The Haunted Planet by D.J. Arneson

The Haunted Planet Reviews

• 
  mark monday

  This was written for kids?? Oh the nightmares I would have had if I had read this when much younger.
  
  This is a surprisingly bleak and effective collection of stories written for, I imagine, junior high schoolers. Six of the seven tales feature various young protagonists coming across certain deadly things: a vengeful gull, a sinister motel, a haunted house, a deadly bridge, an unpleasant babysitting job, and the Bermuda Triangle. They also feature unbridled terror and unanswered cries for mommy and daddy to rescue them (a bit too much pathos for me, didn't care for those bits); each of these stories end with death and/or an eternity of torment and despair. The one outlier - no kids and a kinda happy ending - has a tormented little person and the schadenfreude of seeing his oppressor receiving an ending much like the kids of the other stories. Yay?
  
  My favorite - if "favorite" is even the right word - was the especially hallucinatory "Don't Go Into the Baby's Room". The story appears to end in some sort of identity transference that is ambiguous, completely unexplained, and especially disturbing. Well, all of the stories are especially disturbing. Although at least the seagull story had a good moral to it: don't torment animals, even gulls! Or else you and your parents might be stalked and then horribly killed.
  
  REVIEW: I liked this and I didn't like this. A keeper.
• 
  Stay Fetters

  "A spine tingling chill shot down Evan’s back. His mouth fell open. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes. You’re ghosts. The gathered circle of children nodded. Evan jumped away from them. But not me, he shouted. Not me! The group nodded."
  
  The Haunted Planet was a book I read when I was younger… a lot younger. So when I spotted it at a used bookstore I had to buy it. I couldn’t turn my back on a book that made my arms break out in goosebumps back in the day. Once I brought the book home, my husband said he read this one too when he was younger. Spooky tales bring my husband and I closer together.
  
  The stories are short and quickly get to the point. There’s no pussyfooting around and that’s what I really like about this collection. There’s no useless filler. The stories weren’t as spooky as they were when I was younger. I can totally see why they spooked me then but now they are stories that make me feel as if I’m home. It was great to read these again because they are decent.
• 
  Jordan West

  Today I was happy to stumble across a copy of this book, one I'd been curious about for awhile after learning it has a (very small) cult following; a handful of horror fans have written enthusiastic reviews online, describing how this slim volume has haunted them from their first reading into adulthood. Having read it for myself now, I can understand why; the writing is rather crude, but the stories themselves are surprisingly effective, with a distinctly offbeat, otherworldly quality that recreates the tone of a child's nightmares instead of retelling variations on campfire tales. In one, a boy playing with his bow and arrows on the beach seems to accidentally kill a seagull, and is stalked by the rest of the (possibly undead) flock, who attack him in his bedroom at night, and running to his parents for help, discovers the birds have gotten there first. In another, two sisters vacationing with their family are approached in their dreams by a mysterious entity that lures them to an abandoned hotel, promising them safety in exchange for their parents; however, it lies. Despite his other flaws, the author excels at conveying dread, eschewing explanation and resolution in favor of his own brand of pre-teen unheimlich. This is perhaps best encapsulated by the closing story, 'The House on Pearl Street', a phantasmagoric fever dream on mortality that reads like a Carnival of Souls/House By the Cemetery mashup made for 5th-graders, that, judging from the reviewers, made for a virtually traumatic reading experience.
• 
  Quentin Wallace

  This was a childhood favorite so I admit I'm rating it on a curve, so to speak. The stories are fairly simple and we've seen some of the plots before, but they did a great job at scaring kids, which was the point. The stories were also pretty dark for a children's book, as the stories don't have happy endings.
  
  If you read this as a child you probably know where I'm coming from, if you read it as an adult try to read from the viewpoint of a ten year old and you'll understand. Scary stuff really.
• 
  Sarah Sammis

  I like ghost stories and I like short stories. A book of short ghost stories is perfect! These stories were written for a younger audience, probably of the middle school range of ages. Nonetheless, it's still a fun read for an afternoon. Although the stories are aimed at children, they aren't devoid of horror and suspense. Some of them are a little goofy but I did experience some genuine chills while reading this book.
  
  
  What a perfect read for a Friday night! There are seven short horror stories aimed at younger readers (probably grades 4-7). They are: "The Haunted Gull", "The Empty Hotel", "Ghost Flight", "The Bridge", "The Robot's Revenge", "Don't Go Into the Baby's Room", and "The House on Pearl Street".
  
  My favorite of the set is the first one. It is reminiscent of Poe's "The Raven" and Hitchcock's film, The Birds. My next favorite is "Ghost Flight" as it has a Twilight Zone feel to it with the protagonist being the only one who can see what trouble lies ahead but is unable to make those in power believe him. The book ends on a good one too, though I wish there was a little more follow-through; I wanted to know more about the house on Pearl Street and the creature who lived inside.
  
