Tom Swift, Jr. and his Jetmarine



From Goodreads.
My copy had lost its dust jacket.

 Tom Swift, Jr. and his Jetmarine by Victor Appleton II

To say that my father was a reluctant reader* when he was a kid is a gross understatement. Stories of his schoolboy antics would curl the hair of the most stalwart teacher. He was a contrary feller (still is) and he chaffed at the impositions of the school system. I imagine you, dear readers, know one or two kiddos like this. But Dad loved history, especially military history, and he loved Tom Swift, Boy Inventor books, so when I came across this book at my local used book store, I decided to give it a go.

So the plot of Tom Swift and his Jetmarine is pretty movie-of-the-week -- some pirates are disabling ships in the Carribbean, only these aren't like Johnny Depp -- they're high tech wizards who use some sort of improbably device that renders the passengers and crew unconscious so the pirates can take all the valuables (like jewels and uranium -- who sends uranium on a passenger ship??) without a fuss. Only now, at the beginning of the book, they sank a ship, and that aboard that ship was "Uncle" Ned, Tom Senior's BFF. Of course, the Toms, along with their friend Bud, with the might of the US Navy behind them, are on the job.

This book was published in 1954, so for a jaded 21st century gal, some of the inventions and conventions of the novel seemed quaint. Television phones? We have Skype. Loving sexism in the way the Tom Junior treats his mother and sister? Adorable ignorance of a bygone era. But, I have to say that despite the smug modern view I have, I found the science really interesting, if improbable. For example, Tom's jetmarine, essentially a personal submarine, is a nuclear sub powered by Swiftonium, a radioactive element the Swifts discovered in South America. And Tomasite, a plastic developed at Swift Enterprises designed to counteract gamma radiation from the Swiftonium. As I read the story, part of me was all, "yeah right," but it's really no sillier than kryptonite or any other devices used by Marvel and DC characters. And I found myself wanting to call up my friend Alex, who is studying nuclear physics and ask him if any of this was possible. I was getting excited about exploring the science, testing what was possible from Tom Swift's world and what was fantasy, and this is where I think Tom Swift stories have their greatest merit. Not only are the stories just entertaining (and as someone who counts The Librarian: Quest for the Spear among her favorite movies, I have NO room to throw stones), but I can see how the stories inspire readers to imagine what might be possible, what might be invented, and I worry about a profound lack of imagination, or a systematic quashing of imagination. Besides giving my Dad something to read, Tom Swift stories inspired Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and authors  Ray Kurzweil and Isaac Asimov. I don't know much about Kurzweil beyond the term "singularity" and mentions in John Hodgman's book That is All, but I don't think we can deny the influence Apple and Asimov have had in our world. And without Tom Swift, we wouldn't have that immortal phrase, "Don't tase me, bro!" The acronym TASER stands for Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle.

Like the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins series, the Tom Swift were actually ghost written by several people for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book-packaging company founded by Edward Stratemeyer in 1906. The Tom Swift series was first published in 1910, and various series were released up through 2007, which fills my nerdy, trivia-loving heart with glee. Tom Swift, Jr. and his Jetmarine is the second book in the second series, which was published between 1954 and 1971, but like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, you don't need to read these books in order. Each is a self-contained adventure.

This is cross-posted at my blog, (Library Lass) Adventures in Reading, with some additional, albeit rambly, thoughts. I recommend this for 4-6 grade readers.

*But there's hope. Now that Dad has a Kindle and can embiggen the font AND read whatever he wants, free of the shackles of educational oppression (as he puts it), he reads all the time.

Worst-Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure: Mars!

I'm at the beach this week, and there's two things about taking books on vacation that it's important to keep in mind. First, you can't take nearly as many books with you as you wish. Second, you want something that will both suck you in, but is also easy to pick up and put down, because somebody somewhere is always telling you to do something other than what you really want to be doing--especially reading!

This week, I'm bringing one of the new "choose your own adventure" -type novels from the people who wrote the Worst-Case Scenario books, and it is perfect for a vacation read-- I'm sucked in, I've got multiple reads all within one cover, and it's got lots of places where I can stop, but, with about a bajillion cliffhanger choices to make, I can't wait to pick it back up again.

Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses by Ron Koertge

It starts with a creepy introduction, and Ron Koertge's take on fairy tales gets darker and twistier from there.

Do you want to sleep? Find another storyteller. Do you
want to think about the world in a new way?

Come closer. Closer, please.
I want to whisper in your ear.

Written largely in free verse (although much of it reads like spare prose, and not actual poetry), this collection is decidedly not a hearts-and-flowers account of Happily Ever After (HEA). And it's accompanied by what appear to be cut-paper representations of many of the tales.

For instance, the first story fills you in on what happened to Cinderella's stepsisters after Cinderella moved to the castle, and it involves various forms of mutilation and wishing for death. There are other characters who don't exactly get their HEA endings either, such as the characters in Rapunzel (who knew?), the mole in Thumbelina, and the father in Hansel & Gretel (at least impliedly, based on Koertge's telling).

Some of the tales are brought forward in time to the present, such as "The Little Match Girl", which features a kid trying to sell CDs on a corner in a very bad neighborhood, Little Red Riding Hood, or "Bearskin", in which the soldier who makes a deal with the devil is a veteran from Iraq, living in the psych ward at the Veterans Administration hospital.

Another Jekyll, Another Hyde by Daniel and Dina Nayeri

Another Jekyll, Another Hyde by Daniel and Dina Nayeri
"When his billionaire father marries French governess Nicola Vileroy, high society is all abuzz — but Thomas, the most popular student at Marlowe, is just plain high. Ever since his girlfriend Belle dumped him, he’s been spending less time with old friends and more time getting wasted at clubs. But after someone slips him a designer drug one night — and his stepmother seems to know way too much about his private life — things really start to get scary. As Thomas’s blackouts give way to a sinister voice inside his head, and as news of a vicious hate crime has students on edge, Thomas comes to the sickening realization that Madame Vileroy has involved him in a horrifying supernatural plan. How can he muster the strength and will to stop it? The pulse-quickening climax revisits Jekyll and Hyde as a current-day cautionary tale laced with a heady dose of paranormal intrigue."- summary from Amazon

First off, let me say that while this could be read on its own, it's probably best to have read the previous two books beforehand. I read this without having read the second book because I didn't realize there was a link between the books. I just thought they were retellings of different stories focusing on different characters. While this is true, I didn't think those characters would be ones we'd seen in previous books or that characters from previous books would be involved in the current book. So that kinda threw me a little bit when I started reading since there were some spoilers from the previous books.

OK, moving on, I did still like the book though it wasn't as good as the first. I didn't feel the same connection or suspense with these characters. It was creepy and thriller-ish, sure, but that didn't necessarily morph into "I must continue to read this book!". It took me a bit of time to get through it even though it's shorter than its predecessors.

I did enjoy seeing into the history of Vileroy throughout the years, both from her own perspective and from a third person perspective, now that this is the conclusion. The climax of the book was very interesting and the ending was handled well.

Overall, while I did enjoy the book, I think it's more of a library book than one to purchase, but it is an interesting series to check out. I'll be visiting Another Pan, the second book, soon!

Who Took My Squid?

Kraken, by China Mieville, is the story of a dead giant squid that's gone missing, that's disappeared entirely, tank and preserving fluid and all, from its home at the British Museum of Natural History. A police division dedicated to the investigation of religious cults (and secretly to supernatural phenomenon) interviews museum staff including Billy Harrow, the original curator of the giant squid. But the police aren't the only ones after the squid. There's also a kraken worshipping cult which believes that giant squid are kraken babies, and is furious at the animal's disappearance. And there's a powerful London crime lord who happens to be trapped in animated tattoo on another man's skin. When, against the advice of the police, Billy discusses the crime with his friends, he is drawn into a bizarre adventure that redefines his understanding of London and of reality itself.

The Secret Journeys of Jack London: The Sea Wolves by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon

Jack London was best known for his novels, such as Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf, just to name a few. But what if his real-life adventures were even more mind-blowing than his fiction? That question prompted authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon to create a series with a supernatural twist, using a young and daring Jack London as the main character.

I first posted about The Secret Journeys of Jack London here at GuysLitWire last year, when the first book, The Wild, was released. The Sea Wolves, the second volume in the series, is just as action-packed as the first, if not moreso. When Jack is taken captive by pirates, he learns there's more to these bloodthirsty creatures than meets the eye...

