The dauntless heroes from the popular Ghostbusters film are back in fine form, wreaking havoc on the spirit world, in an original novel about the trio of misfits who come up with an unusual way to make a living--the exorcism of ghosts. Original.
His credits run the gamut from Superman to Star Wars to Scooby-Doo, and from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser to Looney Tunes. His comics for kids have won a Comics Buyer’s Guide Fan Award, and been nominated for an Eisner Award and two Diamond gem awards, while several of his stories for older readers were included in the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novels Action Comics.
Ghostbusters: The Return, was written by Sholly Fisch. This unofficial/non-canon novel was published in 2004 by ibooks. This story takes place after the events of the film, Ghostbusters 2.
SUMMARY The Ghostbusters return in, Ghostbusters: The Return! The city faces a rise in the supernatural once again. Xanthador! The ghostly creep releases his minions to bring terror in the streets, fueling his energy for a potential take over of the living realm.
Peter Venkman has become the face of the Ghostbusters, he's a crows pleaser. The current Mayor of New York uses the Ghostbusters who are popular amongst the people, as part of his campaign. Elections are coming up soon and he want's the Ghostbusters to be present at one of his speeches.
Meanwhile, members of an Independent party need a candidate to take the Mayor's seat. With the Ghostbusters popularity and recent event that put them in the news, the party calls on Peter Venkman to be their man. It takes a little convincing, but Peter, thinking the job would be easy-peasy, accepts, and chooses Winston Zeddemore to be his Deputy Mayor.
As Xanthador ramps up his hauntings and two Ghostbusters are busy with politics, Ray and Egon struggle to keep the streets clean. Hauntings that resemble familiar Urban Legends are terrorizing the people of New York.
OVERALL THOUGHTS I had absolutely no idea what to expect with this novel. The original film is my favorite film - of all time. I don’t expect anything to be as good as that first Ghostbusters movie, especially tie-in media. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ghostbusters 2 and The Real Ghostbusters cartoon series, but they pale in comparison to the first film. So my expectations for this novel were set low, if there’s anything that the Disney Star Wars canon has taught me, it’s to tame my expectations. That said, this book wasn’t too bad!
At times, the characters read as though they were the very characters from the films; and sometimes they resembled the cartoon versions. We have Slimer in this story, and he is very much the Slimer from The Real Ghostbusters. I’d say Janine is a mix between Ghostbusters to and the cartoon. The inconsistency of characterization for the main Ghostbusters does bother me a bit, however, I do like that Slimer hangs around just like in the cartoon, with an angry Peter discrediting the little spud. There’s a moment involving Slimer that made me laugh out loud…
Ray and Slimer give each other a secret handshake. Peter walks in and says, "I mean, how are supposed to maintain any sort of credibility with the public if people come in here and find this... ectoplasmic reject kicking back with a beer?"
The use of the word "spud" is used too much. It was funny in Ghostbusters when Slimer was referred to as "an ugly little spud." This book uses it a few in a different context. Louis is a bumbling idiot that acts like he's got zero brains. Yes, in GB2 we had some silly stuff with him in the courtroom, but he wasn't a complete goofball.
This book isn't bad at all. The tone of the story was just a bit confusing. It would shift from sequel movie material to a cartoon episode. I don't know if that was intentional, to maybe bring in the nostalgia to all Ghostbusters fans? A strange tale, but I'm happy I finally read it.
I like that this story didn't just focus on the Ghostbusters taking on a new big villain. It got into the relationship between Dana and Peter, we get plenty of Louis and Janine, and we see two characters take on a new challenge - politics. I love that they made Peter and Winston an independent party. I also love the fact that the book didn't get "real-world" political! There were not secret motives, no pathetic agenda's being pushed. It was clean, it was silly, it was fun, and I love the way the story ended.
Do I recommend you read this book? Yes, it was a fun, yet unusual story that did not discredit the material that came before it.
For the rating of Ghostbusters: The Return, I give this story a B.
Urban legends gone wild and Peter Venkman for NYC Mayor pretty much sums up the plot of this novel. Sadly, the graphic depiction of the Ghostbusters doing battle with a massive hell-beast in the streets of Manhattan shown on the cover is not really as exciting in the text.
I can clearly state that I am glad this book was not an inspiration of the video game or rumored to be the plot for the third film. The trouble with this book was that the author wrote the plot, but stole a lot of the dialogue from the previous two films—and even some from the cartoon series. As the first adventure featuring the original team members since 1989’s Ghostbusters II, I was excited by the prospect of the franchise returning—in any media. But the story was kind of bland and the characters acted very cliché. The writer did not take any chances revealing anything new about them—or if he did, the information was lost amid the attempt at fluid one-liners that were copied and pasted from the original script.
This book was supposed to be a stepping stone to more adventures, it was supposed to show Sony (the mega-corp. that owns the rights to the Ghostbusters) that there was a market for more paranormal eliminations and evil god-thwarting by our friendly experts. But due to the poor promotions and sales of this book, Sony pretty much ensured that the boys were dead—to be resurrected a few years later for the 25th anniversary in the form of a new video game!
Unfortunately for you, this book went out of print when the company iBooks went belly-up, and it is now going for hundreds of dollars online.
17 years after this book came out...I have finally obtained a copy and finished reading it. I enjoyed every minute of it as a lifelong Ghostbusters fanatic. It was a little personal for me as I couldn't ever find it and neither could Grandma. Grandma always and I mean always went out of her way to get me Ghostbusters stuff my whole life. Going to sound un-librarian-like of me but this is going to be a hard book to return to the library. I wish I could keep it but then nobody else could enjoy it. Hopefully one will popup on eBay at a reasonable price some day. So with that in mind, it was going to have to be absolute garbage for me to not enjoy.
The book is flawed. It claims to be in continuity with the first two films but that's not the case. It actually retcons the timeline of the first two movies which is the only way this can be two years following the events of Ghostbusters II. As another reviewer indicated, it's almost like they were aiming for post-9/11 New York. Additionally, the vibe is totally off for Ghostbusters. It's much more on par with The Real Ghostbusters with things such as Slimer being on good terms with the 'busters. But that was something I was willing to overlook. I can also see why some people weren't fans of the politics but it didn't bother me too much. Continuing this theme into the next book could have been quite interesting. I also found the action scenes to be cool but could have used more description. Part of the thrill is the sound and visuals of the equipment in use. I know this isn't a movie but a good author would have spent more time recreating this.
Aside from some flaws, it was still a lot of fun. The humor was great and it had potential to setup additional books which I guess was the plan but ended up flopping. I'm hoping Ghostbusters Afterlife gives us more novels as this is it. And finally Winston gets what he deserves.
If you're a big big Ghostbusters fan, find a copy to read if you can. If you aren't a huge fan, I'd say you can pass. The IDW comic series is superior and thankfully much easier to find.
After searching for this book for years, I finally gave up and read the online version of it. Being a life long Ghostbusters fan (Ghostbusters 2 was the first movie I ever watched in the movie theater in 1989) I always wondered what this book held in store. To be honest, it was just meh.
We find the Ghostbusters a few years after the events of Ghostbusters 2 and of course there is a new villain getting ready to attack NYC and the world and there is only on group of people who can save the day. Without giving away any spoilers, the story is broken into two different storylines, that ultimately join together at the end of the book.
Unfortunately, we get to spend most of the book with the much less interesting story line, that tends to drag on and on. The other issue with this double storyline is it splits up the Ghostbusters. It's rare in the whole book that all four are together, so you never get the feeling that the moves had.
The brings me to my next issue with the book. The Ghostbusters themselves. The author did his best to make the Ghostbusters sound like their movie roles, but more often than not, they ended up sounding more like their cartoon versions instead. Especially Peter, it was very hard to read this, and picture Bill Murray, instead I kept finding myself picture The Real Ghostbusters instead.
In fact, this book easily could've been a two part special for The Real Ghostbusters cartoon. We spend the majority of the book waiting for action, and then the final scene, is very reminiscent to Ghostbusters 2 , it just ends.
Overall I was disappointed with this one, and I'm glad I never bit the bullet and paid the outrageous price for this book. With all that being said, its not the worst book I ever read, but if this was a Real Ghostbusters story, I might have enjoyed it a bit better. 3 1/2 stars.
As a Ghostbusters fan I was entertained at times but not enough to really recommend this. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be though. For one thing there's the murky retconning of the timeline. The description says it takes place 5 years after the second movie but in the book it's 2, at the same time it takes place not in 1991 which would be the correct year but apparently in 2004 when it was released. Yet it feels like it was originally written to take place in 1991, there are several events/references that makes it feel like the early 90s and nothing in the plot really felt like it needed to take place in the "present" so I was wondering most of the time why it was done. Then I got to the end and understood that it was a post 9/11 love letter to "New York Courage" and first responders who all kind of pointlessly show up like the cavalry in the climax even though they don't really do a whole lot.
