Patrick Carman’s “Dark Eden” is a multimedia offering, but even in its simple print form it is a compelling read about seven terrified teens in a backwoods adventure.

Illustration from the book “Dark Eden” by Patrick Carman. (Patrick Arrasmith, Harper Collins)

By Susan Carpenter, Los Angeles Times
November 13, 2011
Dark Eden

A Novel

Patrick Carman

Katherine Tegen Books: 316 pp., $17.99 ages 13 and up

The seven video screens in the new young adult thriller “Dark Eden” flicker in black and white — not only as described in the book’s text but through an accompanying downloadable app that plays out the story’s action in video snippets viewable on iPhones, iPods, iPads and Android devices. The back cover of the latest multimedia creation from bestselling author Patrick Carman also incorporates a QR code allowing potential readers to watch the ominously creepy “Dark Eden” trailer.

Is it a book? A film? An audio book? “Dark Eden” is all three — an effort on the author’s part to encourage reluctant readers to embrace the written word through technological enticements. But even in its humble print form, without any of the bells and whistles and gadgetry, “Dark Eden” is a compelling read that transposes the best aspects of classic horror storytelling onto a modern backwoods adventure reluctantly experienced by seven terrified teens.

Each of them suffers from a fear — of rabid dogs, rickety ladders, kidnapping. None of them understands why they’re so afraid, despite years of psychotherapy. So their doctor corrals them together, driving them deep into a wooded area somewhere on L.A.’s outskirts and dropping them off on a dirt trail, saying only, “A cure is waiting for each of you down that path.”

Their doctor refers to them as “The 7.” All of them are 15 years old. They’re a mix of hormone-addled boys and girls, some of whom are inevitably romantically involved. None had met before being packed into their doctor’s van. They’re panicked to discover their cellphones are out of service range and even more freaked that the first person they meet after an hour’s walk is Mrs. Goring — a crotchety old woman of indeterminate age whose first words of advice are: “Act like grown-ups and I won’t spit in your oatmeal.”

Mrs. Goring is one of just two people living at Fort Eden — a compound that consists of buildings notable only for their bunker-esque architecture and sturdy iron doors. Dr. Rainsford also lives on the premises, perfecting his cure for fear, though the details of how he does so are unclear.

Faced with looming darkness and a lack of survival skills, six of the kids venture into the appropriately named Fort, but Will Besting stays behind. Will, it turns out, is scared of people and finds comfort in technology, specifically the vintage video games he plays at home and the audio recording device he brought with him. The Recorder, as he calls it, was cobbled together from old iPods and digital cameras he bought on Craigslist and reassembled into a device he uses to record audio and video.

Readers can hear and watch what he’s recorded through the “Dark Eden” app, the first episode of which consists of shaky video footage of the teens’ walk through the woods and audio files of the seven’s psychotherapy sessions that Will surreptitiously downloaded from his doctor’s computer. The first episode is free. Subsequent chapters can be purchased for 99 cents apiece or in their entirety for $9.99.

While “Dark Eden” is written in a visual manner that easily conjures images on its own, experiencing the story through Will’s eyes and ears heightens the fear factor in a way that words alone cannot. It’s chilling to watch Will observe the treatments, which are conducted in basement rooms with metal helmets that wouldn’t be out of place in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” Hearing the seven’s interactions with their doctor makes the characters and their fears feel more relatable and real.

As befits a story taking place outside of L.A., all of the characters in the app are Hollywood-slick. And so are the video and audio production values, which amplify, rather than detract from, Carman’s inventive storytelling. “Dark Eden” is a fast-paced thrill ride that ends with big reveals about why the seven were taken to the Fort and subjected to Rainsford’s immersion therapy. Readers will need to wait until the second, and final, book in the series to find out if the fear cure actually works.

Ages: 13 and up
Illustrated by:
ISBN: 9780062009708
Price: $$17.99

Published By HarperCollins Children’s Books

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Each book is a journal written by Ryan. Ryan lives in the small town of Skeleton Creek, and he and his friend Sarah have stumbled upon a mystery that almost killed Ryan. This mystery has both sinister elements and a large dose of conspiracy, and neither Ryan or Sarah are safe once the story begins.

So what makes this book different from most other mystery series for young adults? It’s the creepy online videos that Sarah (a budding video journalist) keeps emailing to Ryan. After every five to ten journal entries that Ryan puts down, readers find Sarah’s website address along with a password — visit the site, enter the password, and watch a video that ties the journal entries together. Ryan is trying to put the puzzle together with his own style of research, and Sarah simply jumps in with her video camera running and posts what she discovers.

I know… I’m being vague. I’m not telling you what the overall mystery is or what has happened to Ryan and Sarah to make them want to keep digging and putting their lives at risk. But I can assure you that Patrick Carman has created a mystery that is realistic, entertaining, and downright creepy.

How creepy? I don’t care if you’re 8 years old or 48, just watch the very first video by yourself, in the dark, late in the evening as I did. Scary movies don’t really bother me, but I jumped. Seriously jumped. That’s how drawn in I was from the first few journal entries and the video. And let me tell you… the videos don’t let up. You’ll meet residents of Skeleton Creek who may or may not have hidden agendas, you’ll return to some of the scariest places in Skeleton Creek over and over again… and you’ll need to examine sketches and sticky notes that can provide valuable clues to the mystery.

