Title: Are You Afraid of the Dark? #22 – The Tale of the Mogul Monster Author: David Cody Weiss and Bobbi J.G. Weiss Cover Artist: Broeck Steadman

INTRODUCTION

Direct your attention to the cover of this book. How could you go wrong with peak-nineties artwork like that? We must be dealing with Mitchell Goosen levels of cool, right?

No. This book is one big Mitchell Goose-egg. And I’m not joking when I say: Mogul Monster almost killed this blog when I tried to review it last year.

I don’t even think most people are aware that Are You Afraid of the Dark? had a book series. It would seem there’s a good reason for that.

STORY REVIEW

The prose in this book is horrible. Bordering on unreadable. Snowbordering.

Everything was black on white. No, that wasn’t right. Everything was white but there was no light to see by.

Those are the first sentences of the first chapter.

Neon chaos exploded the blackness when gravity finally caught him.

Still not even past the first page of this story.

Dmitri Flintoff has been a trust fund kid since his parents died, and he likes using his wealth to take himself and his friends snowboarding. This leads to Dmitri and his butler squabbling about trust management for multiple pages. You see, this book conflates trust funds with literally anything a child would find interesting. We’re dealing with a book that belongs in the hallowed halls of Children’s Media Based Around Trusts, seated alongside Horse Sense and probably nothing else.

Dmitri idolizes Brushy Kelly, a “famous” snowboarder who went missing on Mount Tempest. If only Kelly were still alive but no way could that happen because he must be dead because everyone says so.

Dmitri visits a museum near Mount Tempest where he is scared by a stationary Bigfoot statue. For some inexplicable reason, this causes him to ⁠remember how lonely he secretly feels. When his friends laugh at him for being scared by a statue, he worries they’ve somehow discovered his secret. A topic handled with all the elegance of an avalanche. Dmitri then presses a button and listens to the history of Bigfoot, which goes on for one-and-a-half pages. No dialogue. Just italicized text pontificating about Bigfoot. For one-and-a-half pages. By this point, I was fully convinced I’d accidentally started reading The Tale of the So Dull Monster.

The friends go “shredding.” The book spends 200 words describing what a mogul is. A firm hump of snow. Here I was thinking the real Mogul Monster was greed. Since this book goes ninety pages without a single monster, I assumed there must be a metaphor or allegory or some other attempt at lampshading our disappointment. The Tale of the Mogul Monster at the End of This Book.

The descriptions of snowboarding feel like waterboarding, and the fourth chapter is a Johnny Tsunami of a dose. Dmitri’s friends scare him with a fake Bigfoot foot, but Dmitri scares them by threatening to make them pay for their own dinners. The Tale of the Dutch Monster. Chapter five involves Dmitri and his friends gearing up to conquer Tempest Ridge, the toughest slope on the mountain. This chapter also includes an entire paragraph describing a fictitious brand of helicopter. Seventy-three words. I counted them because I’m so interested.

Despite its very really truly impressive specs, the helicopter doesn’t take the boys all the way up the mountain. They have to hike through a forbidden area. Midway through, Dmitri decides the weather conditions aren’t quite right, so they start to head back. ಠ_ಠ The group gets knocked a ways down the mountain by an avalanche. And somehow it’s still boring. One of the friends, Jake, leaves without hesitation, a meta-allusion to what the audience wants to do by this point in the book. Dmitri is stranded with one friend, Rahm, who has an injured left arhm.

The boys fall into a cave, and they’re surprised to find stone tools and Brushy Kelly’s signature board. It’s almost as if Kelly is still alive but that can’t be right because he’s dead because everyone says so. Jake returns to see the accident, a meta-allusion to me. Jake becomes very indignant when Dmitri won’t tell him which way the road is because Jake wants to abandon Dmitri. So Jake teaches Dmitri a lesson by abandoning him. You follow?

That night, Dmitri escapes the cave, hoping to bring back help for Rahm and probably also figure out where the shadows on the cave wall come from. While traversing the mountain, Dmitri finds Brushy Kelly, who has been pulling an Elvis and hiding from the public. Color me surprised! Although, the famous snowboarder is very hairy. One might even say bushy. If only I could think of a pun to go here.

Now prepare yourself. Brushy Kelly calls on his Sasquatch friend to save Rahm. Apparently, Sasquatches are real, and they can communicate using “hand jive.”

Hand jive. Not sign language. Hand jive.

The Squatch makes a magical potion and uses it to heal Rahm. This is something that happens in the book. It’s like experiencing the Dyatlov Pass incident. Kelly teaches Dmitri how to love himself, and I don’t care one bit because I’m far too distracted by previous events. The chapter ends with Dmitri snowboarding alongside Sasquatch. If this book had just been chapter nine, it might’ve been a beautiful thing. The book blithers for another two chapters, but who cares.

GLOSSARY OF VERY HIP LINGO

The following is some of the advanced shredder lingo from this book along with definitions. Only rad kids allowed beyond this point:

Rad shredder: Good snowboarder.

Good snowboarder. Board rats: A slur against rad shredders.

A slur against rad shredders. “He gave me jive:” “He talked back.”

“He talked back.” “Lame ski bums:” “How do you do, fellow kids?”

“How do you do, fellow kids?” A stupe: Stupid.

Stupid. Knuckle-grabber: Is this a typo?

Is this a typo? Jungle cammies in mottled tans and greens: What?

What? Hand jive: Hand jive.

THE VERDICT

Seasonal Affective Disappointment

BEST QUOTE

Chalk up another prejudice against snowboarders, Dmitri thought.

Shredders, rise up!