  My least favorite of the stories were "The Empty Hotel" which tries for something akin to The Shining but falls flat and The Robot's Revenge which can't decide if the horror is technology gone bad or a vengeful ghost in the machine.
  
  The remaining stories left me scratching my head. They started out good but their endings seemed to come too soon and without much thought to the rest of the plot.
  
  I got The Haunted Planet from a pile of books that another BookCrosser had rescued from a library discard sale. These were books that they couldn't keep and couldn't sell. I love finding gems like this book at charity sales and whatnot.
• 
  Steve

  My first Goodreads review! And I really just want to point something out that everyone else here seems to have missed (or at any rate failed to mention): the actual authors of this book are none other than Jay Anson and George and Kathleen Lutz, better known as the three goofs who engineered the 'Amityville haunting' hoax back in the 70s. Considering the the three of them also collaborated on one or two sequels to the original Amityville novel, it seems that perhaps they were trying to parlay their notoriety into a full-blown writing career.
  
  I discovered this book when I was a kid at a used bookstore in Pasadena, Texas (Houston area) called Rerun Books, now sadly closed. I still have my copy somewhere. It's long been a favorite of mine. The stories, as others have pointed out, are surprisingly effective, though a few of them are indeed rather half-baked. I do remember the babysitter story being distinctly creepy and strange though.
  
  It's been many years since I looked at this book, so maybe I'll dig it up soon. But I as far as I can recall it's one of the best books of horror stories for kids, along with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 1 & 2 by Alvin Schwartz (with those classic Stephen Gammell illustrations), and The Scariest Stories You've Ever Heard by Mark Mills and Richard Kriegler.
• 
  Carmilla Yugov

  Really loved this one, it was a quick read. However, I found it a bit too dark for a children's book. Especially "The Robot's Revenge", that one in particular was really disturbing, even for an adult like myself. If I had a kid, let's say a six-year-old or so, I definitely wouldn't let them read these stories. "The Empty Motel" and "Ghost Flight" weren't scary scary in my opinion. "The Haunted Gull" and "The Bridge" (this one had some pretty gorey descriptions) were pretty messed up for a child to read them. "The Robot's Revenge", like I said, is a stuff of nightmares. "Don't go into baby's room" was kind of weird, but it was okay. The last story, "The house on Pearl Street" was interesting but I kind of wanted to know more about who the evil giant really is, and what's his story. All in all, a great little book, but I think it's more appropriate for teenagers and adults than for young kids.
• 
  Michael

  A collection of seven short, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark-style tales meant for young readers. They aren't "horror" stories, per se, they're more "weird" things happening to children who are the same age, more or less, as the kids who would enjoy reading them. If you ever watched shows like Eerie, Indiana or Are You Afraid of the Dark? back in the day, these have a similar feel.
  
  The standout, for me, is "Ghost Flight", where a commercial airliner is forced to detour its flight plan through the Bermuda Triangle to avoid a hurricane and encounters a squadron of World War II-era planes trying desperately to warn them off, and features a very Twilight Zone-esque ending for one youthful passenger.
  
  Entertaining for what it is, but how much staying power any of the stories has beyond the initial day (or night) of their reading is debatable for anyone outside its designated reading range.
• 
  John

  Read this book the first time in 7th grade and the last story, "The House on Pearl Street", stuck with me ever since. I couldn't remember the title, but after having a query on here for a few years, someone figured it out recently. So I reread it and of course it wasn't as intense this time, but I'm sure my 11 year old self would have given it 5 stars and that's the audience it was written for.
  Anyway, after reading other reviews I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that story had an impact on.
• 
  Jude is not a dude

  I by chance found this in a pile of books my older brothers had from their childhood and I loved how this book looked so I decided to pick it up. If I was a kid when reading this I think I wouldn't sleep, it was so creepy and awesome. It kinda has the same vibe and atmosphere as Goosebumps and I really enjoyed it.
• 
  Rachel Brune

  I recently found this book after my sister went on a detective hunt for me. I read it when I was a kid, and couldn’t remember much about it except there was a Bermuda Triangle story and a house that you couldn’t escape. Having given it another read, I think it stands up to the demands of nostalgia. I’m a fan of the horror genre and this was a good beginning.
• 
  Victoria Fuller

  I actually finished this a bit ago but I was too lazy to update it. I also feel I have read this a long time ago, in that way that feels like a faded memory.
• 
  Amanda

  This book was very very weird.
  
  I liked some of the stories in this but some of them confused me more than ever and I totally did not get some of them. I somewhat like the ones that are weird but only when they make a little since. That's it for now.
• 
  Angie

  I'm assuming these short stories were intended for an elementary/middle school audience but I read them with my 10-year-old brother and they were fun. The stories remind me of a cross between Goosebumps books and episodes of The Twilight Zone.