Lost Boys

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 16 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

Step Fletcher, his pregnant wife DeAnne, and their three children move to Steuben, North Carolina, with high hopes. But Step's new job with a software company turns out to be a snake pit, and 8-year-old Stevie's school is worse. As Stevie retreats into himself, focusing more and more on a mysterious computer game and a growing troop of imaginary friends, the Fletchers' concern turns to terror. Young boys, whose names match a list of Stevie's nonexistent friends, have mysteriously vanished from Steuben. And as evil strikes out from the most trusted corners, it's suddenly clear that Stevie is next on the list.

©1992 Orson Scott Card (P)2004 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

Audie Award Winner, Science-Fiction, 2005

"Card skillfully uses terror as a background to everyday family life. For Stephen King fans and those who like their suspense mixed with the supernatural." (Library Journal)

great book, excellent narration

This is one exceptional audiobook that kept me awake, alert and listening for more!

Ok, technically it's a ghost story, but.....

there is nothing spooky about it. I never once got scared, and I'm fairly susceptible that way. It's a story about the everyday, the Mormon faith, and being a parent. I thought it was a great story, depressing, but great. If you read it, go into it with an open mind. I?m gay, an atheist and married to a shrink, but still found myself identifying with the characters and caught up in the flow of their lives. They are very easy to love. He really gets the details right.
(well, except one detail, and i'll try to be as indirect as possible here- the pregnant woman's not noticing sensory aspects of the ending...uh, she'd notice- especially being the personality type she was) but that's just being picky and only stands out because he nailed everything else

Mediocre

The story kind of dragged, I also felt like a key story point was never really explained.

unexpectedly touching

this is a story about an LDS Family. It did have some slow parts but the great story that I couldn't stop listening to and ended up staying up very late to finish it.

very well written, terribly sad

immense Mormonly immersive Mormon detail grabs you Mormonously... Mormon Mormon Mormon a lot of Mormon

So many years later... Still as jarring

I was a voracious reader as a kid, and I was quickly tired of the "children's books" that all the other kids read (when they were forced to). My parents caught me reading Pet Sematary by Stephen King when I was in 6th grade and trying to hide it from them by reading under the covers in the middle of the night with a flashlight. They took it away from me, but that was okay because I was really disturbed by the part where the little boy comes back from the dead and a little bit relieved to be rescued from it.

But my dad quietly understood me but knew my mom didn't, and so when he used to go out west to fight forest fires every summer and he was gone for weeks at a time, he always came back with a book for me that was hidden from Mom because she would certainly object. There was the "real" present, and also the secret book. One year it was a kitten!! ... And THIS book.

I'm 41 years old now, and I'm trying to imagine my kids reading this but I can't. They are older than I was when I read it, but I always had to force them to read just like my friends when I was younger. Weird. When I started it, I couldn't entirely remember the whole story, except that it was so sad. It came back to me in pieces as I went along. I woke up in the middle of the night last night, knowing I was so close to the end, and I remembered how it would end.

I won't spoil it for you, but it was still as shocking to me as an adult as it was when I was a 13-year-old girl, even though l still had a dim memory and was somewhat expecting it. An intensely emotional, descriptive story, told from the perspective of a parent in a way I couldn't possibly have grasped when I first read it, but now it bites that much harder for it.

Thanks, Dad, for getting me. <3

Wow, that was different!

I have read (or listened to) many of OSC's books and this one was quite a departure from the Ender series! Apparently, it was partially autobiographical, but the story that he weaves is compelling and quite intense in the last few chapters. He starts slowly, develops the characters very well and then really nails you between the eyes with an amazing and unexpected conclusion!

A knockout

This book knocked me out with a roundhouse hook that left me down on the canvas, seeing only stars. I won't say anything more to ruin your own experience, but the chills ran up and down my spine and I just said over and over, "Omigod, omigod, omigod."

The pace of this book is admittedly slower than most. In fact, quite a bit so. There's comparatively little "action" as compared to a lot of day-to-day stuff, but there's tension building all the time. And most books of this type need a solid grounding in day-to-day stuff to make the rest work.

Yes, there is a lot about Mormon life, but that is true to the characters. It is a major part of their personalities. This book is no tract for that particular religion. In fact, there's a particularly unlikeable Mormon character. I wonder if some people have a prejudice about reading a lot about religious details. Grisham details a lot about being a lawyer. Cook a lot about being a doctor. The list could go on and on about detailed books of one type or another. Why are detailed non-religious lives ok, but religious ones are not? And just for the record, I'm a non-believer.

So if any religious talk annoys you or you require a lot of action, then this may not be your cup of tea. But if you're willing to have patience for a big payoff, then I think you'll find it worthwhile.

Worth the effort.

Not "boring" or "mundane" in my opinion. It may not be a thrill a minute mystery but the characterisation and detail build well, not just for it's own sake, I found it very interesting. Eventually you get hit in face with a sad and terrifying end. Good work.

O.S.C. at his best

I've pretty much read every other Orson Scott Card book, and I've really enjoyed all of them. When I finally got to this one I didn't think it would be that great just from i read in the summary. Once I started though, I realized this was just as good as any other O.S.C. book. As normal, I was completely captivated by the book. You’ll get to know and care about the characters, and the plot was very enjoyable. On top of that, Stefan Rudnicki is an excellent narrator. My only complaint is that awful publishers summary that I first read. I thought it was a little too revealing and the book isn’t quite as dramatic as the summary sounds. So, disregard that summary and just go straight to the book.