Ann seems to be the common first or middle name of Pike's female victims. Marvin (Master of Murder) says he used the name Ann as a tribute to his sister. Pike dedicates The Last Vampire: Evil Thirst to his sister. Ann.
The girls named Ann tend to not only be victims but also the most beautiful girls you can imagine, and they often have dark hair and/or green eyes. Even Marvin's sister Ann beat out the love of his life in the looks department. One of the few times a girl with a first or middle name of Ann wasn't described as extraordinarily beautiful, it was found out later that she was switched at birth with the most beautiful girl in the world.
Many of the books have brothers and sisters who are very close to each other. Rindy and Carl (Last Act), Cindy and Alex (Spellbound), Paula and Rick (Scavenger Hunt), Sheila and her brother (The Wicked Heart, yet oddly enough, as soon as her brother is mentioned, he's pretty much dropped), Shari and Jimmy (Remember Me), Marvin and Ann (Master of Murder), Kipp and his little sister (Chain Letter 2: The Ancient Evil), and Jenny and Ken (The Lost Mind). Then there's Ann and Jerry Rice. I suppose they may have been close but we only know about how Ann felt about her brother after he killed himself. Tracy and Clyde are brother and sister in Last Act. I don't know how close they were. Often times, one of these siblings dies a horrible death. Rindy, Rick, Shari, Kipp, Jerry (and Ann). There are a few sister/sister relationships as well. Robin and Lena in Weekend, Alice and Polly in Final Friends and Nell and Nicole in Slumber Party. Alice dies in the first FF book and Nicole is dead from the start of Slumber Party. Robin doesn't die in Weekend, but she is deathly sick. And there is a brother/brother relationship in Die Softly between Theo and Roger. Roger is dead at the start of the book. Then there are Peter and Jeff in Remember Me. Peter is dead. Like Roger, he died in a vehicular "accident". There are half-brothers in Fall Into Darkness (Chad and Paul).
Recurring Plot Lines, Twists and Themes
-The revenge plot seen in Fall Into Darkness was originally found in Gimme a Kiss. There's also a bizarre revenge plot line in Master of Murder. Like Fall Into Darkness, it involves rope.
-Both The Slumber Party and Weekend feature kids on a deadly vacation. Both books deal with a horrible past incident. Chain Letter also deals with a horrible past incident that comes back to haunt a group of kids.
-In both Remember Me and The Cold One, a guy falls in love with a beautiful girl who turns out to be his long lost sister. There is sibling incest, between non-humans, in Scavenger Hunt. There is implied incestuous desire in Spellbound. Cindy slaps her boyfriend for making insinuations about her and her brother. A second later, she realizes that he probably wasn't talking about her brother at all, but rather, some other boy and she just jumped to the wrong conclusion. And in The Eternal Enemy, Sara goes back in time as a robot and falls in love with her grandfather who she has come to destroy. There is rape/incest in Die Softly (Alexa Close and her father). There is father-daughter marriage in The Cold One.
-In both Weekend and The Cold One, long-lost twins meet later in life.
-Both Shari Cooper and Mandy Bart die by falling off of balconies. Not to mention Jean Rodrigues, who falls off a balcony in Remember Me 2 but doesn't die. Instead, she switches souls with Shari.
Christopher Pike's Stories Within His Stories
-Shari Cooper (as Jean Rodrigues) writes a story called "The Starlight Crystal" in the third Remember Me novel. Christopher Pike wrote a book called The Starlight Crystal. This title is also mentioned in the Pike book See You Later.
-Peter Nichols, in Remember Me, wrote a short story called "Ann's Answer". This story resembles Christopher Pike's novel The Eternal Enemy.
-Final Friends is a series that centers around the death of a young girl. It includes a character named Michael Olson who is in love with a girl named Jessica Hart. In Master of Murder, Marvin is writing a series that centers around the death of a young girl. The series includes a character named Mike who is in love with a girl named Jessica.
-In the book Whisper of Death, there is mention of a movie called The Season of Passage. A couple years later, Christopher Pike published a book called The Season of Passage and the plot sounds like it could be very similar to this movie in WOD.
Recurring Names (Other Than Ann)
-Alice Palmer (Gimme a Kiss) and Alice McCoy (Final Friends)
-Carl Carpenter (Last Act) and Carl Timmons (Scavenger Hunt)
-Clyde (Last Act) and Clyde (Master of Murder, Silver Lake series)
-Jean Fiscal (Bury Me Deep) and Jean Rodrigues (Remember Me 2: The Return and Remember Me 3: The Last Story).
-Jerry Rice (Fall Into Darkness) and Jerry Washington (The Cold One)
-Jessica Hart (Final Friends) and Jessica Moss (the heroine in Marvin's series in Master of Murder)
-Lisa Barnscull (Die Softly), Lisa Cantrell (The Cold One)
-Michael (Weekend), Michael Olson (Final Friends series), Mike Madison(hero in Marvin's Silver Lake series in Master of Murder), Mike (Bury Me Deep).
Note: "Christopher Pike" seems to have a brother and a nephew named Mike, according to two different dedications.
-Paul Lear (Fall Into Darkness) and Paul Pointzel (Pepper, Whisper of Death)
-Peter Nichols (Remember Me) and Peter Jacobs (The Cold One).
-Sara Cantrell (Final Friends), Sara (The Eternal Enemy) and Sara (The Cold One)
-Sharon Less (Gimme a Kiss) and Sharon McKay (Fall Into Darkness)
-Susan Trels (Last Act), Susan Darly (The Cold One)
-Tracy (Last Act) and Tracie White (Scavenger Hunt)
-Mandy Bart (Bury Me Deep) and Wendy Bart (The Wicked Heart)
-Sara Cantrell (Final Friends), Lisa Cantrell (The Cold One)
-Susan Trels (Last Act), Cindy Trells (The Cold One)
Girls With Green Eyes
-Rindy Ann Carpenter (Last Act)
-Shari Ann Cooper (Remember Me)
-Ann Rice (Fall Into Darkness)
-Alexa Close (Die Softly)
-Roxanne Wells (Whisper of Death)
-Ann Summers (Master of Murder)
And maybe more...
Similar Opening Lines
"Herb Trasker was dreaming when his mother knocked on his bedroom door to tell him a police sergeant was on the phone." Die Softly, page 1
"Peter Jacobs was dreaming when the phone rang and awakened him." The Cold One, page 3 (actually it's the first line of Chapter One. There are two prologues before it).
More to come later...
