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Strange Matter #23
Second Sighting
For Sean Edwards, fear hits the open road in a tale of mystery and alien terror. During a long drive home, he and his older sister, Patricia, nearly hit a young boy standing in the middle of the highway. They give the frightened boy a ride, unaware that something is on its way to give them all a lift.
Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 24, 2025
Dude, like… I can’t even deny it now: alien kids horror books are my favorite thing period. As my second Strange Matter read, I picked up Second Sighting… which I just realized makes more sense than I though lol. And I’m glad to report I will absolutely be checking out this series more often. This book absolutely rips! The characters are extremely likable, all of them in their own rights, and have vivid dilemmas and personalities that I just ate up. I loved Sean, Marlon, Ross, Linda, Patty—you name it. These characters are superb. I loved the exposition of the book, building up the characters and hunting at later events; it was clearly all planned out from the get-go. The final battle with the… well, look at the cover, was intense and well-done. The book is fast paced as well as consistent in it’s pace, and it had some great action bits, alien elements, and an absolute slapper of an ending that didn’t try to pull a huge twist on us. Things are wrapped up swell, there’s some funny moments and bits of dialogue, and the writing was top-notch. This read like a damn blockbuster whilst still maintaining that kids horror feel, and if this came from the Spinetinglers series, I doubt I would’ve bat an eye. This, again, absolutely rips. As for anything I could take away: there’s like six or so grammar mistakes that should’ve been edited out, but I’m forgiving here since, when I factor grammar and spelling error in books, I only really consider it if the story already isn’t of great quality (example: Revenge of the Shadow People), and here I can’t be bothered to care; this book is basically a perfect read. Overall, 10/10 (no shit). I love underlime slopper, and I also love kids horror books involving aliens. Strange Matter, marry me. I’m ordering some online now. One of the best kids horror books OAT.
June 20, 2023
We end this ripoff round, sort of, with Strange Matter. Good one to sort of end on, being a favorite series out of these. This time we take to the skies again, sort of.
This one is hard to explain. So, we got Sean Edwards and his sister Patricia. He's gotten a step mom and his family is going to move, with stepmom Bonnie being the only one excited about it which makes him salty. He doesn't call her mom too much. One day he visits the local observatory as they hold a thing on UFOs and he's big into that stuff. Things go okay but on the way home they bump into a kid named Ross who wants a ride as he has been separated for his own stepmom.
And things spiral from there, as they end up on the run from some shady people. This one was pretty good but weird. Mostly for how it goes about all this. It doesn't have a clear high concept setup like most of these do. You have the vague helping Ross thing which gets more defined as it goes. But you got a lot of build up before we really tear into that stuff.
There's an extra emphasis on world-building so to speak as well as establishing the characters. We get POVs of about everyone here, including adult characters. It finds things to do for most at least, outside of a couple superfluous clays here and there. There's a reporter guy early on they build up and give this coughing thing but it goes nowhere.
You get lore dumps in a sense of these Men in Black guys and government people tied to aliens as well as the alien stuff. Those sorts of conspiracy are the theme of this whole book and it goes into that and gives us their own spin. But for the first half, not much actually happens as they build up these things. There are little moments that are kind of pointless beyond a minor thing.
Most things are important so it's hard to tell what could have been cut beyond minor scenes. It's a slow burn but written in a way that still had me interested. Writing is good as usual here, with more vocab words and less of the weird style things I hard on in this series.
Sean ends up being kind of passive as everyone else takes precedent a lot of the time. His arc with the stepmom is cliche and could have been deeper but it's nice to an arc in these at least. I like the early scenes with him and Patty. There's heart in regards to Ross and his own parent deals. Without spoiling, it gets wild and there's a few touching moments. How it parallels Sean's deal is obvious but works okay, even if the ending moment there could have earned a tad more.
Sean is alright, just gets lost in the shuffle despite being the protagonist. The other characters are solid though and fill the roles well, Marlon is the main adult whose POV we get a few times, which is neat to shake things up. He has "dark brown skin" so minority alert.
Eventual they do explain most things going to some extent and things are wrapped up okay. There's still a few questions, including one thing that enters that isn't totally explained. The last 3 books of the series are a trilogy that does involve stuff from this so maybe we get more info there. It's a Engle one so it's his best work when it comes to explaining stuff at least.
