The Fax Machine Monster of Basildon

The Fax Machine Monster of Basildon is a novel series by SSADM developer, Roger Hinds. As of April 2008, the series comprises four novels. A fifth will be released in June 2008. The sixth, and final, novel in the series will be released in January 2009.

Series
The Typistry Terror
:See The Typistry Terror

The Typistry Terror was originally released in June 2002 and began the saga that was The Fax Machine Monster of Basildon. Following the story of a cursed, killer fax machine, The Typistry Terror set a new bar for horror novels, and despite its mix of comedy with the gruesome scenes present in the book, it has been described by the Guardian as "terrifying".

The Typistry Terror sees the cursed fax machine drawn out from an old supply cupboard when a fresh business begins and purchases its first set of offices. Though the model is somewhat outdated, they begin to use the machine. It is not long before everyone who uses the machine becomes haunted by it, seeing it on their toilet seats as they shower, hearing it printing a fax as they lay sleeplessly in bed. One by one, the office girls suffer grisly deaths as the fax machine works its cruel magic.

The Print-out of Doom
The Print-out of Doom was the sequel to the bestselling chart-topper, The Typistry Terror. The sequel to the series was released in November 2003 and follows the continuing saga of its star evil fax machine. After the business closes down at the end of The Typistry Terror, the fax machine is sold off along with the majority of the company's other assets. The fax machine doesn't work at first when it is tried by its buyer, so they throw it out of a window into a skip.

However, the characters get more than they bargained for as the fax machine makes its way back into the house overnight. They continue to dispose of it but it keeps coming back, and every time it does, more horrifying accidents occur. So the two buyers decide to dispose of it once and for all by chopping it into pieces with an axe.

Only even this doesn't stop the fax machine. The next morning it is back, completely reformed. And, as the blurb comments, "It's pissed."

When Roger was queried in an interview whether the fax machine works alone or has an 'accomplice', he merely responded:

:"That would be interesting."

In the books following, there have been no further hints to this possibility though Roger has not yer ruled it out.

Connect or Die
The third book in the bestselling series was released in June 2004. Connect or Die saw the fax machine find its way into a downtown dump after the gripping conclusion of The Print-out of Doom. Jeremy, a teenager looking through the dump for discarded 'junk' he might find useful stumbles over the fax machine (literally) and thinks he will take it home.

Soon afterwards, the boy began to have recurring nightmares as he saw the fax nachine connecting to the internet to download a fax only to begin to bleed out of the printer slot. Frightened, Jeremy moved the fax machine out of his room and onto the downstairs computer. The dreams stopped, but Jeremy's family start going crazy, scratching themselves apart like rabid animals and attacking each other violently. Jeremy realises that it stops when the fax machine is connected to the internet and thinks that is the cure - but Jeremy is wrong. Very, very wrong.

Connect of Die was the first book in the series to feature a storyline similar to its title. Like the previous books in the series, it was a bestseller on release.

300DPI: Deaths Per Inch
After the fantastic critical response to Connect or Die, Roger Hinds announced the fourth book in the continuing series of The Fax Machine Monster of Basildon and announced a release in February 2005. In December 2004, he announced the title of the book.

300DPI: Deaths Per Inch sees a reporter who investigates the deaths of the family members in the third book discovering the strange fax machine. He notices it, unlike everything else in the room he finds it in, is not covered in blood. He suddenly recalls news reports in the last year of other grisly deaths and wonder if the fax machine could be involved somehow.

His research takes him into darker territory, though, as he soon discovers that the fax machine is driving him insane as he tries to find out the answers to its mysteries, even though it is locked away in a vault elsewhere. As his life crashes down, he decides to take the fax machine out of the vault to ask the thing itself for an answer to why it is linked to so many kills - only to discover the vault is empty, a bloody note in its place telling him that he is the fax machine's latest victim.