Chaos Walking, No Waiting

The Knife of Never Letting Go, Part 1 of the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness, has been mentioned a few times on this site, when its sequels have been reviewed, but it's never gotten a complete treatment, and with the recent news that Charlie Kaufman (of Being John Malkovich fame) has begun work on the film adaptation, I thought it a good time to finally give the first book in the series a look.

Todd Hewitt is awaiting his thirteenth birthday, the day that he becomes a Prentisstown man. He will be the last Prentisstown boy to become a man. Prentisstown is a settlement town on an alien planet known only as New World which consists entirely of men. There will never be another Prentisstown boy because a virus released in a war with an alien species called the Spackle killed all the women. It affected the men too, but in a very strange way. All the men of New World have become unwilling telepaths unable to keep themselves from transmitting their thoughts and hearing the thoughts of others. The result is a world filled with Noise, a chaotic soup of male thought and feeling, every man's inner world on display, but muddled in the mess. To make matters even weirder, animals thoughts are projected into the soup too. Effectively, New World animals can talk. Todd has a dog, Manchee, who has plenty to say, though much of it is about poo and squirrels.

Obsidian and Blood by Aliette de Bodard

Let me tell you this: if you ever sat down to yourself and said "You know what the world really needs? An Aztec noir murder mystery with strong fantasy overtones," then you can rejoice, because Aliette de Bodard's Obsidian and Blood trilogy (Servant of the Underworld, Harbinger of the Storm and Master of the House of Darts) delivers exactly that, and quite a lot more. Granted, most of that "more" it delivers is blood, but this is an Aztec series, and the main character Acatl is the High Priest of the Dead, who relies on sacrificing animals in order to commune with the gods.

Edge of Destiny by J Robert King

Guild Wars: Edge of Destiny, by J. Robert King, is the second book in the Guild Wars 2 series. If you're not anticipating the release of that game, worry not; it's still a great book for any fan of fantasy worlds. This story actually takes place before the first book in the series, but as the stories feature different characters that's okay. And getting to read about this particular group makes it even more special. 

Steampunk Everywhere

The steampunk influence is everywhere in science fiction and fantasy these days, and why shouldn't it be? The whole aesthetic is pretty cool--leather and copper and brass and exposed gears, tough yet elegant, retro yet edgy. I'm all for it.

But if you actually read the steampunk influenced literature, there's something more going on than just fashion. For one thing, writers of steampunk really get into language. The language of nineteenth century technology--"cog," "coil," "spring," "clockwork"--is so much more interesting, physical, guttural than the antiseptic language of twenty-first century technology--"quantum," "byte," "field," "tachyon." Steampunk allows writers to get poetic when writing about technology. Steampunk is about the origins of technology, the mythology of how our relationship with machines originally formed.

Beyonders: Seeds of Rebellion by Brandon Mull

Brandon Mull's second novel in the Beyonders series takes some cues from classic second acts like J.R.R Tolkien's The Two Towers and George Lucas' The Empire Strikes Back. In the opener, A World Without Heroes, Jason and Rachel accidentally travel from our world to Lyrian. Lyrian has been under control from the powerful Maldor, who had incapacitated all of the world's former heroes in different, yet devastating ways.

When 13-year old Jason enters Lyrian he learns part of a magical word which is the only thing that can destroy Maldor. Jason meets another Beyonder in Rachel and they scour the country finding parts of the word in the most dangerous corners of Lyrian. The word itself, however, has secrets of its own, which moves us to the second book.

Like in many great series, Mull takes time in the middle book to flesh out more characters, have them learn and grow, face new, awful tasks and get ready for the ultimate challenge. In Seeds of Rebellion, their full crew comes together with a cast of characters including a giant with a secret, a displacer who can remove body parts and a blind King. Jason is learning to be a warrior, while Rachel is learning a powerful, magical language that she is mastering to create fire and move objects.

Their attempt to gather support to overthrow Maldor is making them a huge threat. Maldor has devastating armies and creatures that he is using with increasing intensity to thwart their plans. Despite the hardships, Jason and Rachel are determined to keep working against Maldor in hopes that they can also return home to their families.

