The Silver Eyes: Five Nights at Freddy’s (Original Trilogy Book 1) (Five Nights At Freddy's)

I like the idea of the seven friends working together to solve a ten year old crime that changed their lives forever and robbed them of those close to them. Though it did take a while for the animatronics to come to life and start hunting, it was worth the wait. I recommend this book for all FNAF fan's. The Purple Guy also finally has a name, but not much of a back story; I mean, I would have loved to have known how his childhood was and what led to him loosing his mind and becoming a killer. Too bad this might be the only book, unless there will be another in the future (after 2016( & 2017)) which would either be based on FNAF2,3 of 4 and hopefully with our heroes all returning when another closed restaurant (from FNAF 2) strikes their attention and later revels what happened their as well as learning about the Bite of 87 at Fredbears Diner (FNAF4) and the Purple Guy's possible connection to the victim, the victims big brother and the victims brothers friends. (MAURY: According to the DNA Test, Purple Guy, YOU ARE THE FATHER!!!)

I am really happy i found out about this book. I love the mystery and the horror surrounding this series as a whole. There are a few plot holes from time to time. And the ending is not completely closed in my opinion. I mean yes the "Purple guy" was killed, and that supposedly ment that it was over. But i do not think the story is really over. I think it is just the begining. I would love to see the story from the point of view of the killer. Was there a reason he felt he had to do those things? Also, when they were talking to him in the office, why did he need the mask on? Was it to hide behind to make himself feel better about his actions? Oh this book left me with more questions than answers! Really would recommend this for fans of the series as well as someone wanting to have their spines tingled! Really a great job, and if this is what the movie is going to be based on i hope they do the book justice and maybe talk to scott about the missing details here. Read this book! You know you want to!

In a nutshell, if one is to judge this book based on grammar and writing style alone this book may come off as slightly amateur. The underlying story, however, makes up for these mild rough patches. If you look past the occasional literary hiccups you'll find a touching story filled with suspense, horror, and the book's uncanny ability to through you into the action when you aren't careful and lose yourself in the pages. Obviously a must-read for any fan of the games that inspired this book, yet not the best choice for those who never played the games and demand the finest levels of grammatical polish out of their reading material...

I’m not really into horror, so take this review with a grain of salt.

I’m a fan of the FNAF franchise, and I wanted to know more about the lore. I wanted it to have more substance. This book is an oddity to me because it’s not badly written, but it’s not great either. Character interactions feel stiff, but the descriptions are well laid out and I feel as though I have a good understanding of what is taking place. I want to tell you it was amazing and the author is amazing, but I can’t- yet I am about to buy the next book, because I want to know what happens. I want to experience it. So, would totally recommend to a fan of the games and lets plays. To a horror fan? Not sure.

I can see why some people didn't like it, the story is a little slow going at the beggining, but it pays off. The story telling is very detailed, even poetic in some instances. Sure, it makes the timeline a little more complicated, but Scott said to enjoy the book for what it is, and not to judge it based off of its "secrets" and whatever. You get a good look at all of the characters personalities, including purple guy himself. Scott's pretty good at portraying him, and not over exaggerating the villain. The story really escalates towards the end, so make sure you get to it! It may not be for people who were expecting a super fast paced and dramatic book, but it's a pretty great read, it kinda fits into the "slice of life" genre in some areas, minus all the paranormal stuff, of course.

I love the FNaF series as a whole, so picked this out of bias. The story line in and of itself didn't disappoint. I felt I couldn't get enough. The actual writing and posing together of the dialogue needs work. To me, this seems like it should have been edited a bit more. To those not so English/Literary inclined and just looking for a good CreepyPasta-esque thrill, I would recommend.

To those who are more Literarily inclined, you can definitely tell the disjointment that can come with two separate writers/idealists in the same project.

It’s not often that I get to combine two of my loves into a single post. But lo and behold, bless Scott Cawthon and his desire to tell stories, because he’s helped create a book in a world with better lore than the next six games (besides UNDERTALE) put together.

Needless to say, this review may not make a lot of sense to you if you are not familiar with the underlying games that make up the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise. I do believe the book can stand on its own, but knowing the world helps. The premise, in its broadest form, is that there was one a pizzeria chain called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, not dissimilar to Chuck E Cheese’s. Legend has it that someone used one of the animatronic suits to lure children into a back room, murder them, and then hide the bodies in the other suits. The spirits of the children now haunt the suits, and in the games, you play the night guard (?) that the animatronics are trying to kill.

If you’d like to read on, feel free. If not, the tl;dr is that I loved the book and am even more intently determined to figure out the mysteries of the world. I gave it 5*. ***THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW.*** But if you live on the Internet like me, you may have already seen these.

