Lost Boys (Legend books)

by Orson Scott Card

[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.