And just when you think you’ve got the story figured out… when book #1 is wrapped up and you’re feeling all safe and secure again? Ryan and Sarah have one final video that’s being broadcast live to the world as they attempt to solve the mystery. Want a hint at what happens? Click and drag your mouse pointer over the hidden sentence after this colon: It does not end well for Ryan and Sarah.

[Keep reading below for more details about the series — or stop if you don't want to ruin the experience of the follow-up books in the series. I'll try my best to avoid spoilers but I do want to explain how the series continues.]

And that’s book #1. And, yeah… things aren’t getting any better in Skeleton Creek. What I can tell you is that the real mystery in Skeleton Creek that starts in book #1 ends in book #2, Skeleton Creek: Ghost in the Machine. And the ending for book #2 will blow you away. Many more videos (a few that, again, caused me to jump) await the reader as well as even more clues for the reader to examine and try to figure out.

Book #3, Skeleton Creek: The Crossbones, picks up shortly after book #2 ends but things are much different for the main characters. Without giving away too much, let me just say that Sarah and Ryan now have some distance between them as well as a completely new mystery to solve and an old one that comes back to haunt them. And the fourth and final book in the series, Book #4, Skeleton Creek: The Raven, has just been released with both mysteries (yes, two of them now) from Books #1 to #3 wrapping up with… well… I just cannot say anything without spoiling something or giving some part of the story away. Just trust me… it’s awesome.

So, I’ll return to my initial statement about this series being great for those kids who avoid reading. (And for kids who loves to read? My guess is they’ll finish each book in a day or two… they’re that good.) Because most of the videos won’t make sense unless you read the journal entries, I’m betting parents will find this series to be of great interest to their difficult readers. The journal entries are typically short and fast, allowing readers to pop in a bookmark and continue later… if they can actually stop reading. The videos are fun… dark… twisted… and definitely spooky. Your kids will keep saying “Just one more entry…”

I purchased the first book for a nephew who enjoys reading… I sat down and read it to make certain it was going to be something he’d like. And after watching the very first video I knew it was going to be a hit. Right after I stopped laughing at myself for being such a scared-y cat, I told myself “Just one more entry…”

(If you enjoy this series, you’ll also like the Trackers series by Patrick Carman. It’s only two books into the series, but it follows a similar format of providing videos to go along with the story. I’ve enjoyed both books, but I have to say that the Skeleton Creek series is more my style.)

Read the rest here – www.wired.com/geekdad

I always loved a good scare as a kid. And although Bloody Mary never appeared in the mirror no matter HOW many times I said her name, and even though the scritch-scratching at the back door wasn’t ever anything bigger than a possum, I’ve never completely given up on the idea that there are Things That Go Bump in the Night . . . and maybe, just maybe, those Things are coming for me.

I’m not sure if that makes me the best editor for 3:15, a series of short, spooky stories. I mean, it’s difficult to edit when you keep looking over your shoulder. But the kid in me is having a blast.

3:15 is the new series that invites you – or dares you, really – to listen to, read, and watch a chilling tale in 15 minutes or less. That’s right – reading is only part of the 3:15 experience. These are multimedia short stories crafted with your mobile device in mind. Check out the video trailer here!

Taking inspiration from urban legends, creature features, and campfire ghost stories, each episode begins with an audio introduction from our host, Paul Chandler. (And what’s the deal with that guy, anyway? Hm.) When you listen to the audio intro, you unlock the text. And the text tells the bulk of the story . . . until a cliffhanger that leads directly into a cinematic video conclusion.

Audio, text, video. It’s an entirely different way to experience a short story.

But what else would you expect from Patrick Carman? Aside from being an enormously talented writer, Pat is probably the most innovative guy in the business. Don’t take my word for it – see for yourself! Click here to download the app and check out the first story, Buried Treasure. (The first one’s free!)

And just for our OOM readers, we also have an exclusive excerpt below from 3:15’s second story Reflecting Pool, which will be available through the app on March 22nd. Read on!

Four exceptionally tech-savvy kids are recruited by the government to guard against the mysterious archcriminal Shantorian. As with the first book, the story is told through a series of interrogations of the tracker Adam Henderson by an agent who is assigned to break him. Things aren’t always what they seem, though, as we learn that one tracker may be a mole. Readers are invited to crack codes, look for clues, and watch videos on their computers. (The same information is also found in an appendix.) It is almost impossible not to be caught up in this unconventional series and its many twists and touches of humor.

— Todd Morning

Watch the Trackers Trailer

The two books in the series, Trackers and Trackers: Shantorian, are framed as the transcript of an FBI interrogation conducted by special agent Gantz. As Adam recalls the events that led to his arrest, he periodically provides Gantz with codes to access multimedia files he prepared to support his story ranging from site rips of websites he encountered to video footage recorded using his team’s Tracker devices. Readers can enter these codes on the Trackers Interface or read the text transcripts Gantz entered as appendices to the FBI’s interview transcript, located at the back of the book. While this process may sound complicated, in practice reading Trackers is fairly straightforward: every time you see a code, either go online to watch the action unfold, or read the text transcript if you don’t have internet access.