Now we get down to the nitty gritty, and this is where I think it gets a bit odd. Not in terms of the book, but of what I’ve seen said about it. Luckily, I think I can attack both at once, so let’s see what I can do.

There are a lot of complaints/comments about how “canon” the story is, and how it fits into the timeline, etc.

I’ve almost seen as many people accept that this isn’t quite “canon” as there are people griping that the book Didn’t Answer Their Questions about the games. My response: Scott outright told us it wasn’t going to give us answers. Also, for everyone insisting it’s not canon, Scott also said that it was canon, inasmuch as any of the video games are. The book is a retelling of the original story, and as such, it’s not going to match up perfectly. This isn’t meant to answer all the unsolved mysteries of the games. Where would be the fun in that?

However, I do think that we get some answers, at least in some regard, from the book. The thing about a retelling, or even an alternate universe, is that some things remain the same. So I can potentially assume that some of the basics in this book are actually canon to the timeline in the games. I can believe that Henry (the protagonist Charlie’s father) was the owner of Fazbear Family Diner, the original location of these beasties, and ran it with his business partner William Afton. (More on him later.) I can believe that he had twin children, and it was the disappearance and presumed death of one of them that drove him away from the Diner and to later create Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza in a different town. I can believe that Henry met his end exactly the way the book describes he did. (More on THAT later.) And I can believe even that Dave wanders around the hidden site at night, much like our character might, and lurks like a creeper. Do the actual events happen, like Charlie and her friends coming back to town? Maybe not. But then again, who’s to say that the security guard moments of the games actually happened either…?

What I really find interesting are the pieces that might actually be answers/clues. For example, let’s look at William Afton, co-owner of the Fazbear franchise. Where Henry was the creative mind, the creator of the animatronics and the heart of the operation, William was the business mind. He also seems to be a wee bit shady over the course of the time we hear about him–and from the first, we’re told that Charlie (and whoever she’s with; I can’t remember) recognize the face, despite Charlie remembering very little from her youth in the Diner. This is of course because they’ve seen William before–lurking around the old pizzeria and calling himself Dave the night guard. Dave the one who abducted their friend and shoved him in a springlock suit. Dave the one who abducted Charlie’s twin brother. Dave the Purple Guy of game lore. Yes, it’s the co-owner of the franchise who is also killing the children. A+ choice on partner, Henry. Finally being given a name for the Purple Guy is huge in terms of lore. Even if there’s nothing in the games at present to point to it, it’s still a new piece of information for our arsenal.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THIS.

Let’s look at FNAF World, the “ill-fated” spinoff game from the horror franchise. It’s a happy fun time wandering through an over-world gone wrong, trying to find friends and fix problems. The music is upbeat and cheerful; the graphics are bubbly and kid-friendly. Everything the original games aren’t–though I’ll point out, it’s likely what the actual locations are likely trying to be. FNAF2 shows us that with the toy animatronics.

I say ill-fated in quotes because yes, the fanbase at large panned the game. It’s a complete departure from what anyone expected, and it’s not even close to what we thought we wanted. None of us had any clue what Scott thought he was doing when he put out the game. But I don’t believe that’s true. If he truly thought it was a failure, he would have stopped after he took it off Steam and made it free. Who needs to update a failed game? No one. And yet, FNAF World has seen at least two major updates, I believe. And they’re not insignificant ones.

At the end of Update 2, we’re presented with a black-and-white scene of a man at a desk, seemingly working. We know him as the Creator–popularly presumed to be a representation of Scott himself. The Creator talks about a creation gone terribly wrong, and how he’s lost the ability to fix the problem. He calls it “Baby.” After a few more phrases of monologue, the screen goes black, two eyes appear in the corner, and a harrowing voice over informs us “The show will begin momentarily. Everyone, please stay in your seats.” When the lights come up, the Creator is dead on the desk, bleeding out. Dramatic.

While believing this to be Scott being disheartened by the flop of FNAF World itself, I believe that MatPat and the Game Theorists got it right: this isn’t Scott–it’s Henry. Henry, the creator of the animatronics. The one who let his creations get away from him–and the one who in the book, died via suicide-by-animatronic. Important note: it wasn’t an animatronic Charlie recognized, which means it’s none of the core cast from the Diner or Freddy’s Pizza.

FAST FORWARD TO NOW. We’re getting trailers for Sister Location, the upcoming FNAF game Scott’s working on. The main animatronic? Circus Baby, whose first trailer has the same “Everyone please remain in your seats” line from World. AND…if you look in the source code for the home page on Scott’s website, we see an allusion to something called “Afton Robotics.”

Afton. William…Afton. Hmmmmm.

Who still wants to say we haven’t gotten any answers from the book? I’ll posit that we now have more questions than we started with, but I’m not willing to toss Silver Eyes under the bus.

