Christopher Pike
Born: November, 1954
Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York

      Christopher Pike was born Kevin McFadden from Brooklyn, New York. He now resides in Santa Barbara, California. I’ll let Kevin explain, when he was in high school, eight of his friends died from, suicide, accidents, and illness. “I guess that has some effect on you. It shows how fragile life can be and what a thin line there is between living and dying. That’s something that come across in the books- horror is really about the fear of death, peoples’ vulnerability.”
      Little is known about the respected author except that, after dropping out of university, he spent some time working as a computer programmer and writing science fiction. However, the sci-fi market wasn’t as open the teen market he cornered. Pike’s first novels Slumber Party and Weekend were published in 1985 when he was twenty-eight, seven years after he began writing. Almost overnight, they became cult reading among American teenagers. Soon, British, Australian and New Zealand readers were turning to stories of teen angst with the release of Chainletter and Spellbound. His books have sold millions world-wide and no one can dispute his status as King of Teen Horror.
      But the road to success was not without bumps. Pike collected hundreds of rejection letters before being discovered, yet success has made little impact on the author’s life. Intensely private. He lives in Santa Barbara where he works and lives alone. “My books are read by millions and I receive hundreds of fan letters,” he reflects. “But when I go out no one recognizes me. I work very hard, and I work alone, but I like it that way. I just want to tell stories. If you don’t have that strong desire, it is difficult to secede as a writer.” Unlike his literary influences, “J.R. Tolkien, Stephen King, and Ray Bradbury, Pike does not write epics- many of his stories take no more than ten days to write.
      He insists that he is principally a writer of mysteries. “No more than a third of my books are strictly horror,” he says, “But I am not ashamed of them. I do not think gore, in itself is scary. Psychological terror, Hitchcock-type stuff is much more interesting.” When asked if he thought teens cope with this sort of writing, Pike scoffs: “Of course, they are more sophisticated than you think. I do not write down to them. The only difference from my adult novels is the age of the characters. It is nonsense to say horror is damaging- I never glorify violence or suggest it as a solution to anything. At the same time, you can not moralize- teens would be on to it immediately. I just try to ensure that the central characters have a basic perception of right and wrong.”
      Despite his apparent hotline to the teen psyche, Christopher Pike did not set out to write stories specifically teens. “I don’t see myself as writing books for young adults. I just write books that happen to be about them,” Pike explains. The standard young fiction market doesn’t treat readers as if they were intelligent. Most of the teenage market is patronizing. I wouldn’t read the books myself, so why would teenagers?” Pike aims to make his characters realistic enough for the teen market. “They act intelligently- they do things that teenagers would do. I don’t want the readers thinking: ‘I would never do that’- it stops you believing in the story.” Christopher Pike himself is also fascinated with the particular time in life that his books are so often set.” Teenagers feel everything so much more: anger, love, jealousy, loyalty. It’s a very intense time in life.”
      Pike defends his particular brand of horror fiercely. Unlike most other young adult books, characters do actually die, murder, have sex and all other things American teens do. “I try to come up with something which hasn’t been done before- a fear of the unknown.” Pike says, “Mine is a horror that works on the imagination. Things like Freddy bore me- there’s no subtlety. You know what’s going to happen and it’s just grisly stuff with plenty of blood. On TV, so much of the horror is visual- if you made Alien into a book it would be so-so. I think it’s more scary when you don’t what will happen.” Because of the grisly nature of many of his books, Pike has even been accused by reporters of indirectly contributing to the suicide of an American teenager.
      Many critics have argued that children shouldn’t be exposed to the horror of Pike’s books, assuming they can’t make up their own minds. Pike remains impervious to their outrage- grown-ups don’t have to worry about him. “The hostility towards me has been misplaced,” says the author. “Time magazine did a full page on me because some kid who had died had read my books. They asked me if I felt responsible and I said ‘no, do you?’ After all they are the one who write about violence all the time. This kid had read some Stephen King and some Christopher Pike, and he watched MTV and Beavis & Butthead- which is what most kids do. But the Time guy had not even read my books.” Of course Time magazine was not the first to cause Christopher Pike to be wary of wayward reporters. The Wall Street Journal published his real name at the height of his popularity, causing beserk, crazed fans to stalk his home. The British Times described him as ordinary, fat and hopelessly goofy, while trashing his writing style using lots of large words so as to imply constructive criticism.
      Although, Christopher Pike novels, which are never out of the bestseller lists in America, have sold almost eight (today probably 10) million world-wide. They have set a record of seven titles in the American Young Adult Top Ten Bestsellers List simultaneously. Considering the enormous popularity of Pike, he seems content to stay out of the limelight. There are only two publicity photos of Pike in existence, one of which is an abstract taken by a British Time newspaper photographer in an elevator. (I have the one from the hardcover Sita.)
      “No one knows what I look like,” Pike boasts, “When I see a kid take one of my books off a shelf I sometimes say, ‘I know him’- If I said ‘I am him,’ they wouldn’t believe me. It’s good to be unknown; if they did meet me they would be disappointed. Your heroes always turn out to be ordinary.” I doubt that...
      His fans tend to be in the 13-16 age group, with avid readers creating newsletters and watch groups to weasel information about their idol. “I have very intense fans,” says Pike, “A bunch of kids once found out where I lived and I had to move. It spread like rumor where I was, and it got weird.”
      There are now around 40 Christopher Pike titles in print, although they vary from country to country frustrating those waiting for the next installment of series’ such as The Last Vampire. American teens were kept waiting for two years for copies of The Tachyon Web, a sci-fi extravaganza, while New Zealand readers had it just days after it came off the press. Yet this particular book was written by Pike in 1986! Then again, New Zealand and British fans were left in the lurch when the final three episodes of The Last Vampire. The fourth episode was released in January of ‘97, while Americans have had access to The Last Vampire 4,5, & 6 since early 1996. Other books have questionable release dates include Futurists, The Formalists, (a hardback novel for adults) and The Blind Mirror.
      When asked how much of his fiction is fact, Pike answers that seldom are his characters based on real people. Ilonka in the Midnight Club is based on a very close friend, and a real life romantic partner for Pike suffered at the hands of vampire character Alisa Perne. “One girl I was dating recently left me because I was writing. I put her in The Last Vampire. But then I killed her in the sequel.” My books seem to give some people night nightmares,” Pike says of his chosen profession. “But people like to be scared- don’t ask me why. I wasn’t plunged by nightmares myself, but I’ve had share. I’ve only used one of them in a book though- I’m running from something, and not able to get away and being caught and torn to pieces.
      To some he plots seem occasionally far-fetched, Pike is so good at building and maintaining suspense that his readers don’t care. And unlike many other writers for young adults, Pike doesn’t talk down to his teenage audience. His books presented well-defined characters who, like teens everywhere, went to dances, threw parties, fell in love, and had trouble communicating with parents but they often chose extreme or unusual ways to deal with their problems.
      In his early books, Pike often relied on young female narrators whose observations about people and events were essential to the novel’s plot. He was fascinated by females in general, because they seemed more complex, and it was easier to for them to show their emotion.
      These days, Pike isn’t married. He enjoys running, astronomy, transcendental meditation, reading and surfing.

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