The joy for me in this book is the seemingly insurmountable odds that Mull keeps throwing at his heroes. I am a big sucker for that type of plot and the middle book/movie of any series, so I absolutely love this book. Mull is deft at sliding in philosophies and ideas into the story that creates a depth that not every kids or teen fantasy book has.

Fans of books by Tolkien, David Eddings, Charlie Fletcher and Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series will enjoy Beyonders.

Cold Cereal by Adam Rex

Just what makes those Lucky Charms so "magically delicious™?" Why, the imprisonment of leprechauns, unicorns, uni…cats and other fantastic creatures.

At least, that’s according to Cold Cereal, the new fantasy novel by Adam Rex.

Goodborough, New Jersey, is the home of Goodco, a sugary cereal company that dominates millions of breakfast tables with an iron spoon—er…fist. The town is also the new home of Scottish Play Doe and his family. His mother has just accepted a job there. Scott’s absent dad is a famous actor whose latest claim to fame is punching the Queen of England in the face.

Making friends at a new school is pretty hard when you have a name as strange as Scott’s. Thankfully, he finds some pretty weird friends. Erno and Emily Utz are genius twins who look nothing alike. Their foster father, Mr. Wilson, also works for Goodco and is constantly challenging them with games of coded logic. Like when he suddenly stops using the letter E.

The Lies of Locke Lamora

Locke Lamora is a thief and con artist plying his trade in the ancient city of Camorr. Tricking the nobles of Camorr out of their fortunes is little more than a game for him and his gang, the Gentleman Bastards. But then a mysterious figure known as the Grey King decides to use Locke as a pawn in his bid to take over Camorr's organized crime syndicate. And to make matters worse, the Duke's secret police, the Midnighters, are on Locke's trail for his crimes against the nobles.

I've been burnt out on fantasy novels lately. Instead of fully fledged stories with character development; subtext; and actual, satisfying conclusions, too many fantasy authors are content to stretch one or two good ideas into an entire series, each book ending in a cliffhanger designed to make you buy the next book.

Because of that, I was hesitant when a friend recommended Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora. In fact, he recommended it several times before finally shoving the book in my hands and making me read it.

The Returning by Christine Hinwood

As a longtime reader of fantasy novels (and even as a shorttime reader, in my younger days) there comes a point where the generic conception of fantasy simply doesn't cut it all the time. Kingdoms warring with Earth-Shattering Consequences™, plucky young protagonists who have destinies to save the world, and full of grand-scope epic detail, the kind of fantasy Diana Wynne Jones aptly and lovingly skewered in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland—it can get tiring after a while.

Fortunately, not all fantasy deals with matters of global import; quite a few are decidedly provincial, and Christine Hinwood's The Returning is among them. It's not even ultimately a novel about war and conflict (something that even other smaller-scale fantasies miss)—the story does start a short time after Cam Attling returns from the war as the only survivor of his small village, but it's not about the war. It is instead about the aftermath, about growing older and changing, getting lost and finding yourself in unexpected places; that it happened after a devastating war is almost unimportant.

FEED by MT Anderson

Have you been inside a Barnes and Noble lately? When I walk into my neighborhood Barnes and Noble their YA sections look like a New York Publisher’s marketing dream. An entire large section labeled “paranormal romance.” Really? Even more disheartening is this fact: ninety percent of the books on their shelves are written and marketed for girls. Honestly, in that sea of Sarah Dessens and Stephanie Meyers and Lauren Olivers it’s hard to find books for guys. Even sports books are hard to find, buried in rows of love and vampires. This is not to knock those books or authors. They’re popular for a reason. People like them and they’re reading, and that’s a good thing. And there's certainly nothing wrong with some love and romance. Working in education I see firsthand that boys are just not reading books like girls, and that because of how our schools teach reading (and what they make them read!), they are literally teaching boys to hate reading. Rather than solving the problem our schools are perpetuating it and bookstores have become their partners in crime. But hey, we know there are lots of good books for boys and we know boys will read them. How about putting some of them out? How about making some of them visible?

So, I thought for this month I would go back a few years to the better days when bookshelves actually had some variety and a boy could walk up and rather easily find a good book. The book today will be the masterful Feed by M.T. Anderson. This is a dystopian novel published before teens knew what “dystopia” meant. We’ll call that BHGE: Before Hunger Games Era.

Where to Start

You've seen Terry Pratchett's Discworld books recommended on this blog before. I mentioned two in this post, and recently Debra reviewed his latest (the 39th in the series), Snuff. If you read those posts you know already that you don't have to start reading the series with book #1. In fact, you can start pretty much anywhere. Everything you need to know is contained in each book. And even when information is repeated, Pratchett is clever enough to keep it interesting and funny every time.

That said, there's also no reason NOT to begin at the beginning. The first book in the series, The Colour of Magic, introduces readers at a somewhat greater length than the others to the cosmology of Discworld: Discworld is not a globe like Earth. Instead, it is a disc, this disc is help up on the backs of for enormous elephants. In turn, the elephants are standing on the back of a giant turtle, known as the Great A'Tuin. The Great A'Tuin, thus loaded, swims through space.

The Mind's Prisoner

Sapphique, the sequel to Katharine Fisher's Incarceron, continues the story of two dystopic worlds: one, the Realm, artificially frozen in time roughly around the 18th century; the other, Incarceron, a failed uptopia set up for the incarceration and rehabilitation of massive numbers of The Realm's prisoners, which has instead devolved into a kind of organic-mechanical hybrid hell full of metal forests and half-mechanical animals. Travel between the two worlds (or even any sharing of knowledge) is forbidden for all except the Warden of Incarceron. One legendary figure, however, Sapphique, escaped long ago, leaving behind him a religious hope in both worlds fueled by tales of his exploits.

SPOILER ALERT: To speak of Sapphique requires that we reveal some of the surprises of Incarceron. So if you are determined to have nothing spoiled, go read volume one now. Kelly Fineman has an excellent review of Incarceron here.

Ghosts of Ascalon by Matt Forbeck and Jeff Grubb

Books based on computer games? It’s the best of both worlds! Many different games have a literary component to their worlds: WoW, Starcraft, and Halo to name a few. With Ghosts of Ascalon, the PC game Guild Wars recently entered the list of games with novels based on their lore. You don't have to be a fan of the game though, or have ever played the game, or even be at all familiar with the setting to enjoy the book.

The Inquisitor's Apprentice

I'll be honest, this past year I've stepped away from YA and MG fiction, taking some time away from kidlit just to recharge my batteries. This fall, though, I dove back in big time. Gorging on one kind of book (in this case, fantasy and science fiction), one genre can be a real recipe for burnout. But the really great books that rise above all others can excite in ways that aren't just about the thrills of one book, but the kind of thrills that make you eager to pick up other books because they remind you just how awesome reading can be. One of those books, for me, is The Inquisitor's Apprentice by Chris Moriarty. Read on to find out why...

ICO: Castle in the Mist by Miyuki Miyabe

ICO: Castle in the Mist is a novelization of the PS2 game ICO, a game largely renowned for being a highly abstract, stripped-down platform-puzzle game. The book and game both center around Ico, a child born with horns offered up as a sacrifice to a mysterious, shambling Gothic castle. Once left alone, Ico quickly discovers another captive of the castle, a girl in a cage who does not speak his language, and who is pursued by shadow creatures who emerge from the castle floors and attempt to pull her down into the castle with them. In the game, Ico must then solve a number of puzzles, fend off the shadow creatures and guide the girl—Yorda—by the hand through the labyrinthine castle.

There's a bit of dialogue that explains some basic story—primarily that Yorda is the daughter of the Shadow Queen, the castle's ruler—but the game is largely left open to each player's interpretation of the events. This reliance on interpretive storytelling makes novelization particularly challenging—you're competing with everyone's interpretation, rather than expanding already established story. So I was a little skeptical when I noticed that Haikasoru would be translating ICO: Castle in the Mist—and then I noticed that the novelization was by Miyuki Miyabe, author of the 800-page RPG-as-coming-of-age epic Brave Story. I figured it would be a good book, if not necessarily a particularly good adaptation. Plus LOOK AT THE PRETTY COVER. (yes I know it's just the original game cover, but we didn't get the original game cover here in the US, so there.)*