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| Release: 1995, Pages: 192 |
It has been my goal this month to get through five books, so I thought I would cheat a little and read a quick one. After sitting down and cracking open Fatal Games, the second book in the Freddy Krueger Tales of Terror, I managed to get through the whole thing in one sitting. Does that mean it’s a good book though? I can most certainly say it’s better than the last one, Blind Date, but we still run into a few issues. Read on to see what the deal is…
half covered by just a sheet. His body was wet with perspiration. His
face was beet red and filled with terror.
can’t be! It was all a joke! I was only joking! Noooo!” his features
contorted into a gruesome mask of revulsion. And then Al suddenly rose
from the bed and came at Chip like a lunatic caught in a trance. Before
Chip knew what was happening Al had his meaty hands around Chip’s neck.
Chip tried to pry his brother’s hold loose as he realized he couldn’t
get any air. He slapped his brother in the face as hard as he could, but
Al’s grip only tightened. “Al!” Chip croaked hoarsely as Al’s steel
like fingers bit into the skin of his throat… Al was strangling him to
death!
Fatal Games takes place only a few weeks after the end of the first novel, Blind Date, a book that I really didn’t enjoy. The story follows Chip and his stepbrother, Al, as they move into the house that was originally owned by Evan, the nerdy kid from the first book. Chip’s mother gets a great deal on the house, which resides on Elm Street, due the fact that several murders took place there and Alicia, the surviving victim from Blind Date, still lives next door and befriends Chip. It isn’t long however for Chip to start to notice a lot of strange stuff happening, especially with his stepbrother Al, who is constantly working out down in the basement and talking to himself. Al is getting more and more aggressive with Chip and before you know it, he’s become a full fledged psycho, for a reason I won’t spoil.
I can tell you right now, if Blind Date and this book were combined, I would’ve actually enjoyed both stories better, as Fatal Games builds on the characters more and the strange evil that exist in Springwood and Elm Street. Separating the two books, causes problems where not enough time is spent on each character and we speed through a lot of situations and we suddenly get an ending dumped on us, that struggles to tie in the A Nightmare on Elm Street mythology and Freddy Krueger. Fatal Games certainly plays fast and loose with the established canon, creating an ending that has a problem that seems to mess with the continuity of the series. Still, even with a shaky ending, I personally think it would’ve been best to combine Blind Date and Fatal Games together and work out the few kinks.
Fatal Games in the end, does fix a lot of the problems I had with the first novel. We don’t get as many cheap cliffhangers at the end of chapters and there isn’t a lot of time wasted on getting to the meat of the story. The book does try it’s best to tie in with Freddy Krueger, but that’s probably where the biggest fault comes in to play, as this books timeline and the movies, just don’t match up correctly. Either way, Fatal Games is a quick and fast read, for any fan of the dream demon.
Rating: 3/5 (-2 for a big giant plot problem at the end and speeding through the story a little too fast. +3 for tying in the first book, Blind Date and helping resolve some of the issues I had with that one.)