Lost Boys (Legend books)

by Orson Scott Card

'Card has exceeded his own high standards ... The man's versatility makes him unique.' - Anne McCaffrey

For Step Fletcher, his pregnant wife DeAnne, and their three children, the move to tiny Steuben, North Carolina, offers new hope and a new beginning. But from the first, eight-year-old Stevie's life there is an unending parade of misery and disaster.

Cruelly ostracized at his school, Stevie retreats further and further into himself - and into a strange computer game and a group of imaginary friends.

But there is something eerie about his loyal, invisible new playmates: each shares the name of a child who has recently vanished from the sleepy Southern town. And terror grows for Step and DeAnne as the truth slowly unfolds. For their son has found something savagely evil . . and it's coming for Stevie next.

A chilling suspense thriller from the bestselling Orson Scott Card, author of ENDER'S GAME

Books by Orson Scott Card:

Alvin Maker novels
Seventh Son
Red Prophet
Prentice Alvin
Alvin Journeyman
Heartfire
The Crystal City

Ender Wiggin Saga
Ender's Game
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind
Ender in Exile

Homecoming
The Memory of the Earth
The Call of the Earth
The Ships of the Earth
Earthfall
Earthborn

First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
Earth Unaware
Earth Afire
Earth Awakens

• ISBN10: 0517125773
• ISBN13: 9780517125779
• Publish Date: 10 July 1994 (first published 1 November 1992)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 30 March 2021
• Imprint: Random House Value Publishing
• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English

Reviews

[empressbrooke]

When I found Lost Boys on the shelf at the library, the synopsis on the back of the book was intriguing enough that I decided I was willing to try one of Card's non-Ender novels. The book's plot summary gives a creepy description of a child's imaginary friends and vague promises of terror and evil; I haven't done a good horror novel in a while, so I was looking forward to reading it.

Except it's not really a horror novel. For about 500 pages, it's really just about a family. I read about their move to North Carolina, the father's new job that he hates, the mother's pregnancy, their involvement with their church, and their three, and later four, kids. Nothing really happened - there are some crazy-ish people who provide small diversions, but it's really just 500 pages of a year in the life of the Fletcher family. It was interesting enough, and went by quickly, but it wasn't what the back of the book advertised at all.

Until the last 26 pages or so, which provided the punch-in-the-gut ending reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode. Which was great. But just like the one season of TZ that had 1-hour episodes, there was just far too much filler on the road to the ending. Apparently this was originally a short story, which makes the TZ comparison especially apt; when Rod Serling stuck to 30-minutes per story, the pacing was just perfect. I imagine that the short story Lost Boys is based on felt a lot more perfect, too. Even if he wanted to expand it to novel-length and build up the reader's emotional connection to the Fletchers, he did not need to take 500 pages to do it.