Lost Boys (novel)
First edition cover
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| Author | Orson Scott Card |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Horror |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
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Publication date
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1992 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 448 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 26211240 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3553.A655 L67 1992 |
Lost Boys (1992) is the first horror novel by American author Orson Scott Card.
The novel, set in 1983, revolves around a game programmer and his family. His claim to fame is a fictional Atari computer game called Hacker Snack. Step Fletcher, a devout Mormon, moves his pregnant wife DeAnne and their three children (Stevie, Robbie and Elizabeth, respectively seven, four and two years old) from Indiana to Steuben, North Carolina so he can start a new job as a technical writer. Fletcher must deal with several unpleasant situations. His manager, Dicky Northranger, is a greedy, petty and manipulative man who does everything he can to undermine Step's position, while the owner of the company, Ray Keene, asks him to cross-check whatever technical job Dicky does as it seems he is not very comfortable about Dicky's competence.
Glass is a young programmer at work who is very friendly towards Step and always offering to babysit his kids. Later on, Step comes to realize that Glass is a child molester who loves washing little girls' privates. This nauseates Step, and he vows that Glass shall never get near his children.
The Fletchers' new house is periodically invaded by hordes of different types of insects. Bappy, the elderly father of the owner of the rented house, is always ready to lend a hand with things as he has lots of 'time' nowadays.
Meanwhile, Stevie's teacher at his new school hates him and Stevie becomes withdrawn. Step confronts the teacher and she leaves, but Stevie becomes even more withdrawn, playing only with his imaginary friends in the garden and on his computer. As Stevie's group of imaginary friends, who are all boys, grows, his parents become increasingly concerned and eventually take him to a psychiatrist, against their better judgment. Then they see a newspaper article about young boys who are disappearing. The names of Stevie's imaginary friends are exactly the same as the missing children; Stevie also knows the boys' nicknames. They notify the police, who come over to the house and question Stevie briefly, but they leave with little to go on other than the confirmation that the boys are indeed dead, as opposed to simply missing. Step, who is a video games expert, notices that the video game that Stevie uses to play with his imaginary friends has graphics that are way beyond anything that could actually run on the computer but fails to investigate further.
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