Changes

|title=Teachers Pest: Tales from Lovecraft Middle School

|author=Charles Gilman

|publisher=Quirk Books

|date=May 2013

|summary=The third in this series has the most distinctive flavour of any so far, but not quite the narrative strength to go with it.

}}

Lovecraft Middle School has been found to be full of other things in the past. [[Professor Gargoyle: Tales from Lovecraft Middle School by Charles Gilman|Book one]] in this series had the ultra-modern campus plagued by rats, including a two-headed example that somehow became our hero Robert's pet. We have since found the whole thing is also full of portals into a nightmarish underworld, ghosts of a mansion where a mad scientist was dredging up hell. Now the school is full of something else – insects. Flies and other bugs are all over, people are getting bad haircuts due to head lice left, right and centre, and Robert's best friend Glenn might have suffered a most peculiar wasp sting. Would it have anything to do with the particular nature of the hellish beast that has just won presidency of the student council?

Still, there is probably enough throttle applied to the narrative to appeal once again to the primary schooler in the audience. The characters are firmly established by now, and defined very loosely – although one does show too much ingenuity at a key moment. What Gilman proves is that he knows how to begin a story, and how to finish it, for the conclusion here invites us to go way beyond what at one time was due to end with this initial trilogy. I wouldn't be averse to being on that journey, especially if Gilman can prove he can provide the complete middle this fails to provide.

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