I recently had the opportunity to discuss the series with Patrick Carman, who explained, “Kids will find a way to get to the material. Kids don’t have a problem with stopping and starting . . . that’s the way they’re wired.” This non-traditional reading experience appears to be resonating with young audiences. According to Carman, the online videos from Skeleton Creek, his previous multimedia book series, received over eight million views. Carman referenced receiving “…hundreds and hundreds of emails from educators, librarians . . . talking about how these kinds of formats are helping to bring readers that we had lost back to books.” Readers are becoming similarly entangled with the mini-games created for Trackers, competing to earn top scores. The scores have become so high, in fact, that the PC Studio team has been “trying to figure out over the past couple of months if there’s some way that [players are] hacking this thing so that they’re able to get these kind of scores, and we cannot figure out how that’s possible . . . the top three or four people are way beyond what we can do here at the studio.”

Read the rest here – www.wired.com

Sarah, an aspiring filmmaker, records her various expeditions and posts videos of them on her site, at sarahfincher.com, which readers can access when they encounter various passwords throughout the book. The videos are pretty spooky, and Sarah’s site is full of hidden links that make repeated visits worthwhile. Unfortunately, reality requires the book to make some compromises. Given that not everyone has access to the Internet at all times, the book’s narrator, Ryan, is prone to recapping the videos in the pages that follow each new password. In this fashion, the book tries to have it both ways: it wants to offer a rich multimedia experience for the reader while having the story stand on its own, broadband connection or not.

But “The Crossbones” makes a different attempt to bridge online and off-line content that is more interesting and important. At various times, Sarah and Ryan find information useful to their investigation by way of a Google or YouTube search. These searches are described in some detail — enough so that a reader can go down the same path and find the same information. These are not Web pages made by the book’s author to appear real, but actual sites and videos that predate the book. This “found search result” form of storytelling is a clever way to bring in the outside world without calling too much attention to the practice.

Read the rest here – www.nytimes.com

This third book in the Skeleton Creek series was a surprise. I thought there were going to be just 2 books, and greatly enjoyed Skeleton Creek and Ghost in the Machine, and after some books this summer where book three did not live up to expectations I approached this with a little trepidation. With Patrick Carman I should have known better. This book was awesome. It lived up to the quality, skill in storytelling and creativity of the first two, maybe even surpassed them. Like the other two Skeleton Creek books, this one is told in two parts. The book is Ryan’s journal, hand-written, and Sarah’s videos. Every few chapters you get a code and go to a website and watch a video. Unlike the first two books, Sarah and Ryan are working on a problem together but doing it in different locations. Ryan is stuck in Skeleton Creek and Sarah’s family has moved to the east coast. She is driving across the country for film school at UCLA, but unknown to her parents, visiting haunted sites along the way to collect clues she and Ryan have solved that they found in the hunted dredge.

But both of their lives are getting more and more complicated. Ryan has to solve the clues fast enough so she will not have to backtrack and lose too much travel time. Ryan feels like he is being watched and Sarah’s videos seem to be capturing th?Only time will tell. But as they uncover clue after clue they realize the stakes are higher than they ever expected. The Crossbones has a long history of destroying people who got in their way and now Ryan and Sarah find themselves in their crosshairs.

I read the book twice, first just reading the book, the second time through watching the video’s where indicated. I did this to see if the book can stand on it’s own, and it does, even just reading Ryan’s journal it is a great story, but when you watch the video’s it becomes truly magnificent. Patrick Carman is a master storyteller, he is creative, and has a wide breadth of different stories, and genre’s and even for various age groups. Every book of his I have read I have thoroughly enjoyed and always anticipate his new books. This one left me eagerly anticipating book 4 which is not due out for a year. This is another great book by a great author!

Read the review here - Book Reviews and More

What are kids reading these days?

When I was young, nothing creeped me out more than a good ghost story. Alvin Schwartz’ “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” series was pretty much perfect: Classic, bare-bones tales that scared or surprised you at different turns — and don’t even get me started on those creepy illustrations by Stephen Gammell.

Of course, that series ended in 1991, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that today’s spooky books are quite a bit different. Beyond the classics-turned-horror stories, ala “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead,” we’ve got the Skeleton Creek series.

Read the rest here – weblogs.baltimoresun.com

For those of you that have not heard about Patrick Carman’s Skeleton Creek series, you are in for a real treat. That is, if you like to be scared out of your shorts. Ghost in the Machine in the second book in this multimedia series, written by Patrick Carman and directed by Jeffrey Townsend. The story itself involves a small town that has a lot of history and holds a mystery deep within its past. Teenagers and best friends Ryan and Sarah work to uncover the mystery very stealthily, even when they are banned from even speaking to each other. You see, Sarah is a video expert and uploads videos of her discoveries to send to Ryan, all of which the reader gets to view as well. Kind of a cool concept, huh?

Read the rest here – literarywife.wordpress.com