Recently, I finished a 389-page sci-fi novel named Silver Eyes by Scott Cawthon. Scott Cawthon is mostly famous for being a famous and well-respected game developer. He made books based on his most popular video-game, Five Nights at Freddies. I chose this book because I am interested in the science fiction genre with scares like Hannibal Lecter. This book reeled me into its engaging story and well-developed characters.
The story starts with a character named Charlotte (or Charlie) driving back to Hurricane, Utah, the town where she was born and raised as an adolescent. She returned to attend the launch of a scholarship dedicated to her school friend Michael Brooks, who went missing ten years earlier at the start of the book. When she returned to her old town and booked a motel room she met up with her childhood friends Jessica, Lamar, Marla, Carlton, and John. After telling all the stories that she had she asked: “Do anyone of you want to go back there again?” And by there she meant her fathers old restaurant, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, the place that shut down due to ten different children missing at this pizzeria. When they all go back they all see the lifeless animatronics sitting on the stage without action.
I was really surprised near the climax of the book when Charlie finds out the abandoned mall that she and her friends have been exploring housed another way to get into Freddies. After finding a new person, a security guard named Dave at Freddies late at night. As he lets Charlie and her friends stay in his house, weird vibes are given off to Charlie, she realizes something is wrong with Dave after he kidnaps Carlton one night and is never seen again until the end.
I liked the way the author included many different plot twists in the book it made me want to read more. One surprise twist was the new animatronic character who joined the original four animatronic animals. this new character was discovered when Charlie was searching the mall to find the missing things from her father’s workshop. This new character kills a cop who was searching for a missing kid.
In some ways, this book reminds me of the horror movie Alien 2 because it started calmly at the beginning of the book and movie and progressed to get scarier throughout the movie with all the spine-tingling scares and visual gore for the movie and the verbal gore for the book.
Finally, the part that got me the most scared was when Carlton was stuck in the spring lock suit and dave is telling him what will happen to him if he wants to live., Scott Cawthon writes: “Of course,” Dave said, the kind of polite murmur people made when they didn’t care. “Well, that’s one of his first suits,” he said, gesturing at Carlton. “And if you trigger those spring locks, two things will happen: First, all the locks will snap right into you, making deep cuts all over your body, and a split second later all the animatronics parts they’ve been holding back, all that sharp steel and hard plastic, will instantly be driven into your body. You will die, but it will be slow. You’ll feel your organs punctured, the suit will grow wet with your blood, and you will know you’re dying for long, long minutes. You’ll try to scream, but you will be unable to. Your vocal cords will be severed, and your lungs will fill with your own blood until you drown in it.” There was a faraway look in his eyes, and Carlton knew with chilling certainty that Dave wasn’t predicting. He was reminiscing…(p.268-269).””
Why I love this passage so much is how good of a job this passage terrified me. My perspective of Dave changed from him being laid back to him being super serious and scarily descriptive about what will happen to Carlton if he tries to escape the spring lock suit. I’m glad that I read this book and I give it a 9/10 and I would totally re-read this again along with its sequel The Twisted Ones which I’ve already done a Letter-Essay on before.
Sincerely,
Luke Vechiarelli