025
“The Hollow Skull” is a small town horror thriller by Christopher Pike with a bit of an Area 51 note. Overall, I thought it was pretty good with a lot of the typical things that made a Pike horror novel so much fun. Strong, smart female teen prot, brush with the supernatural, bits of teen drama and chaos, and lots of gristly, reality warping danger.
While it certainly had a lot going for it, I sort of felt like the last half or third just … I don’t know…not the story I was looking for. I mean, it all fit, and it even had some good plot twists, but a bit too doom and gloom for me maybe. Still, it was certainly imaginative, to say the least.
Here is one of my favorite passages of this piece:
“Yet she threw up more than food or blood could ever signify. Because right then, under the boiling sun and besides the body of her best friend, Cass felt her soul split open as she glimpsed the chasm that opened within it. It was an instant of clear cognition, and yet later she was never sure what she had seen. But for that instant she understood her recent nightmares, as well as the nightmares of all humanity from the beginning of time. What yawned beneath her individual soul was an abyss of indifference so vast that it almost engulfed and extinguished her. Yet this void was not empty. The cold will that reached out from its depths was living, a thing that could never die. The immortal demon, as black as space. Cass saw then that humanity — its dreams, its love, its hope, its future — was intrinsically cursed. Even as her best friend had been cursed to die at the hands of a lover. Goodness and love were not enough when the transformation arrived. The Grim Reaper was coming.
And she was hungry.”
In the end I’m going to give this one 3 out of 5 hollow skulls. I think Pike and sci-fi horror fans will like it, though there are certainly other Pike books with a wider audience appeal, I think.
While it certainly had a lot going for it, I sort of felt like the last half or third just … I don’t know…not the story I was looking for. I mean, it all fit, and it even had some good plot twists, but a bit too doom and gloom for me maybe. Still, it was certainly imaginative, to say the least.
Here is one of my favorite passages of this piece:
“Yet she threw up more than food or blood could ever signify. Because right then, under the boiling sun and besides the body of her best friend, Cass felt her soul split open as she glimpsed the chasm that opened within it. It was an instant of clear cognition, and yet later she was never sure what she had seen. But for that instant she understood her recent nightmares, as well as the nightmares of all humanity from the beginning of time. What yawned beneath her individual soul was an abyss of indifference so vast that it almost engulfed and extinguished her. Yet this void was not empty. The cold will that reached out from its depths was living, a thing that could never die. The immortal demon, as black as space. Cass saw then that humanity — its dreams, its love, its hope, its future — was intrinsically cursed. Even as her best friend had been cursed to die at the hands of a lover. Goodness and love were not enough when the transformation arrived. The Grim Reaper was coming.
And she was hungry.”
In the end I’m going to give this one 3 out of 5 hollow skulls. I think Pike and sci-fi horror fans will like it, though there are certainly other Pike books with a wider audience appeal, I think.
April 13, 2023
Old school April
I was really into the first third, but it seemed to get progressively more YA as it went on. There are some dark and gory parts, and the story is interesting, but pretty lightweight.
It was another book where the 3rd person narrator refers to the main characters father as Daddy. I seriously don’t understand that at all
I was really into the first third, but it seemed to get progressively more YA as it went on. There are some dark and gory parts, and the story is interesting, but pretty lightweight.
It was another book where the 3rd person narrator refers to the main characters father as Daddy. I seriously don’t understand that at all
March 31, 2026
This is one I must have missed when I was a kid, as it's my first time reading it. Damn, Pike must have been in one of his nihilistic moods when he wrote this one. I liked it, but damn if it wasn't depressing as fuck. Now I need to go find a cozy fantasy or something to read before I get too depressed.
June 7, 2026
It was a great book but I had higher expectations. I know some people regard this as one of the “most gruesome ya books of all time” but found it mildly violent and slightly tame for a pike book. I enjoyed the suspense going on within the town. Pretty tragic ending. Epilogue was a great way to finish but had a very inappropriate teacher character. 🤣
August 24, 2023
um livro com uma vibe bem filmes de terror de hollywood, todavia, com uma profundidade maior, uma leitura viciante e visceral, digamos assim, uma obra bem desenvolvida, com personagens cativantes e um mistério que te prende, adorei
March 5, 2024
Loved it.
It was chaotic, and definetly VERY chilling to read. Gave me some good tachycardia lmao. Maybe it's not conventionally the best piece of literature, but aweosome nonetheless! 80s horror is amazing
It was chaotic, and definetly VERY chilling to read. Gave me some good tachycardia lmao. Maybe it's not conventionally the best piece of literature, but aweosome nonetheless! 80s horror is amazing
October 18, 2019
I read this book in 2004. And then in 2007 and another 2 times in 2011. It NEVER gets old. If you need to read a story which involves a terrifying 'God', read this book.
March 19, 2021
Another disappointing childhood re-read. Boring.
May 6, 2022
Excellent story and one of Pike's best covers.
October 8, 2022
Definitely enjoyed re-reading this one.
Read
January 2, 2024steady pike
May 27, 2024
This was like a horror version of Flowers For Algernon and I absolutely loved it!
Read
July 9, 2025See insta post
April 12, 2026
It was ok. I wasn’t bored but not really up to par with the other books of Pike that I’ve read.
August 3, 2011
This was one of the best, most disturbing and terrifying book I have ever read. I could not put it down once I started reading it. However, the reason I did not give it 5 stars was the characters needed more development, and the ending kind of fell flat. The only emotional parts were when Cass and Mary left their father, when she shot her father, and when she found out Mary and her father had never been changed. If the reader got to know the other characters more, the book would be much better. And Sio? I do not understand her AT ALL. How did she create something identical to something that had been on earth since the beginning of time? The ending just left me confused.
July 15, 2025
3.5 Gripping, dark, depressing. Not one of my faves, but I do love Pike’s ideas. No one thinks like he does.
September 30, 2008
Another creepy Christopher Pike book that I liked.
November 10, 2012
Well this was strange. Good but strange.
March 8, 2011
Seemingly commenting on both pollution and alien involvement in our lives, this book is more gory and less idea-driven than other works by Pike. Fans of Pike will still like it.
July 31, 2011
One of my favorite authors. Some stuff is brilliant, some is just bizarre.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews