News What to Watch What to Watch and Read This Weekend: We Could All Use a Little Labyrinth Right Now Plus: Sister Simone, Carol Sturka, and (some) of the best books of 2025. By Molly Templeton | Published on January 9, 2026 Photo: Tri-Star Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Tri-Star Pictures In a different week, in a different timeline, this would be a “hey, welcome back, happy new year!” bit of intro text. But this week has crushed any shreds of festivity I might have had left. In Minneapolis, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. A day later, in Portland, Customs and Border Patrol agents shot two more people (who survived and were taken to local hospitals). I keep thinking about what Portland mayor Keith Wilson said (and I am generally no big fan of Mayor Wilson): “We know what the federal government says happened here. There was a time when we could take them at their word. That time has long passed.” Everyone is quoting 1984 on social media, and with good reason.  Call your reps. And take care of yourselves and your communities as best you can. I Wish Mrs. Davis’ Sister Simone and Pluribus’ Carol Sturka Could Meet I loved the end of the first season of Pluribus. And while I wait with absolutely zero patience for this show to come back, I think I will rewatch Mrs. Davis, which is not exactly a similar show—but I do think it shares some DNA, somehow. Instead of a collective mind, Mrs. Davis involves a supposedly benevolent AI that everyone on Earth loves. Almost. Not Sister Simone (a fantastic Betty Gilpin), who goes up against said AI with the help of her ex. She also has a really complex relationship with Jesus. Mrs. Davis is funnier than Pluribus, and more tangled, and less streamlined and polished, and I love all of those things about it, from the chaotic episode titles to the way one character smashes phones. It is really hard to recommend, though, because it doesn’t sound like much. (Leah Schnelbach’s review is titled “How Do I Talk About Mrs. Davis?”) In actuality, it’s kind of everything. Including a quest for the Holy Grail.  Mrs. Davis is streaming on Peacock. We Could All Use a Hoggle Hug Right About Now: Labyrinth Labyrinth is 40. I cannot linger on this thought; it feels weird. But as is the case with so many big film anniversaries these days, that means it is playing in theaters this weekend only! There’s a funny synchronicity to this, as this week contains both David Bowie’s birthday (January 8) and death day (January 10). Maybe you want to celebrate, maybe you want to mourn, maybe you want to do a little of both? I know I always, always cry at the end, when Sarah says she needs her friends. Go and appreciate tiny Jennifer Connelly; go and appreciate David Bowie and the offscreen man handling his crystal balls; go and appreciate the puppetry and the soundtrack and all the magic that happens when people get to make movies straight out of their own idiosyncratic imaginations.  The Inconsistent Passage of Time Speaking of the passage of time (Labyrinth is forty?!?!?), there’s a gorgeous essay in Emergence magazine about time, and how it’s not the same for every living thing. It’s not even the same for each of us, running on our own clocks and calendars. “Wild Clocks” covers a lot of ground, but swings back, like a clock hand, to the Future Library Project: a grove of trees outside Oslo, in Norway, that will be turned into books in one hundred years. The works that will be printed on these trees will not be read until 2114.  Thinking about this project makes me feel marvelously unstable and small; I can only imagine how it feels for the authors whose work is part of the project. No one will ever read that work until they’re dead. Phew.  David Farrier’s “Wild Clocks” talks about that project, about the way climate change affects the internal clocks of animals and plants, about time and how we move through it. It’s a perfect New Year’s read: rich, challenging, honest and optimistic in turns. It makes me think of Gandalf saying, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” The most important part of that line, I think, is not “the time that is given us.” It’s “we have to decide what to do.” (Side note: It was J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday a few days ago, too, on January 3rd.) What We All Read Last Year I love a reading year in review. To name just a few you might peruse: Reactor critics did our reviewers’ choice in December; at Intergalactic Mixtape, Renay has a list of bloggers and critics wrapping up their 2025 in reading; Strange Horizons is doing their multi-part year-end wrap-up now. On Bluesky, Roseanna Pendlebury tallied up which books appeared most often on the Strange Horizons list; it would be interesting if someone with a lot of time on their hands tallied up all the mentions on all the lists, as—as Pendlebury notes—it doesn’t really feel like critical consensus has landed on a frontrunner for book of the year. (For the record, I think this is a good thing. I prefer a broad spread to one or two books dominating all the discourse!)  I do feel like I’ve seen a few books mentioned a lot, including The Raven Scholar, The River Has Roots, Notes from a Regicide, Luminous, and The Incandescent. But then there’s also The Everlasting, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, and Katabasis. Whatever your 2025 favorites are, don’t forget that the deadline to register to vote in this year’s Hugo Awards is January 31st![end-mark] The post What to Watch and Read This Weekend: We Could All Use a Little <i>Labyrinth</i> Right Now appeared first on Reactor.

News Black Mirror Black Mirror Will Return to Netflix for Season 8 Charlie Brooker says reality might catch up to it by then. By Molly Templeton | Published on January 9, 2026 Image: Netflix Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Netflix Black Mirror isn’t ending any time soon—and creator Charlie Brooker says that hopefully, the just-announced eighth season will be “more Black Mirror than ever.” (If you are currently envisioning the Roomba with the knife, but maybe with more knives, you are not alone.) The most recent season of Black Mirror earned the show several Emmy nominations, including one for Best Television Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television, and acting nominations for Rashida Jones (for “Common People”) and Paul Giamatti (for “Eulogy”). Most of Netflix’s announcement about season eight is actually a Q&A with Brooker about season seven. He has a hard time picking a favorite from the season, but says, “I am really proud of ‘Common People.’ I think that it’s haunting, and it’s vicious as a piece of satire. When I gave that script to one of our producers, he said, ‘That is the distilled essence of Black Mirror.'” Asked to discuss the future of the show, Brooker says only, “Well, luckily it does have a future, so I can confirm that Black Mirror will return, just in time for reality to catch up with it. So, that’s exciting. That chunk of my brain has already been activated and is whirring away.” He’s also working on what he calls “a deeply profound and profoundly serious crime thriller” for the streamer, though I remain a little bit skeptical about the sincerity of that one. [end-mark] The post <i>Black Mirror</i> Will Return to Netflix for Season 8 appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From Queen of Faces by Petra Lord A desperate girl at a cutthroat magical academy faces a choice between life and death: become an assassin or watch her decaying body slowly die. By Petra Lord | Published on January 8, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Queen of Faces, a young adult fantasy by Petra Lord, out from Henry Holt & Co. on February 3. Anabelle Gage is trapped in a male body, and it’s rotting from the inside out. But Ana can’t afford to escape it, even as the wealthiest in Caimor buy and discard expensive designer bodies without a thought. When she fails to gain admittance to the prestigious Paragon Academy—and access to the healthy new forms the school provides its students—her final hope implodes. Now without options, Ana must use her illusion magic to try to steal a healthy chassis—before her own kills her.But Ana is caught by none other than the headmaster of Paragon Academy, who poses a brutal ultimatum: face execution for her crime or become a mercenary at his command. Revolt brews in Caimor’s smog-choked underworld, and the wealthy and powerful will stop at nothing to take down the rebels and the infamous dark witch at their helm, the Black Wraith.With no choice but to accept, Ana will steal, fight, and kill her way to salvation. But her survival depends on a dangerous band of renegades: an impulsive assassin, a brooding bombmaker, and an alluring exile who might just spell her ruin. As Ana is drawn into a tangled web of secrets, the line between villain and hero shatters—and Ana must decide which side is worth dying for.  “When you applied to Paragon. All”—he checked my letter—“three times. Were you striving to be an Exemplar?” I closed my eyes. “For a moment,” I mumbled, “yes.” “Splendid.” Carriwitch leaned forward. “In that case, I’d like to extend an offer to you.” “O-offer?” “I’ll be quick,” said Carriwitch. “Lose too much blood, and your brain will start to break. And if your brain breaks, well… your Pith does, too. Even swapping won’t heal it. You start to forget things. Lose a limb here and there.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “Have you ever heard of the Grey Coats?” I nodded. “They’re assistants at Paragon. They clean toilets and”—I coughed up blood—“deliver mail.” Their drab uniforms gave them their nickname. “An uncouth description, but not inaccurate. Every year, we select the best Paragon applicants who didn’t make the cut and allow them to take some non-magical classes. In exchange, they are assigned to a top-ranked fourth-year or a professor. They take notes for that individual, assist them in studying, and, yes, clean. At the end of the year, they can usually get admitted to any Humdrum university in the country. Or, on occasion, they can be promoted to Paragon student.” Grey Coats were dirt compared to real students, unpaid apprentices who emptied trash or scrubbed toilets at the most prestigious school in the world. They didn’t get a free body, didn’t sleep in the castle, and weren’t taught a scrap of magic. But if they did their job well, that grey jacket could turn into a blue one. They could become a real student. And full admission was what I’d wanted all along. It meant a free combat chassis. Meant living. “I can make you a Grey Coat this term,” said Carriwitch. “Give you a real shot at becoming a student. Call it a perk of what I’m offering. I’ll tell my colleagues you died on this bridge, and that I couldn’t find your original body.” “Don’t belong,” I mumbled. “N-not genius material.” Carriwitch looked again at my letter and shrugged. “Fifty-three years ago, the Eldritch Guard named me chief mage of their entire body. Care to guess why?” “Because you’re good with magic? With science?” Headmaster Carriwitch shook his head. “Not quite. That helped, of course, but why did they put me in charge? What did they see in me?” “I—” I coughed. “I don’t know.” Buy the Book Queen of Faces Petra Lord Buy Book Queen of Faces Petra Lord Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget “Tonight, when you fought my students, I stayed back to watch. I guessed your Whisper Codex stopped working at twenty yards, when you ran away and Nell and Samuel started looking at you again. Then, when I could, I dealt you a fatal blow.” Carriwitch pointed at me. “Tactics. Creativity. A tranquil focus in a sea of blood. I possess all of these qualities. And so do you. Ninety-eight in strategy, ninety-seven in psychology. All of which led you to trounce two of my best, with next to no training. You showed marvelous talent for knife-work tonight, young lady. And you showed it on your first day on the job.” “Job?” Carriwitch floated a pitch-black envelope out of his pocket and set it down next to me. “I’d like you to work for me. To help protect our country as a witch of the coin.” I understood in an instant. He wanted me to become an illegal mercenary. A hired mage, like Clementine, who would kill whomever he wanted, and take the blame if things went wrong. If I made enough money, I could buy a new, healthy chassis. And, as a Grey Coat, I could become a real student and get a free body. If I took Carriwitch’s offer, both paths would be open. But they would come at a price. The pool of blood grew beneath me. The black letter floated on the surface, like a leaf on a river. “You want me to kill people.” Carriwitch stared at me. “Tell me what you know,” he said, “about Khaiovhe.” I flinched. A bitter wind howled across the bridge, and the night sky seemed to blacken. “A dark witch.” I swallowed. “The worst dark witch in history. She graduated from Paragon and joined the Eldritch Guard during the war against Shenten.” My mother’s homeland. Back when magic had been secret from the Humdrums. The headmaster nodded. “And then?” “She—” Pain twisted through my belly. “She went mad fighting the Shenti. The radio said—” My voice lowered to a whisper. “The radio said bamboo forests burned like matchsticks, that the sky turned red for a month. That mountains covered in snow turned black and dead as charcoal.” My mother had immigrated to Caimor years before, but many of her friends back home had not escaped the inferno. And in the witch’s slaughter, she’d exposed the hidden world of magic to the Humdrums. A brutal first impression. “The Guard sent Tybalt Ebbridge after her,” I said. Her old professor at Paragon, leading dozens of mages. I choked. “She sent their ashes back in a flour sack.” Carriwitch’s face darkened. “And after?” A familiar chill racked my body, and I shook away the memories darkening my mind. “She flew back to Caimor, far across the oceans. And she blew up a dam. Almost drowned a whole village in the south. And she took her own life in the process.” “Yes.” Carriwitch twirled his beard. “She blew herself up. That’s the story we told, isn’t it?” He cleared his throat. “I’m terribly sorry, but we lied.” My chest jolted. “What?” “The Black Wraith is very much alive. When she killed Professor Ebbridge and blew up that dam, the explosion did not kill her. In the aftermath, she vanished.” I stared at him. “You lied?” “The public was in quite the tizzy, learning that witches and wizards were living among them, wiping their memories and living in secret castles. Paragon was enduring its own sort of panic. If they’d all learned Khaiovhe was still out there, well.” He shrugged. “Chaos. Besides, the Shenti were continuing to invade. We still had a war to win.” “Why did she do it?” I said. “Why that dam? Why that village?” I swallowed. “Why make herself vanish?” “An excellent question,” said Carriwitch. “One that our brightest intellects have failed to answer.” Blood soaked my clothes, trickling into the puddle at my feet. “And what does a living nightmare have to do with me?” “You, dear Ana,” he said, “are going to hunt her for me.” Excerpted from Queen of Faces, copyright © 2025 by Petra Lord. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Queen of Faces</i> by Petra Lord appeared first on Reactor.

News Star Wars: Starfighter Star Wars: Starfighter Will Feature a Lightsaber Battle Shot by Tom Cruise No word yet on whether Shawn Levy’s film will also feature fighting stars. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on January 8, 2026 Credit: Lucasfilm Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Lucasfilm Shawn Levy’s film, Star Wars: Starfighter, has been shrouded in secrecy. Here’s what we know so far: It stars Ryan Gosling in tight pants as well as the young actor, Flynn Gray; Mia Goth and Matt Smith are playing villains while Amy Adams has also joined the cast in an undisclosed role; and the film takes place five years after Rise of Skywalker. We’ve also gotten two official images from the film, which is scheduled to come out in 2027: an emo black-and-white shot of Gray and Gosling, and another Waterworld-esque photo pictured above of the two at sea. And that’s it… until today, when we received a couple of other tidbits of info. In a profile of Levy at The New York Times, we find out that Tom Cruise visited the set one day (Steven Spielberg did as well, but I digress), and took over shooting a scene of “a lightsaber duel in the water.” Cruise was so committed to the act, in fact, that he willingly waded into a muddy pond to help get the shots. That description confirms what many of us likely guessed: There will be lightsabers in Star Wars: Starfighter, which means there will likely be Jedi and, perhaps, the Sith in the film. Or maybe someone (a grown-up broom boy, perhaps?) found some sabers in an old broom closet and made them their own. What actors are wielding those sabers and where their characters stand in regard to the Force is unknown, though I’d put my money on Gosling getting his hands on one. We also got confirmation from Levy on something that those two images described above imply: Starfighter is built around a father-son dynamic, a recurring theme in Levy’s work. Other than that, what Star Wars: Starfighter is actually about remains unknown. We’ll all find out, however, when the film premieres in theaters on May 28, 2027. [end-mark] The post <i>Star Wars: Starfighter</i> Will Feature a Lightsaber Battle Shot by Tom Cruise appeared first on Reactor.

Books Teen Horror Time Machine Give Me an E-V-I-L! — R.L. Stine’s Cheerleaders Trilogy  Always make sure your evil spirit can be drowned BEFORE you try to dispose of it in a river. By Alissa Burger | Published on January 8, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share There’s never a dull moment on Fear Street, from murderous teens to supernatural dangers like ghosts and werewolves. But for many ‘90s teen horror readers, few of these dangers loom as large in our memories as the evil spirit that terrorizes the Shadyside High cheerleading squad in R.L. Stine’s 1992 Cheerleaders trilogy, with The First Evil published in August, The Second Evil in September, and The Third Evil in October, just in time for some Halloween hijinks. Stine’s Cheerleaders trilogy combines a supernatural threat with mean girl sabotage, while simultaneously drawing the cheerleaders (and Stine’s readers) into Fear Street’s dark history with the legacy of Sarah Fear.  The First Evil begins as so many Fear Street books do: with a family new in town, moving into a house on Fear Street, and no idea what they’ve gotten themselves into. This time, it’s the Corcoran family, including teenage girls Bobbi and Corky, their pesky younger brother Sean, and their parents. Bobbi and Corky are superstar cheerleaders. and they’re hoping if they can make the Shadyside squad they’ll be able to make friends, climb the social ladder, and keep competing in the sport they love. Head cheerleader Jennifer Daly is welcoming and enthusiastic, gushing to her friend and fellow cheerleader Kimmy Bass that “They were all-state back in their old hometown … And you know that cheerleading competition that’s on ESPN every year? … Well, their cheerleading team won it last year. That’s how good the Corcorans are” (13). Bobbi and Corky have a lot to bring to the table and to the team, but the squad roster was set in the spring and the girls have been practicing together all summer. Couple that with the fact that spots on the team are limited—meaning that if the Corcorans make the squad, another cheerleader will lose her place—and it’s not surprising that the rest of the girls aren’t so sure about welcoming Bobbi and Corky with open arms, or even giving them the chance to try out. But Jennifer insists, the Corcoran sisters’ routine is undeniably impressive, and Bobbi and Corky are on the team … which means somebody else has to go. As the coach Miss Green explains to Jennifer, “The squad is supposed to be six … I suppose we can squeeze one more girl on. But not two. We don’t have the funds for eight cheerleaders” (21), and freshman Ronnie Mitchell is the odd girl out.  Chemistry on the squad is complicated, with Kimmy and her friend Debra Kern particularly resistant to welcoming Bobbi and Corky onto the team. On the way to the first football game of the season, the cheerleaders’ bus needs to make a detour to Fear Street to pick up Bobbi and Corky’s fire batons, which they took home to practice and forgot there. As is usually the case, a quick trip to Fear Street ends badly, with the bus skidding and overturning on the wet road. Jennifer is thrown clear of the crash… coming to rest at the base of Sarah Fear’s tombstone in the Fear Street cemetery. She’s not breathing, and even the paramedics can’t revive her, but as Bobbi and Corky look down at their friend’s body before she is taken away “Jennifer opened her eyes … Her lips trembled. Her dark eyes moved from side to side … Jennifer smiled up at them both” (42). Tragedy seems to be averted and though Jennifer’s injuries are serious, they’re all grateful it wasn’t worse, and the girls try to get back to some semblance of their usual routine.  Jennifer has to use a wheelchair as she recovers but she enthusiastically takes on the role of a cheerleader for the cheerleaders, providing moral support even though she can’t take up the pom poms herself. And the cheerleaders need lots of moral support, because everything starts going wrong: first, Miss Green names Bobbi the new captain instead of Kimmy, and the others register their displeasure through refusing to follow Bobbi’s instructions, resisting her leadership, and continuing to treat Bobbi and Corky as unwelcome outsiders who don’t belong. Kimmy gets even more upset when her ex-boyfriend Chip asks Bobbi out, which sows further dissent among the cheerleaders. Then one afternoon as the team is practicing a stunt, Bobbi is in position to catch Kimmy as she dismounts from the top of the pyramid, but Bobbi discovers that she is frozen in place, unable to lift her arms or cry out a warning: “She could see herself standing there, as if she had floated out of her own body … She could see herself looking up as Kimmy prepared to dive, looking up at her with her arms still at her sides … Unable to move them, to raise them … Unable to catch Kimmy” (101). Kimmy hits the ground hard. No one believes Bobbi’s explanation about being frozen in place and the other girls are elated when Bobbi is kicked off the squad, Kimmy is named captain, and everything is at least a step closer to being back to “normal.”  But there’s nothing “normal” about Bobbi’s post-practice shower, when the doors slam shut, the water from the shower heads begins to boil, and there’s no escape. When Corky finds her sister’s body in the showers, “Bobbi stared back at her with vacant, wide-eyed terror, her flesh swollen and red, her mouth locked open in a silent scream” (133). And “normal” slips even further away when Corky goes looking for Jennifer, only to find her dancing on Sarah Fear’s grave, with the startling confession that she’s not Jennifer at all. Sarah Fear was inhabited by an evil spirit and when she died, the spirit was trapped in the grave with her; when Jennifer’s body conveniently landed on Sarah Fear’s grave during the bus accident, the evil spirit found a new host, taking up residence in Jennifer’s body, concealing the fact that Jennifer has actually been dead since the accident. The evil spirit tries to entomb Corky in Sarah Fear’s grave, but the other cheerleaders show up and see undeniable proof of the supernatural threat that has been tormenting them all. When Corky prevails, the evil spirit is forced back into Sarah Fear’s coffin and Jennifer’s body deteriorates in one fell swoop, as her “skin dried and crumpled, flaking off in chunks. Her long hair fell off, strands blowing away in the breeze. Her eyes sank back into her skull, then rotted into dark pits” (164). This is gruesomely horrifying and they mourn Jennifer’s loss, but they also heave a big sigh of relief, believing that they have found, bested, and contained the evil.  But of course, that’s not the case. In The Second Evil, Kimmy, Debra, and the others are a lot kinder to Corky, trying to convince her to rejoin the cheerleading squad, which she quit after her sister Bobbi’s death and the horrors of the evil spirit. But as Corky’s thoughts turn back to cheerleading, danger looms once more. While boiling the kettle for cocoa, Corky finds her body falling under someone else’s control, unable to move her hand as she pours the boiling water over herself. Corky’s not sure who she can trust and she has a range of experiences that could be the result of post-traumatic stress or the influence of the evil spirit, such as when she tries to join the others in a cheer and is overcome with the sounds of a woman screaming and visual hallucinations as the gym begins to spin around her. Kimmy encourages Corky to lean on her fellow cheerleaders, telling her “If we’re going to find the evil, if we’re going to fight it, we have to work together. If you’re not on the squad, you’re not really with us. You’re alone” (102). This seems like an amplified version of the insularity and cliquish behavior that caused so much trouble in The First Evil, but Kimmy has a point: who else is going to believe Corky? Her fellow cheerleaders are all she has, but she has no idea whether or not she can trust them, suspecting that one of them may be the new host for the ancient evil.  The scope of the evil widens beyond the cheerleaders in The Second Evil. Corky is chased down the school hallway by a mysterious stranger, but at least he turns out to be a flesh and blood human: Jon Daly, the very angry brother of Jennifer, who doesn’t believe a word of what the cheerleaders have had to say about his sister’s death. While Jon doesn’t believe in the evil, Corky meets someone who does when she sees a young woman at Sarah Fear’s grave. The girl introduces herself as Sarah Beth Plummer, a local college student with an interest in history, who just happens to be in the Fear Street cemetery doing gravestone rubbings, though the truth (as the cheerleaders eventually discover) is deeper and more complicated than that. Sarah Beth is a descendent of the Fear family, and while she habitually uses her mother’s maiden name (and who could blame her?), her legal name is Sarah Fear, and this Sarah Fear has been digging into her ancestor’s complicated history and tragic death.  Sarah Beth is keeping secrets, Jon is angry, and one of the cheerleaders is likely being controlled by the evil spirit, which leaves Corky with nowhere to go and no one she can turn to. There is a redux of Kimmy’s accident from The First Evil, this time with Kimmy frozen in place when Corky jumps from the top of the pyramid, breaking her arm. When Corky gets home from the hospital and is ready to sink into a nice, hot bath, Kimmy is waiting for her in the bathroom, driven by the ancient evil and ready to finish the job. Corky overpowers Kimmy, holds her head under the water, and watches as the evil spirit leaves Kimmy’s body in a noxious ribbon of green goo, until “As it oozed down the drain, the thick green liquid made a disgusting sucking sound that grew louder and louder, echoing in Corky’s head, vibrating, vibrating until the walls appeared to shake” (163). When Kimmy comes back to her senses, she is wet, nearly drowned, and doesn’t have a single memory of anything that happened since the night the cheerleaders faced off against the evil at Sarah Fear’s grave the first time, revealing its clever bait and switch in which the evil spirit tricked Corky into believing it had been drawn back into Sarah Fear’s coffin, while taking up residence in Kimmy’s body. This time, the suspense about whether or not the evil has been defeated is short-lived, with Corky finding an anonymous note in the mail the next day, telling her that “IT CAN’T BE DROWNED” (167).  It doesn’t seem like the horror will ever end for the cheerleaders and in The Third Evil, not only are they vigilantly keeping watch for the evil, they also have a new cheerleader to contend with, a perky, know-it-all freshman named Hannah Miles. In The First Evil, Corky couldn’t figure out why the other cheerleaders were so resistant to her and Bobbi trying to show them how it’s done but now, the shoe is on the other foot. Corky’s used to being the best and Hannah gets on her nerves, as she thinks “We all know Hannah is good. Why does she have to show off all the time? … Then she had to admit to herself: I guess I’m a little jealous” (5). The team dynamics are as complicated as ever, with Hannah trying to cement her spot on the squad through over the top enthusiasm and unsolicited advice, and when Debra defends Hannah, Corky feels betrayed. The team goes to a week-long cheerleading camp at a nearby college and between the competition with the other squads and the disagreements between themselves, tensions are running high. And that’s all before the evil strikes again, with Corky having a horrifying vision of the floor melting to pull her down and someone cutting off Hannah’s long braid while she sleeps. Hannah is sharing a room with Corky and Kimmy, and Corky’s first suspicion is that the evil spirit has taken control of Kimmy’s body again.  But this time, Corky’s the one they all need to fear. The Cheerleaders trilogy is aligned with Corky’s point of view, which means that Corky’s possession in The Third Evil gives readers a closer look at the evil and its influence than in the previous two books. Corky feels herself being engulfed in a pool of blood, “Drowning in it. Drowning in the thick dark blood … thrashing her arms and legs … kicking frantically … trying to swim … but feeling herself pulled down, sucked down into the bubbling, dark ooze” (89). Corky cannot escape the evil inside her, which steps to the forefront and takes control of her body, using it to do things she would never otherwise do. When she is playing with her little brother, the evil nearly breaks his arms, and it forces Corky to call Debra, arrange a meeting, and then try to kill her. This interiority gives the reader a glimpse of subjective experience of the evil’s possession, including Corky’s valiant struggle to resist it and her ultimate powerlessness in the face of its strength. In The First Evil, Jennifer was dead while she was inhabited by the evil, and in The Second Evil, the spirit took over Kimmy so completely that she has no memories of what happened in the intervening months. There’s no explanation for why Corky’s experience of the evil is different, but this time, rather than being on the outside looking in, trying to figure out where the evil might be lurking, there’s no mystery on that front.The horror is instead grounded in Corky’s internal struggle, one which is invisible to those around her.  The evil’s presence within Corky’s mind and body also give her unparalleled access, which ultimately leads her to the answers she needs, courtesy of Sarah Fear. When Corky has a vision of being Sarah Fear in the moments before Sarah’s death, she realizes that the evil spirit “took over their minds. It possessed their minds. And that meant that it also possessed their memories … So somewhere deep within the mind of the ancient evil spirit, somewhere deep inside that sleeping evil, Sarah Fear’s memory remained” (118, emphasis original). When Corky taps into the memories of the last day of Sarah Fear’s life, she makes a horrifying discovery: the only way Sarah Fear was able to trap the evil was by dying with it inside her body and no way to get out, by drowning herself in Fear Lake. Corky struggles with this solution but finally decides that it’s the only way, driven by her love for and desire to protect her friends and family, just as Sarah Fear decided she would let the evil go no further when it threatened to jump into the bodies of her young niece and nephew. Corky and the evil have cross purposes when they head to the cliff overlooking the Cononoka River to meet Kimmy, with the evil bent on killing Kimmy and Corky determined to end her own life, taking the evil spirit with her. At first glance, they both seem to get what they want: Corky pushes Kimmy over the side of the cliff before she jumps herself, but Kimmy isn’t killed in the fall and she is able to pull Corky’s dead body from the river and revive her, sans evil spirit.  In the final page of The Third Evil, it’s not entirely clear what the cheerleaders think happened to the evil spirit. They might be hoping the spirit died when Corky’s body died, though given the fact that it survived just fine in the coffin with Sarah Fear’s corpse for almost a hundred years, this doesn’t seem likely. Corky is certain that the evil is no longer inside her, which just leaves the river, and since it can’t be drowned, this is presumably only a temporary fix, though with the swiftness of the current, maybe it will become the problem of someone downriver. But this is Shadyside and Fear Street, so odds are that it will just keep hanging around, waiting for the opportunity to claim another victim and make its horrifying return (which is exactly what happens in the 1994 Super Chiller Cheerleaders: The New Evil). On Fear Street, the more things change, the more they stay the same: Sarah Fear sacrificed herself to contain the evil spirit, but nearly a century later, its influence is as powerful, terrifying, and inescapable than ever. Abandon all hope, ye who enter Fear Street or join the cheerleading team.[end-mark]  The post Give Me an E-V-I-L! — R.L. Stine’s <em>Cheerleaders</em> Trilogy  appeared first on Reactor.