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5.0 out of 5 stars
"They took my eyes...", April 12 2002
With a title like "Eyes of the Killer Robot," who could resist? While cheesy idiocy is implied in the title, the actual plot couldn't be further from it. This is an example of how Bellairs triumphs with his horror-fantasy stories, which so easily could descend into such ghastly cheese, but don't.A stock-market plunge and a baseball game set off this book. Professor Childermass loses thousands of dollars in a sudden company collapse, shortly after it is announced that a star baseball player will offer ten thousand to anyone who can strike him out. It brings to Childermass's mind (he informs both us and the timid Johnny Dixon) an old memory: Of how a brilliant but insane inventor once offered a baseball team (which had Johnny's grandfather on it) a pitching robot. He strikes on the scheme of finding the robot and using it to strike out the baseball player (and cover his losses). Unsurprisingly, this is not a Good Idea. They find the robot, but then Johnny sees a strange specter: An eyeless man who wanders around moaning, "They took my eyes." The robot itself remains lifeless until a pair of strange glass eyes are put in its face. As it rampages through the town, the heroic trio make two other discoveries: Its inventor is not dead, and he's coming after Johnny with evil intent... Bellairs is in top form here. Magic is mixed with the real world, and various occultic workings that wuill make your skin crawl. He does an especially good job with the villains: one is insane, and the other is frightening sane but absolutely amoral. As ever, his dialogue is snappy and his descriptive sense is either funny or just spinechilling; the settings are those of nice small towns with essentially pleasant people -- both of which can turn horrifying at any moment. His ghosts are simply unparalleled. And I agree with "Hallie" -- it takes a writer with guts and skill who can believably put his preteen hero in such realistic danger without outraging the reader. Johnny is, as is usual with Mr. Bellairs, a meek but willing Charlie Brown type; I have yet to meet a reader of these books who doesn't like him or his counterparts. Fergie is a little more outgoing, the sort of dead-loyal friend that everyone wants. And the professor is... well, the professor. Bad points? None that I can think of, except that the wonderfully crabby priest Father Higgins appears for only two pages. (Though the idea of him wearing an umpire's vest and a clerical collar is too funny for words) I would have liked more Higgy, and this teaser leads to nothing. Additionally, Professor Childermass seems to be acting a little too impulsively at the beginning. (Find a rampaging robot and put it back together -- what a surprise that it all blows up in their faces). This is, overall, a delightfully creepy mystery/fantasy/horror story that any good kid reader will enjoy, and a few reminiscing adults might as well.
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