Mainly though the tone just feels a little off, it's more silly than the movies. It's more in line with The Real Ghostbusters cartoon than the movies. They have Slimer at the station as their pet/mascot, there are comic relief demons that provide no comedy and stuff like that. Also the writer is incapable of writing for Venkman, he's constantly joking but never funny in a Bill Murray way but more like the cartoon character.
Having been a lifelong fan of Ghostbusters, I treated myself to this rare little book last year (my way of celebrating the 30 year anniversary of the first movie). I wanted to love this book, wanted to be totally crazy about it and unfortunately I wasn't.
The premise of a fear demon using manifestations of urban legends to spread terror throughout New York, to increase his power, ready to conquer earth, sounds pretty good at the outset. Unfortunately the selection of some of the urban legends and the way they are handled in the story becomes 'cartoony'.
The side-plot of Venkman running for Mayor takes up a lot of time, with Winston as his running mate, we get to see the Ghostbusters split for lots of the book's length. Some of those scenes were quite well-observed, I could imagine this being how you really would try to push through an unlikely candidate for mayor, but I didn't want to read a comedy version of Boss, I wanted all the boys together, busting heads... in a spiritual sense, of course.
Some reviewers have complained that the showdown was a bit of an anticlimax, but I can't say I had a problem with that particular portion of the book. Equally, the start of the book promises to be great (busting ghosts at a metal gig).
The addition of a character called Jonathan Goodraven, with his olde worlde speech and garb seemed more like something out of the animated The Real Ghostbusters, rather than what this book was aiming to be - part of the movie continuum.
Which takes me on to the inconsistencies... The rear cover announces that this story takes place 2 years after the events of Ghostbusters 2, yet within the story the incumbent mayor, who replaced Lenny Klotch, is said to have been in office for about a decade. There are also some hints that we are seeing a post-911 Ghostbusters, as Venkman delivers a speech about the last couple of years being hell for New Yorkers, as he draws together all of the emergency services (think of those moments in the Raimi Spider-Man movies and you're not far off). Oscar is still only about 3 though, which ties the story back to being a couple of years after Ghostbusters 2. There's also a reference to them having been made bankrupt several times - what, in 2 years? We already know they were probably bankrupted after Ghostbusters, and spent 4/5 years doing other things.
I'm nitpicking, I know, but that's because I love these characters and really wanted them to have good service in a special story. Sometime Fisch gets it just dead-on right, and I have to say, he gave Winston the attention that neither movie ever did, giving him this great backstory where you really get to see what he brings to the team, as well as some heroic moments of his own. Sometimes he seems to just spin out some of the things that worked in the first movie - which some people might like, but I found a bit of a reach (eg. Egon making Twinkie comparisons to PKE activity).
So there you go. I wanted to love it, and there was plenty in here to keep me entertained, but I came away just liking it in the end.
It was hard to get behind this book, as desperately as I wanted to. The Ghostbusters universe is ripe for the Novel and Expanded Universe markets, but hasn't been tapped appropriately. While this book was an effort in the right direction, it was impossible to get into the feel of the characters that I grew up with. It felt more like the mentalities of the Real Ghostbusters, without any of the lovable cartoon parts. Personal Message to Dan Aykroyd and Harold Raimis: Stop fretting about a movie and whether or not this star or that star will come in. You're 30 years from the movie's debut. People who enjoyed it then are now professionals and authors. Now is the time to make Ghostbusters into a fiction factory. Make it a brand and hire authors (give them a percentage of the royalties of their works) to expand upon your universe in full George Lucas fashion. You get the final say on each book, but let them revive these characters and make you shit tons of money, because that's what will happen. Fans everywhere will rejoice in a proper revival of the story (much as they have with the comic books) and you'll rake in the dough. Mostly, I want this for the fans. They deserve to stop being teased with the hopes and dreams of another Ghostbusters movie, which is just going to disappoint the most ardent of fans. Instead, make Ghostbusters a brand, a fiction factory. Hell, you can even do a Youtube channel that presents Ghostbusters Shorts, for the writers and screen directors who want to have some visual play. You have the best platform in 30 years to work with. Stop screwing around and use it.
To note this book is INSANELY hard to fine and while fun so far it's not well written. People sell this book for upwards of 100 USD and even for collectors that's insane. I recommend other venues of acquisition that take fan reselling out of the equation.
It was o.k., not great. The parts about Peter running for mayor were kind of slow, and the final showdown felt anti-climactic. But it was still fun to read a new Ghostbusters story, they should put out more of these.