FaceOff

R. L. STINE VS DOUGLAS PRESTON AND LINCOLN CHILD

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child created their character, FBI agent A. X. L. Pendergast, almost by accident. Lincoln was an editor at St. Martin’s Press and had just edited Doug’s first nonfiction book, Dinosaurs in the Attic, a history of the American Museum of Natural History. After that experience, the two decided to write a thriller set in a museum. Doug wrote the first few chapters — involving the investigation of a double murder — and sent them to Lincoln for his opinion. Lincoln read the pages and had one objection. He felt the two cops on the investigation were essentially identical. So he suggested they fold both into the same character (who became Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta). But then he added, “We need a new kind of detective for the second investigator. A person who’s unusual — and who’ll be like a fish out of water in New York City.”

Doug, already irritated at this criticism of his prose, responded sarcastically, “Yeah, right. You mean, like an albino FBI agent from New Orleans?”

Silence passed for a few moments between them.

Then Lincoln said, “I think that could work.”

Over the next fifteen minutes Special Agent Pendergast was formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.

And the rest, they say, is history.

Over the course of many books Agent Pendergast has faced some unusual adversaries, including cannibalistic serial killers, arsonists, a murderous surgeon, a mutant assassin, and even his own mad-genius brother. But never has he confronted an adversary like Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy.

Slappy is one of R. L. Stine’s creepiest creations. Bob is one of the best-selling authors of all time, with over 400 million books sold around the world. He is the creator of the amazing Goosebumps series of novels. Millions of kids began reading thanks to Bob’s imagination. Within the Goosebumps series Bob introduced Slappy, through such memorable tales as Night of the Living Dummy, Bride of the Living Dummy, and Son of Slappy. Carved from coffin wood, when brought to life by a certain spoken phrase, Slappy is sarcastic, rude, sadistic, and threatening, with a raspy voice and enormous physical strength. He usually seeks to enslave the luckless child who brought him back to life. He’s so popular that he’s the model for an actual ventriloquist’s dummy sold by many retailers to this day.

Bob tells the story of how Slappy was inspired by a 1945 anthology film called Dead of Night. One segment of the movie told the story of a terrifying and murderous ventriloquist’s dummy that eventually took possession of his owner’s mind. Bob saw the film when he was young and it scared the daylights out of him. Interestingly, as a child, Bob owned a Jerry Mahoney dummy of his own. Eventually, he became fascinated by the idea that something so human-looking and seemingly harmless could turn so completely evil.

The idea of pairing the elegant, urbane FBI agent Pendergast against an evil dummy seemed so incongruous — so impossible — that Doug, Lincoln, and Bob were immediately captivated by the challenge. The result is a psychological thriller where both the dummy and Agent Pendergast play against form, assuming roles that familiar readers may find strange and unsettling.

One thing is certain — this story is not intended for children.