Sonic the Hedgehog In Castle Robotnik is the fourth, and last, book written by the collective Pseudonym Martin Adams. It was published in 1994 and while other books in the series where separate stories this is a sequel to Sonic the Hedgehog in Robotnik's Laboratory.
Dr Robotnik is at it again! With a scheme diabolically heinous, UN-speakably evil and well, not very nice at all; the grisly doctor is attempting to make a film! Yes a film and he's digging out all the old classic monsters in an attempt to win one of the prestigious Egggscars; of course being an Evil Genius he's not content to simply apply special affects and has instead created fiction's most horrid creations. The unwitting stars of the show are, of course, Sonic and Tails as they attempt to fight off the cohorts of evil, save their friends and attempt to get some sort of TV spin off.
The Book Contains Examples of the Following Tropes:
- Barbarian Hero: Thug, the fur covered warrior, who speaks in a strange monotone accent and keeps reusing catch-phrases from previous unrelated films.
- Blood-Splattered Warrior: Rather shockingly, Sonic! After he attacks a zombie in the usual manner he only results in ripping it to pieces sending blood and (as the book puts it) other stuff all over the place. He himself is completely covered until he manages to clean up in the next chapter.
- Bookcase Passage: Several throughout the book, one is an actual bookcase.
- Build Like an Egyptian: Robotnik has constructed an Egyptian tomb underneath the castle; apparently gearing up for building a full one in Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure 2
- Canis Latinicus: Mr Attenbot is fond on describing animals using faux Latin genera:...and here we see the feral Mobius rat, Rattus rattus Robotnikus, in a most unusual eviroment...
- Canon Foreigner: Eggor (Mk II now) and Mickey the Monkey reappear. Also all the "actors", monster creations and robot directors.
- Damsel in Distress: The group of Dungeons & Dragons styled adventurers had a female character (called Bimbette) whose only job was to make the male heroes look better;"I'll stand round and gasp and breathe heavily and be totally useless in a stereotyped way while you and Thug chop them up and Drizzle casts some flashy spell special effects will tart up later. It's so boring."
- Dramatic Thunder: With all the dark and stormy nights (as mentioned below) there was quite a lot of these.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: Really the plot, wouldn't have suffered much not having zombies in it, as they only appear in one scene and are never mentioned after the first part of the book.
- Exposed to the Elements: Both Thug, the barbarian, and and the female warrior are said to look cold in their revealing outfits.
- Forgot About His Powers: Tails forgets about his ability to fly when he and Sonic need to make it across a gap while pursued by a boulder. Instead Sonic must remain to keep the rope taut so Tails can walk across. Although this was before Sonic 3 established Tails could support the weight of Sonic and fly it's still rather silly when moments late he decides to fly down the hole after Sonic falls in it.
- Genre Savvy: Tails throughout the first act is convinced all the monsters are real insisting of stakes, garlic, silver bullets, etc. Sonic however thinks he's been watching too much TV; turns out they are real in that they're biologically constructed to act exactly the same as the real things.
- Haunted Castle: The eponymous Castle Robotnik.
- Headless Horseman: There is one roaming around outside, what really freaks Sonic out (who has become accustomed to the weirdness by this point) is that the horses are headless too.
- Homage: A lot of the chapters are scenes from famous films, but played for laughs as it's clear the author had a lot of fun:
- We have Bram Stoker's Dracula with the count played by a walrus who drinks deep red AB negative liquid with the famous line "I never drink....wine" never spoken but clearly there.
- Then there is a point where Sonic is being chases around a boiler room by a Penguin in a stripy jumper and wearing a glove with knives on each finger. Said penguin likes to say his catchphrase "Here's Ferdy".
- While being chased by a green ghostly blog sonic manages to find a "Ghost Neutraliser" that is shaped like a backpack with a vacuum cleaner nozzle. And in case you're not getting the reference Sonic says "Whatcha gonna do? Call Slimebusters!"
- Porker is transformed into a bald-headed villain with a series of pins stuck in his head in a grid-like fashion. He even calls himself Pin-Head.
- The final part of the book sees Robotnik harnessing the power of lighting to create Frankensonic. Even going so far as to do his own little "they called me mad!" speech.
- Hockeymask And Chainsaw: Sonic meets a large rabbit called Jase with such a combo in an underground passage and is chased into darkness. Bumping a scraping through the darkness he uses the constant reeving of the chainsaw to figure out how close the rabbit is. In the end the rabbit ends up falling down a hole and leaving a big mess after the machine has done its work.
- Hypnotic Eyes: The snake in the Indiana Jones section attempts this unsuccessfully; eventually getting out a watch and trying to still no avail.
- Improvised Weapon: When Porker Lewis appears to have been bitten by a vampire, Tails keeps handy a piece of garlic pizza.
- The Igor:
- Eggor has returned and been upgraded to Mark II to prevent any further problems.
- The resident Vampire has his own, a snarky upper-class Penguin (who of course doesn't really need to wear a tux).
- In Case of X, Break Glass: After a power-cut Sonic and Tails are stuck in an Elevator and after ages of trying to prize off the emergency hatch with their hands they notice a box with a spanner in it designed to remove the bolts fixing the hatch closed.
- It Was a Dark and Stormy Night:
- For the second book in a row the story starts of with this line, but this wasn't enough for the author as the second chapter starts off with "It was another dark and stormy night. In fact, it was even darker and stormier than the first dark and stormy night."
- And it happens yet again with the fifth chapter, by now the author is really poking fun at himself "It was yet another dark and stormy night; blimey, everyone was thinking, but Mobius has had a real run of bad weather lately."
