Goosebumps HorrorLand: new details and what's to wait for

With
When R.L. Stine's characters confront a creepy villain, they may gasp, they may shiver, they may even cringe. Mostly, though, they shriek.
Continue to 2nd paragraph
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
Best-selling author R. L. Stine is hoping to frighten a new generation of readers with a new "Goosebumps" series. With "Goosebumps HorrorLand," R. L. Stine returns to the series for which he is best known.

"That's when I started to scream" may be the most frequently used chapter ending in the hugely successful children's horror series "Goosebumps," which a decade ago catapulted Stine to prominence. Now, for the first time in eight years during which Stine tried his hand at creating other series, he is back with a fresh "Goosebumps." Can he resuscitate the dormant brand?

Stine, who was born Robert Lawrence Stine 64 years ago, devotes considerable effort to the cliffhangers that virtually dare you to try to stop reading. For years it paid off with a sizable following of children for whom the slightly scary "Goosebumps" series was a sensation before it cooled off in the mid-1990s, just before Harry Potter took off in the United States.

Now his American publisher, Scholastic, hoping that another generation of readers ages 8 to 12 is ready for his stories, is releasing the first of 12 books in a new series called "Goosebumps HorrorLand." The author and his publisher must know the odds are against lightning striking twice.

Then again, Stine said, he often receives requests for new "Goosebumps" books.

Stine and his editors at Scholastic are betting that children will rekindle interest in the series - which, they are quick to say, never disappeared completely. In the new books Stine intends to link the scary stories of "Goosebumps" with a serialized tale set inside an evil amusement park called HorrorLand.

The children in the first book are invited to the park, where they discover a werewolf petting zoo, bottomless canoes, a quicksand beach and other wicked attractions. Their misfortunes will be chronicled in serial form in 30-page installments at the end of the subsequent books, which will focus on different characters. At the same time, the stories will continue online at two companion Web sites for the theme park: enterhorrorland.com and escapehorrorland.com.

"I don't really want to terrify kids," he said. "I want them to have a really good time reading."

Stine got his start writing funny stories, not scary ones. Under the name Jovial Bob Stine, he was the author of dozens of joke books in the 1970s and '80s. Influenced by the surprise twists of Ray Bradbury's novels and devoted to comic books, he came to appreciate the way some writers were able to combine humor with the macabre.

He found early success with a teenage horror series called "Fear Street."

"I was having a good time killing off teenagers," Stine said, when the co-owner of Parachute Press, Joan Waricha, persuaded him to aim at a younger demographic, and "Goosebumps" was born.

The books, with titles like "Monster Blood" and "How I Got My Shrunken Head," were major hits in the early '90s. For three consecutive years, USA Today named Stine the best-selling author in America. For a time Scholastic was selling 4 million copies a month.

"It was far beyond anyone's dreams," Stine said. "You know how it changed my life? I had to work harder."

But then the relationship between Scholastic and Parachute, the books' packager, became strained. Ownership of licensing rights was disputed as early as 1996, and by the end of 1997 Scholastic had stopped paying advances to Parachute, and Parachute had filed suit. Around the same time sales figures started weakening.

The publishing disputes surrounding "Goosebumps" were settled in 2003, with Scholastic paying $9.65 million for the rights to existing and future titles in the series.

Even without new titles for so many years, "Goosebumps" sells about 2 million copies a year, said Deborah Forte, president of Scholastic Media, who manages licensing for the series.

Holding a copy of the first "HorrorLand" book, "Revenge of the Living Dummy," Stine admired the flashy cover displaying a theme park entrance and a suspicious-looking ventriloquist's dummy.

As the setting sun cast shadows across his green couch, Stine said that, yes, "Goosebumps" would almost certainly be the series for which he is remembered.

"I'm just waiting to see if kids will pick them up again," he said.