Christopher Pike Hollow Skull and Magic Fire

In The Hollow Skull, some scientists recently visited the abandoned mine near the town of Madison.  The scientists got the mine's elevators working again and forgot to get them turned off. Cass, Fred, and a couple of friends decide to explore the old mine at night.  After the teens leave the mine, one of them starts acting strangely, and his illness seems to be catching. Soon, the residents of Madison roam the streets at night, and Cass fears for her life.

Basically, this story is similar to an alien takeover of the world.  The book is grimly scary from the very beginning.  When the teens first go down in the mine, the reader knows that someone very awful will happen.

This book is excellent and reads in a fashion similar to modern teen dystopian fiction.

In Magic Fire, Mark Charm loves to start fires.  He especially enjoys burning down abandoned buildings.  One night, Mark uses a stolen gasoline truck to hose down miles of brush and start a fire that is fueled by the Santa Ana winds.

Goodbye, Pacific Palisades!

After torching that entire city, Mark learns that his life is not what he thought. He then meets some aliens and goes to another part of the universe. Mark then travels into the future and even more really crazy stuff happens.

The story starts out fairly ordinary for a Pike book with a pyromaniac and then gets really bizarre with the aliens, space travel, and time travel.  After that another plot twist occurs where the reader learns what is really going on. After the final plot twist, the book does make sense.

I enjoyed this book.