Kevin McFadden was born in New York in 1954, but grew up in California where he currently resides in Santa Barbara. As a college dropout, Pike turned to house painting and programmed computers prior to becoming a bestselling author. Pike was unsuccessful as a budding science fiction and adult mystery author, until his work was discovered by an editor who suggested he try writing a teen thriller. This suggestion resulted in Slumber Party (1985), a book about a group of teenagers who run into bizarre and violent events during a ski weekend.
Well-known works include The Last Vampire series, the Final Friends and Remember Me trilogies, Witch, Whisper of Death, the Alosha series and Fall into Darkness. According to Amazon.com, Pike currently has four titles available on Audiobook cassette/CD: Fall Into Darkness, Witch, Bury Me Deep and Falling.
On November 25, 1996, Fall Into Darkness was released as a television movie directed by Mark Sobel, starring Tatyana Ali and Jonathan Brandis. This movie was produced by Christopher Pike Productions. The movie is no longer in print, however, some DVD's can still be found online.
Also in 1996, fans created a website based on Pike's novel The Midnight Club to discuss the author and share their stories. This site no longer exists.
McFadden is also the author of the popular children's series Spooksville and the adult novels: Sati, The Season of Passage, The Listeners, The Cold One, The Blind Mirror and Falling.
McFadden is an extremely private person; the little known about him is collected from his books and very rare interviews. In the "About the Author" section of several of his books, McFadden lists his interests as astronomy, meditation, reading, running, surfing and making sure his books are prominently displayed in his local bookshop. He acknowledges Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Agatha Christie, Carl Sagan and Stephen King as his influences.
Although his books are known as thrillers, they are often more focused on aspects of science fiction, spirituality, and whodunit. References to Egyptian, Greek and Hindu mythology are also common.
According to the Simon & Schuster author page, the Thirst (The Last Vampire) series and the Alosha series are slated to be released as feature films. As of September 2010, FilmNation has acquired the screen rights to The Last Vampire series.
Due to the fact that Pike didn't have time to write the sequel to The Cold One, tentatively titled Seedling, and the fact that the next book in the Alosha series, Nemi, has yet to be written, fans have begun an online petition for the completion of Nemi at ipetition.com.
Many of Christopher Pike's books include a reference to an Ann:
In Master of Murder, the protagonist Marvin Summer, an author, inserts references to his sister Ann into his work. Many of the references in Master of Murder are believed by fans to be directly linked to Pike. In the foreword of his short story The Fan From Hell in Tales of Terror, Pike says he decided to bring Marvin back "to make clear once and for all that I am not Marvin."
The omnibus Chained Together and novel The Season of Passage are both dedicated to an Ann.
The protagonist of the Remember Me trilogy is named Shari Ann Cooper.
In Last Act, Rindy Carpenter's middle name is Ann.
Fall into Darkness has a character named Ann Rice. (For the Fall Into Darkness television movie, she was renamed Ann Price.)
Much of the plot of the Final Friends trilogy focuses on the circumstances surrounding the death of Alice McCoy in the first book, The Party. At the end of the final book, The Graduation, we learn that Alice's middle name, and the forename of lead protagonist Michael Olsen's newborn sister, is Ann (also the first time a main character's name was Ann and not a middle name).
In the Spooksville series, there is a woman called Ann Templeton who is suspected of being a witch. She appears in several books in the series.
The protagonist of The Whisper of Death is named Roxanne.
The Last Vampire 5: Evil Thirst is dedicated to McFadden's "sister, Ann, who is a vampire."