Is it perfectly written? No. It’s a little choppy and awkward at times, but I’m okay with that. Charlie is an unreliable narrator, which gives a chunk of leeway to the writing style. (Also, anyone blaming Scott for this…I’m not sure you understand how ghost-writing works.) I don’t know anything about Kira Breed-Wrisley, but she kept me compelled through the story, and had me if not on the edge of my seat, at least up reading into the wee hours of the night because I needed to know what happened next. I loved seeing into the potential creation of the venues and animatronics, and getting a closer look at the inner workings of the lore. It gave me a chance to see more of Scott’s vision of the world, and that, for a creator, is one of the best things I can imagine. Scott’s a storyteller, and he’s got a lot up in his head, I’m sure. I think this was a fine way to get it out.

And I’ve never been more excited for Sister Location to come out.

Rating: ***** (Highest Recommendation)

Video game movies are often bad, but does the same apply to video game books? I’ve never actually found an example of a book based off of a video game that wasn’t campy and a seemingly disappointing cash grab before, so I should have known what I was getting into. My better wisdom was over-ridden this time by expectation built by the fantastic lore that Fnaf already has and given the book decided to take the basic idea behind the lore and make an original story, instead of literally retelling the games. Despite the great background lore and freedom to define its own story, this book is a bore and a disappointment.

The book starts out strong, giving you a feel for a horrific scene that will surely happen later (though when we finally visit the scene it turns out to be a snooze despite the action promised) and the atmosphere drawn in the first chapter is the best this book will have to offer. Part of the strength of fnaf isn’t what they do tell you, but what they don’t tell you, what is only hinted at. You have to do a lot of thinking to ascertain what might of happened in the games, and the book starts out this way too. In fact the beginning of the book is really good, but the rest of the book loses this shine almost immediately and I can confidentially say every chapter is worse than the last.

When the book starts to introduce the characters the first thing that comes to my mind is the utter lack of attachment I had with any of them. The main character was fine on her own and when in chapter one we saw her pain and nostalgia, she is interesting and compelling, but once she meets up with her ‘friends’ she starts to have to actually have chemistry with them and that’s the first thing that utterly falls flat. The story premise is that these characters haven’t seen one another for ten years, formative years no less and are re-connecting. Sure they’ve written and they have a shared trauma of sorts, but this is where things start to fall through hard for me. Besides the book being generally boring, it also fails in my view to account for the closeness these guys have with each other. Sure it pays some tribute to the notion that they’re basically strangers (by saying it) but never really showing it, for the most part they act as though they are tight and familiar. If you took me from age seven and then at age seventeen introduced me to the same people I doubt if I would even have remembered their names. If the shared trauma is the excuse for their seemingly had no lives between now and then, the book did a poor job of illustrating how traumatized they should have been.

Another thing that got me during the middle chapters were nothing basically happens, is the romance. This book did not need romance and it only detracts. There is no point where I need to read about childhood friends who have been apart for a decade reconnecting and instantly falling with each other. Why this is a problem is because the book wasted a lot of page space on this plot, in fact I would argue it was the biggest plot after maybe the main plot which is a murder mystery maybe, or maybe the mystery takes a back seat to the romance. The two storylines are almost equally important to the book and result in each being equally poorly fleshed out and written. I found myself at the end wishing they would kill people off (the main people) to create some level of caring for what is going on and who it is going on to.

Finally the book does end in what is supposed to be an action sequence but besides occasional good lines, the action is all very anti-climatic without any sense of danger or suspense. Part of the problem is you don’t care about the characters, but the other problem is the book had long since shown it lacks any semblance of teeth. They try to claim there is danger, but I’d seen the book pull one too many bait and switches by the end to actually fall for it.

Ultimately Fnaf the silver eyes is unworthy of the source material in every way. The promising lore and strong first chapter is lost almost immediately and only gets worse as the book goes on. The authors insistence on putting in romance and giving it near to equal importance to the actual material is another massive unforced error. I could go on but it isn’t worthy even of the scorn. This book is a bore and best left alone, unfortunately on par with most other adaptations of video games to other mediums.

Honestly, I love this book more than I love the games! I seriously hope Scott writes more! I also can't wait for the movie.

I loved this so much. Whilst it was made to be a captivating horror novel, it also builds up an interesting romance between two main characters. The best part about this, is how their is always just enough information to intrigue readers. I aspire to become an author myself. I have big plans, and two of them are backups, but work just as well. I'll learn programming when I go to college, so that I can create, and I'll also focus on my art and literature interests at the same time. My point though, is that Scott is a big inspiration and I admire him with all my being. Maybe someday, I'll have my own horror game series and books to help explain the story, but until then, I will strive to complete my mission.