Five Nights at Freddy’s: The Silver Eyes by Scott Cawthon & Kira Breed-Wrisley
To be honest – I was not going to familiarize myself with the universe of “Five Nights at Freddy’s”. Yes, I’ve heard of the game (I think everyone heard), but I didn’t play it (just watched let’s plays). But recently the movie came out, which managed to recoup its budget more than 10 times, and once going to the bookstore I was just in shock when I saw how many books about Freddy there are. So someone’s reading it. Although, the total sales of the book series worldwide are estimated at 9 million copies… well, I’ve long wanted to read something like this… and after Amor Towles, Viktor Frankl and Matthew McConaughey, “Five Nights with Freddy” is just right choise.
Plot
Charlie, daughter of Henry, the founder of the first Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, returns to Hurricane, Utah, 10 years after her friend Michael disappeared from her father’s place.
After meeting up with friends who have come from all over America to honor the memory of her missing friend, Charlie and her buddies decide to visit the ill-fated establishment… And surprise, despite the fact that the pizzeria has been abandoned, the animatronics are still in place and they work….
Story Development
The book dives into the story rather quickly and does a good job of describing past events and animatronics for those unfamiliar with the story. And for that the book is a huge plus, as often such novels are “fans only” and don’t care about the lay reader at all. Here, on the contrary, all the stories, pre-stories, pre-stories of pre-stories, characters, details, animatronics, animatronics mechanisms, creators of animatronics mechanisms, the past of creators of animatronics mechanisms, friends of friends of friends of sons of mom’s friend, are described and painted megadetalno. Sometimes you even wanted to say “well I get it, please enough”.
Characters
However, the motivation of the characters, especially in the first third of the book, is tacked on. None of them had an urgent need to break the law and climb into an abandoned pizzeria… and to do it repeatedly. Of course, the motivation will come later… but that’s later, because at first the plot is a bit thin. On the other hand, when you find a lack of teenagers motivation, it’s worth remembering the Guy Ritchie classic: never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Atmosphere
Speaking of atmosphere, I can’t say that the book is in any way suspenseful in the first third, although in the first chapter, Charlie’s walks in the empty house, I think, are described as they should be, unlike the walks through the pizzeria in the next chapter, which were supposed to be more creepy. But no.
I won’t say that there are no creepy moments in the book. For example, the first meeting between Charlie and Foxy, described perfectly, but again, in some places the excessive going into details, like this button does this, this one does that, and so on for 5 pages, the atmosphere, of course, broke the atmosphere.
Structure
As for the structure of the novel, the book is divided into 13 chapters, different in volume, and absolutely different in terms of plot load. A couple of chapters can be about nothing at all, and the next one contains events for half of the book. It’s an easy read (the book is very cinematic), but… but the chapters seem a little longer than they should to me. Sometimes you read page after page, and the chapter still doesn’t end… I think it would have been good to cut the novel by 20 percent, from 450 pages, to 360. This would have given dynamics to the moments that clearly lacked it.
Problems with the book
To the problems I would refer the moment that the main storyline, as for me, is not very eventful. Young people, under various pretexts, repeatedly come to an abandoned pizzeria at night. And, for example, exactly nothing happens in the first 2 nights, which is, for a second, a third of the book.
The book engages in self-repetition, and it’s annoying for a reader who isn’t particularly familiar with the series. It’s understandable that the game’s storyline says it’s supposed to be like that, with each night being more thrashy than the previous one. But, in reality, I think after the first or second night, no person (even a teenager) in his right mind would not go to Freddy’s.
Well, from the fans of the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” game the book received enough negativity… but the fact is that “Silver Eyes” is a story based on the game, and not a strict novelization. I guess that the goals of the book series are:
- monetize popularity
- attract new customers
- expand the universe.
It always has been like this. And, judging by the sales, they’ve done a great job.
The finale
As for me, the finale is rather disappointing. If you come up with the most banal option, you’re probably 99% percent guessing it.
The Idea
Well, the BIG IDEA (if you really want to find it), it’s going to be something like “The past should stay in the past”. Or something like that. Although it’s a game-based horror, you can go without ideas here.
Authors
Some words about the author. It is Scott Cawthon, the creator of the game series. But it should be noted that all books of the series were written with co-writers (without exception). In the first trilogy (included “The Silver Eyes”, “The Twisted Ones” and “The Fourth Closet”) Cawthon’s co-writer was Kira Breed-Wrisley. She is quite a well-known, in narrow circles, playwright, who wrote plays on acutely social themes. It’s hard to say how she got involved in Five Nights at Freddy’s, but she didn’t seem to have written any other books before or after.
Summary
Overall, I’d rather praise the book, but I think that’s primarily because I didn’t expect anything from it. More precisely, I expected something of the level of fanfics on Stranger Things, Aliens, or something like this. But the book pleasantly surprised me by producing quite a good horror story. It is clear that fans of real literature will not go, but something tells me that they will not even take this book in their hands.
Will I read the next parts? I suppose so.