- Jabba Table Manners: Robotnik eats like this, to make it worse he only eats raw eggs. Often forgetting he's holding his food as he slaps his hands together then licking off the innards dribbling down his fingers. Even his own robots, programs to be completely loyal, are disturbed by it and are confused over if when he gets made it's just him foaming at the mouth or just egg whites running down the corners of his mouth. Sonic and Tails don't get away with it either, their demolition of food isn't pretty.
- Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: The gang at the start of the book are watching one and everybody (even way-past-cool Sonic) are scared at one point or another. It was apparently even worse than last weeks The Scrunchback of Dotty Name.
- Knight Errant: Sonic tricks him into attacking the zombies for him; mercifully we don't get to see the "big action scene".
- Lame Pun Reaction: Sonic approaches a group of bats talking about curve balls and strikes.'Hi, blue dude', one of the bats greeted him. 'We're Baseball Bats. What are you?' Sonic groaned; what a pathetic joke!
- Lightning Can Do Anything: In true Frankenstein fashion Robotnik uses lighting to power the creation of Frankensonic after a power-cut.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The ghosts Sonic and Tails meet are never confirmed one way or another. Sonic insists that they're just special affects but the author goes out of his way to say that they must be extremely good special effects.A huge white blob of supernatural (or perhaps special effect-ual!) force screamed out across the room, blew apart the ghost standing in the doorway...
- Mecha-Mooks: The badniks.
- Monster Mash: Vampires, Werewolves, mummies and Frankensonic's, Oh My!
- Mummy Based off Sally Sonic and Tails come across one in the Egyptian tomb under the castle.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- Robotnik's newly created Assistant Director is called Spielbot
- Thug, as mentioned above, is playing the classic barbarian. He's extremely dumb, speaks in monotone and the only line he can remember is from a previous movie 'Hasta La vista'.
- Robotnik has built a director responsible for animal documentaries; called Mr Attenbot:
'And here we see the giant monster, Sonicus Robotnikus Blimminugius, out on its nocturnal prowlings,' came a smooth robotic commentary... - No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: As you would expect the Dracula section of the book has our heroes having a meal (pizza) in a grand room while he sits drinking a red liquid.
- Not Quite Dead: Jase returns after having an accident with his chainsaw:Sonic: Hey you, Bugs Brainless, you bought it in that pit. Slice-and-dice time for psychobunnies. We saw it ourselves!
Jase: Huh. Don't you know Jase never dies? It's always Friday and there's always a sequel, deadhog. Except for you! - Obligatory Joke:
- Anything beginning with "ex" is replaced with "eggs", it's rather eggshausting to read.
- The chapter titles are normally rubbish jokes and puns including "Bring on the Eggstras", "I use to be a Werewolf but I'm All Right Now-ooooooh!", "Last Action for a Hero","I want my Mummy!" among others.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: The werewolf Sonic and Tails meets is biologically constructed and fashioned after Tails (that is, it also had two tails).
- Our Zombies Are Different: Well they're chickens for a start!
- Raiders of the Lost Parody: Sonic and Tails are chased by a boulder and while Tails makes it across the pit at the end of the corridor (although he still apparently forgot he could fly as Sonic had to hold the rope taut so he could get across) Sonic ends up dangling down the pit and meeting up with a snake that insists on calling him Dr. Jones.
- Robot Me: The final monster of the book, which should surprise nobody as it's on the cover, in a 20 foot tall robotic Sonic.
- Self-Disposing Villain: Jase, Jason Voorhees want-a-be, the rabbit manages to kill himself with his chainsaw.
- Sdrawkcab Alias: The book uses the Dr. Kintobor created Sonic and turned into Dr. Robotnik in a failed experiment as the backstory.
- Show Within a Show: Type four; Robotnik is attempting to create a film so he can win some awards, while attempting to destroy Sonic and Tails at the same time of course.
- Smoldering Shoes: After the boiler explosion all that is left of Ferdy are two blades and his left shoe.
- Stripperiffic: The female "warrior" "wore various flimsy garments made out of leather which were obviously two sizes too small for her. It was plain to see she was rather chilly too."
- Super-Speed: It’s Sonic, how wouldn't there be?
- Take That!:
- When Sonic and Tails see two hedgehog and fox shaped torturer boxes lined with spikes Tails asks if they're called iron maidens:
Sonic: This is no time to talk about heinously bogus music!- Spielbot is having an interview with RBC (Robotnik Broadcasting Corporation) "one of Robotnik's string of TV stations. It's strange; Robotnik owned masses of them, all pumping out entertainment for his robot minions around Mobius around the clock, but every programme on every single one of them was rubbish. Sounds familiar?"
- Torches and Pitchforks: At the climax of the book the furry creatures of Mobius march on the castle in classic Hollywood style.
- Trap Door: Triggered as soon as the heroic duo enter the castle.
- Weakened by the Light: The Count, naturally.
- Wicked Cultured: The Count, or so he says at any rate. He claims that he has two states; one feral and blood thirsty, the other reflective and rather sad. He's even written poetry on the subject and poor Tails is forced to listen to his bad vampire prose.
- Wizard Classic: One appears in the Dungeons and Dragons, look-a-like section.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Sonic doesn't even think about hitting the mummy that looks like Sally and instead just throws things in her way, almost getting killed because of it.
- You Have Failed Me: Whenever his film crew messes up Robotnik orders them melted down as scrap. For the film crew that accidentally save Sonic and Tails (to make-up them up for their next big scene) he demands that they get melted down twice!