The Fax Attacks
The Fax Attacks is the fifth novel in the Fax Machine Monster of Basildon series and is due for release on June 2nd 2008. For a time, it was speculated that the fourth novel was to be the last in the series due to the long gap between releases.

Currently, little is known about the plot, but in an interview, Roger Hinds commented:

:"This is the biggest one yet. Definitely, The Fax Attacks will be the biggest and most gruesome in the series. I won't comment about what's in it exactly but I can say that the fax machine has gone back with the character we saw in the epilogue of book four and we'll see just what it gets up to this time around."

When asked of a rumour regarding a sex scene in the novel, Roger merely tapped his nose and smiled in a mystifying way.

In an interview conducted on April 24th 2008, Roger revealed more about the book in the promotional lead-up to its release:

:"The Fax Attacks will finally answer a query some readers may have found themselves with. There are long-standing, quite hidden mysteries lurking in the background and book five definitely begins to crack them open as the series works its way to a conclusion. I won't comment on exactly what, but there's definitely something going on there and book five will shove that into the limelight and then give answers."

When asked if there is something behind the fax machine, Roger went on to say:

:"I'm assuming by that you mean is it just killing or is there some reason behind it all. Book five and six will give you the answer to that question."

Roger also commented that the fifth and sixth books are more like two halves of a novel than two separate books, leading to speculation that this will be the first novel in The Fax Machine Monster of Basildon series where characters survive until the end.

Controversies

On February 5th 2007, a chapter was leaked onto the internet revealing details to a long-standing mystery regarding the fax machine that began in the second novel in the series, The Print-out of Doom. The chapter was quickly removed and publishers issued an apology and requested those that had seen the chapter not spoil it for other readers.

Untitled sixth novel

The fifth novel in the continuing saga is due to be released in June 2008 and was originally announced in September 2007. Roger has said in multiple interviews that he had no end date in mind, but approaching the release of The Fax Attacks, Roger commented:

:"The sixth will probably be the last one. I'm redrafting it now and it brings things to a satisfying if grisly conclusion. There may be another one in the future after that but I feel for sure that number six is the last and I'll be moving on to new things when it's done."

When asked for a release date of the final, as yet untitled novel, Roger speculated somewhere around January 2009. This was confirmed in an interview on April 24th 2008:

:"The publishing process on book six has begun now and we're pushing for a January 2009 release though we were considering trying to hit a December 2008 release in time for the holiday season."

In an interview given on April 24th 2008, Roger admitted that the sixth novel would be the last in the ongoing saga:

:"Number six is the last. No question about it, number six is the final novel in the series. It's the longest one of them all and I feel it's the darkest yet. Number six isn't just the fax machine killing - this time it's all-out war. And it ties up all the loose ends too."

He went on to say that the fifth and sixth novels are like two halves of one story rather than two separate ones, leading to speculation that the sixth will pick up with the same characters directly where book five left off.

Rumoured title

On April 24th 2008, a rumour began circulating that the sixth and final novel in the series was to be called 'The Modem Massacres'. As of yet, this remains unconfirmed.

Future

Now that Roger has confirmed that the sixth novel will be the last in the series, what the teacher/author will do next is unknown. Roger commented:

:"I've got a few ideas for the next thing and I'm going to start work on something soon. Rest assured, the last book in The Fax Machine Monster of Basildon series is not the last you'll hear of me."

Trivia
* The series has been translated into twenty languages world wide.
* Many conspiracy theorists in Basildon believed 'The Typistry Terror' to be true; in one extreme case a worker demanded that his office get rid of their fax machine or he would 'cause havoc' in the building.
* The second book was a major financial success in Korea when it was released a year after the United Kingdom. Publication of the third book was rushed and the translation was full of mistakes. This has been blamed on the book's flop in Korea after it fell out of the top ten after only two weeks.
* When asked if The Fax Machine Monster of Basildon would be optioned for a movie, Roger commented that "Twentieth Century Fox tried to option it but I declined. In my experience, movies of books generally aren't as good."

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