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alexxkayIn my youth, _The Mad Scientists' Club_ and its sequel _New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club_ were among my favorite books. At Boskone this year, I discovered that there were two more books I had previously been unaware of, so I acquired the whole set and set about reading them.
The first two books are short story collections, written and set in the 1960s, though the small-town midwestern US locale is culturally more in the 30s or 40s. These could be considered part of the "Boy's Gang" sub-genre, as the MSC is a group of seven young boys who get into wacky adventures, though with an emphasis on scientific thinking or gadgetry along the way.
The stories are fun and adventurous. The boys create sea monsters and flying saucers, find buried treasure, catch bank robbers, and become rainmakers. They're not particularly educational, but could definitely spur an interest in science.
The third book, _The Big Kerplop!_ was apparently published in the 70s, but only in a very small print run due to publisher trouble. It's a full-length novel detailing the formation of the MSC. The 'kerplop' of the title happens when the Air Force accidentally drops an atomic bomb (inactive, luckily!) into the local lake. The boys use their cleverness ans scientific knowhow to help locate and safely retrieve it, organizing themselves into a club in the process. I quite liked this one, and recommend it to MSC fans, but there are a few cracks starting to show.
The fourth book, _The Big Chunk of Ice_, was unpublished at the time of the author's death, and only came into print fairly recently. It's a big departure for the series in several senses, as it is not only novel-length, but is set primarily in *Austria*.
On their summer vacation, the MSC get involved in a scientific expedition to study an alpine glacier. The title refers both to this glacier, and to a (possibly legendary) huge diamond that lies frozen within it.
The plotting of this one is much looser than in earlier stories. Long sections go by without any particular dramatic tension. And the negative (to me, anyways) trends that I saw in the prior book began to be magnified. The adult characters behave even more ludicrously and incompetently than ever, and are often saddled with stupid names to boot. Parts of the plot go considerably further over the top than ever before. (For exaple, there's one scene where a manic dwarf in a renaissance outfit is playing a massive organ, by jumping around on the keys, with the assistance of a large dog, which apparently summons a pair of ghosts and also sets off an avalanche.) The tone has moved from barely-plausible tall tale into outright farce, and that disappoints me. The pun quotient also went way way up. The author is, as with many punsters, far prouder of his verbal cleverness than is actually warranted.
Worst of all was the character of the leader of the expedition, Igor Stratavarious. He's such a parody figure, he's practically an anti-scientist. He certainly has an upside-down view of the scientific method, declaiming often that one should figure out a theory first, then pick your facts to support it, throwing out any that don't fit. In fact, the eagle-eyed reader will notice him throwing out the very diamond that everyone else is looking for as 'bad data', though this is never explicitly acknowledged in the text. Although the author clearly understands that this is wron, wrong, wrongity, wrong, wrong, he is tacitly supporting that view by having the primary adult authority figure of the book espouse it without ever being contradicted. That's just bad writing.
On the plus side, the expedition also includes a couple of girls. Although the characters (and author) are still pretty darn sexist, it was a step in a good direction.
So, all in all, a disappointing end to the series. Still, I'm glad to have read it. I may end up passing that last volume on to the library, though.
The first two books are short story collections, written and set in the 1960s, though the small-town midwestern US locale is culturally more in the 30s or 40s. These could be considered part of the "Boy's Gang" sub-genre, as the MSC is a group of seven young boys who get into wacky adventures, though with an emphasis on scientific thinking or gadgetry along the way.
The stories are fun and adventurous. The boys create sea monsters and flying saucers, find buried treasure, catch bank robbers, and become rainmakers. They're not particularly educational, but could definitely spur an interest in science.
The third book, _The Big Kerplop!_ was apparently published in the 70s, but only in a very small print run due to publisher trouble. It's a full-length novel detailing the formation of the MSC. The 'kerplop' of the title happens when the Air Force accidentally drops an atomic bomb (inactive, luckily!) into the local lake. The boys use their cleverness ans scientific knowhow to help locate and safely retrieve it, organizing themselves into a club in the process. I quite liked this one, and recommend it to MSC fans, but there are a few cracks starting to show.
The fourth book, _The Big Chunk of Ice_, was unpublished at the time of the author's death, and only came into print fairly recently. It's a big departure for the series in several senses, as it is not only novel-length, but is set primarily in *Austria*.
On their summer vacation, the MSC get involved in a scientific expedition to study an alpine glacier. The title refers both to this glacier, and to a (possibly legendary) huge diamond that lies frozen within it.
The plotting of this one is much looser than in earlier stories. Long sections go by without any particular dramatic tension. And the negative (to me, anyways) trends that I saw in the prior book began to be magnified. The adult characters behave even more ludicrously and incompetently than ever, and are often saddled with stupid names to boot. Parts of the plot go considerably further over the top than ever before. (For exaple, there's one scene where a manic dwarf in a renaissance outfit is playing a massive organ, by jumping around on the keys, with the assistance of a large dog, which apparently summons a pair of ghosts and also sets off an avalanche.) The tone has moved from barely-plausible tall tale into outright farce, and that disappoints me. The pun quotient also went way way up. The author is, as with many punsters, far prouder of his verbal cleverness than is actually warranted.
Worst of all was the character of the leader of the expedition, Igor Stratavarious. He's such a parody figure, he's practically an anti-scientist. He certainly has an upside-down view of the scientific method, declaiming often that one should figure out a theory first, then pick your facts to support it, throwing out any that don't fit. In fact, the eagle-eyed reader will notice him throwing out the very diamond that everyone else is looking for as 'bad data', though this is never explicitly acknowledged in the text. Although the author clearly understands that this is wron, wrong, wrongity, wrong, wrong, he is tacitly supporting that view by having the primary adult authority figure of the book espouse it without ever being contradicted. That's just bad writing.
On the plus side, the expedition also includes a couple of girls. Although the characters (and author) are still pretty darn sexist, it was a step in a good direction.
So, all in all, a disappointing end to the series. Still, I'm glad to have read it. I may end up passing that last volume on to the library, though.