The Academy (aka Day Care) by John Russo

The Academy (Originally Day Care)
by John Russo
1985 Pocket Books / 2014 Burning Bulb Publishing

Too Much Horror Fiction

Students at an exclusive academy get brain implants as part of a secret government program.  Someone has discovered how to manipulate the implants, and uses this knowledge to fulfill his own twisted desire for sex and violence.  A lot of the background comes from the real life work of Dr. Jose Delgaldo.


John Russo once again has an apparent stand-in character, a commercial director who dreams of supporting himself with his writing and is in a bitter divorce with his overbearing wife.  There's that nasty undercurrent of unpleasant sleaziness present in all of Russo's works, and a titch of gore this time.

Along with many of Russo's books, they've been recently made available in affordable Kindle editions.  This one was "updated" and renamed - a record is called a "CD" before going back to being a record, and a specific date is changed.  But we've still got dial-up hacking, home computers are new and expensive, there's a "home video box", and the idea of a woman doctor is a novelty - sounds dated by even 1985's standards.  I think they would have been better off just keeping the original setting, as the entire story has issues if it's set in 2014.