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Pike, Christopher

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.

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Pseudonym – apparently based on a Star Trek character – of US author Kevin McFadden (1954-    ), whose career has been mostly devoted to novels for children and the Young Adult market; some of these, like The Tachyon Web (1986) and, are sf adventures combining orthodox plots (in this case a group of teenagers "borrows" a Spaceship in which they penetrate the eponymous barrier which keeps humans from outer space) with a modicum of contemporary relevance (the children in this book are sexually involved with one another). Other juveniles – including Chain Letter (1986), Last Act (1988), Scavenger Hunt (1989), See You Later (1990), Witch (1990) and Fall into Darkness (1990) – are horror or fantasy, the latter sometimes involving Time Travel. The Last Vampire sequence, beginning with The Last Vampire (1994) and ending with Thirst No 4: The Shadow of Death (2011) [see Checklist for omnis] carries its central Vampire through millennia from its birth of a demon in ancient India; other series, like the Spooksville sequence (not listed), are horror/fantasies with a very light touch, for younger children; the Alosha sequence, comprising Alosha (2004), The Shaktra (2005) and The Yanti (2006), sets its protagonist a complex rite of passage: she must successfully become a woman while saving Earth – threatened by Ecological Disaster – from massed armies of dwarves and elves ready to take over the planet.

With Sati (1990), whose eponymous heroine may be God or may be a dippy channeller, Pike moved briefly into adult fiction. Whisper of Death (1991) is an sf tale for older children; The Season of Passage (1992) is an adult horror novel; The Eternal Enemy (1993) is again Young Adult sf, in which a VCR turn into a Time Viewer capable of giving the young protagonist sight of the future; Magic Fire (1999), whose pyromaniac protagonist creates a California-wide Disaster when he sets the state alight; The Secret of Ka (2010) is an ambitious fantasy with, once again, the planet at stake. But most of his work is distant from sf. [JC]

Other works:

Kevin McFadden

born New York: 12 November 1954

works

series (selected)

Remember Me

The Last Vampire

Alosha

  • Alosha (New York: St Martin's Press, 2004) [Alosha: hb/Larry Rostant]
  • The Shaktra (New York: Tor Starscape, 2005) [Alosha: hb/Daniel Dos Santos]
  • Alosha (New York: Tor Teen, 2004) [Alosha: hb/Daniel Dos Santos]

individual titles (selected)

links

previous versions of this entry



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