Paperbacks from Hell [N.F. - Literature, Art]

Some writers overpromised, depicting computers as superheroes. Stephen Gresham, author of The Shadow Man (1986), believed that personal computers could generate hard-light holograms capable of running our errands, but then again Gresham also believed that pro wrestling was real, so he might have been a simpleton. In his book, eight-year-old Joey gets C.A.P. (Computer Assisted Playmate) when his pro-wrestler father, Jeb “The Dixie Strangler” Stuart, decides that his son is lonely after his parents’ divorce. Turns out that Jeb’s ex-wife is a witch, and no matter how open-minded you are, you should never marry a witch.

How will computers change everything? They might defend kids from witches (The Shadow Man), enable super-nerds to stalk and murder strangers (The Hacker), spawn software glitches that become actual insects (Bugs), or become addictions that control our minds (Little Brother). At least two of those predictions have come true! Credit 111

Joey is C.A.P.’s “little friend,” and when Mom summons the digital demon known only as the Shadow Man to kill her son, C.A.P. screams that “A PRELIMINARY SCAN SHOWS A HIGH RANKING DEMON OF SOME TYPE—A SHAPESHIFTER.” Which is way more useful than “404: file not found.” C.A.P. uses his “Timeshifter Beam” to trap Mom in the past, saving the day. But can C.A.P. help Joey win back his father’s love? He wouldn’t be a computer if he couldn’t.

Credit 112

Back in the ’80s we didn’t know that one day all computers would be linked and turned into a giant delivery system for pornography and cat pictures, so networking seemed exciting. We learned our lessons only by trial and error. Trial: Why not let a fetus network its brain with the hospital mainframe? Error: Fetus becomes a big-headed psychic baby that wants to murder everyone (The Unborn 1980). Trial: Let’s teach monkeys to control robots with their minds. Error: God intervenes and makes everyone either crazy or dead (The Hacker 1989). Yes, it’s easy to sit here in the safety of the now and mock a bunch of paperback novelists for not accurately foreseeing the future, but they did get one thing right. All these books, no matter how silly, don’t feel like much fun. An underlying pessimism runs through them, mostly because their suspicions about technology turned out to be true.

In Little Brother (1983), aliens land on Earth in 1908 and take over the Soviet Union. By 1983 they’ve infiltrated the American market with an iPad-esque toy called the Possum, which beams addictive subliminal messages into the brains of good American kids. When worried parents try to limit the ever-increasing screen time, the kids either commit suicide or attack Mom and Dad. In the end, the adults figure “What the hell?” and become addicted to Possum, too. Anyone who thinks this is baseless paranoia hasn’t watched a parent texting while rocketing down a highway at 70 m.p.h. in the family van.

Credit 113

Andrew Neiderman Puts a PIN in It

Your children want to know where babies come from, so you:

a) give them a talk about the birds and the bees

b) buy them a book called Your Changing Body

c) show them a tasteful PBS documentary

d) use ventriloquism to make them think your transparent, life-size anatomical dummy is alive and capable of answering all their questions about human reproduction.

If you picked (D), then the storyline of PIN (1981) won’t seem so strange. Leon and Ursula have lived together ever since their parents died in a car accident. The kids grew up thinking dad’s anatomical model, PIN, was alive, and now Leon throws his voice unconsciously, keeping PIN talking. PIN eats with them, listens to Leon’s weird poetry recitals, and when Leon and Ursula have incest sex, PIN likes to help. If you’re a completely insane lunatic shut-in with ice water in your veins and screaming bats inside your skull, this would be paradise. And for Leon, it is.

Leon and Ursula are so hyperintelligent that they’re basically insane, and that’s Andrew Neiderman’s specialty: characters who are too smart for their own good. In Night Howl (1986), it’s a genetically mutated dog with a man-sized brain. In Teacher’s Pet (1986), it’s an afterschool tutor who turns the brightest kids into cold-blooded “rational” monsters. In Brainchild (1981), it’s Lois Gilbert, high school senior, who turns her house into a behavioral psychology experiment that drives her entire family stark raving mad.

When Neiderman’s not writing about mad scientists in training, he loves writing about families who put the “fun” in dysfunction. Maybe it’s his way with toxic families that led to the other part of his career. While he’s written forty-seven novels under his own name, he’s written sixty-eight as V. C. Andrews, ghost-writing for the woman who raised gothic horror from its grave.