As it is, it is an odd entry. It can be slow and not super high concept, making it not a big favorite. But it's still good as it's so unique in the plotting of it. There's an arc in here and the action ramps up well in the latter half. I liked the world building and characters we get here in. It was still a fun and interesting read despite throwing me off with how it's paced.
It stands out and I did enjoy it. It's not a big favorite but the series but despite some drawbacks it's one I enjoy and respect a fair bit. I wouldn't start anyone on it but it works. Also, Morgan from Fly the Unfriendly Skies appears early on, no surprise. That's it for major continuity.
So yeah, odd but good note to end on. We'll see if the Graveyard School, Shivers and Spinetinglers camp books get picked for our thing, once we know I'll plan those out, it all depends. For now, that's that and we can focus mostly on that.
Camp books will fill my random reads for the summer but I'll put it others when I can as there's still stuff to cover. Either way, see ya then.
This one is hard to explain. So, we got Sean Edwards and his sister Patricia. He's gotten a step mom and his family is going to move, with stepmom Bonnie being the only one excited about it which makes him salty. He doesn't call her mom too much. One day he visits the local observatory as they hold a thing on UFOs and he's big into that stuff. Things go okay but on the way home they bump into a kid named Ross who wants a ride as he has been separated for his own stepmom.
And things spiral from there, as they end up on the run from some shady people. This one was pretty good but weird. Mostly for how it goes about all this. It doesn't have a clear high concept setup like most of these do. You have the vague helping Ross thing which gets more defined as it goes. But you got a lot of build up before we really tear into that stuff.
There's an extra emphasis on world-building so to speak as well as establishing the characters. We get POVs of about everyone here, including adult characters. It finds things to do for most at least, outside of a couple superfluous clays here and there. There's a reporter guy early on they build up and give this coughing thing but it goes nowhere.
You get lore dumps in a sense of these Men in Black guys and government people tied to aliens as well as the alien stuff. Those sorts of conspiracy are the theme of this whole book and it goes into that and gives us their own spin. But for the first half, not much actually happens as they build up these things. There are little moments that are kind of pointless beyond a minor thing.
Most things are important so it's hard to tell what could have been cut beyond minor scenes. It's a slow burn but written in a way that still had me interested. Writing is good as usual here, with more vocab words and less of the weird style things I hard on in this series.
Sean ends up being kind of passive as everyone else takes precedent a lot of the time. His arc with the stepmom is cliche and could have been deeper but it's nice to an arc in these at least. I like the early scenes with him and Patty. There's heart in regards to Ross and his own parent deals. Without spoiling, it gets wild and there's a few touching moments. How it parallels Sean's deal is obvious but works okay, even if the ending moment there could have earned a tad more.
Sean is alright, just gets lost in the shuffle despite being the protagonist. The other characters are solid though and fill the roles well, Marlon is the main adult whose POV we get a few times, which is neat to shake things up. He has "dark brown skin" so minority alert.
Eventual they do explain most things going to some extent and things are wrapped up okay. There's still a few questions, including one thing that enters that isn't totally explained. The last 3 books of the series are a trilogy that does involve stuff from this so maybe we get more info there. It's a Engle one so it's his best work when it comes to explaining stuff at least.
As it is, it is an odd entry. It can be slow and not super high concept, making it not a big favorite. But it's still good as it's so unique in the plotting of it. There's an arc in here and the action ramps up well in the latter half. I liked the world building and characters we get here in. It was still a fun and interesting read despite throwing me off with how it's paced.
It stands out and I did enjoy it. It's not a big favorite but the series but despite some drawbacks it's one I enjoy and respect a fair bit. I wouldn't start anyone on it but it works. Also, Morgan from Fly the Unfriendly Skies appears early on, no surprise. That's it for major continuity.
So yeah, odd but good note to end on. We'll see if the Graveyard School, Shivers and Spinetinglers camp books get picked for our thing, once we know I'll plan those out, it all depends. For now, that's that and we can focus mostly on that.
Camp books will fill my random reads for the summer but I'll put it others when I can as there's still stuff to cover. Either way, see ya then.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews