The Big Kerplop

Peter Wayner writes: "When I mentioned the Mad Scientist Club short stories to a co-worker, he rolled up his sleeve and showed me the burn scars on his arm. The books, he said, did this to him. Not literally, but by misguided inspiration. In one of the tales, the boys in the Club launch a fleet of fake flying saucers to frighten their hometown of Mamouth Falls. The scars came when the colleague tried to imitate the book, but used real gasoline to add a bit of zip to plastic cleaner bags turned UFOs. Now, that the rediscovered full-length novel about the Club, The Big Kerplop is being republished with a bit of a splash, some adults may look at stories like this and decided that there's a danger that kids might start imitating the novels. The bigger danger, though, may come if they don't." Read on for the rest of Peter's review. The Big Kerplop author Bertrand R. Brinley pages 217 publisher Purple House Press rating 9 reviewer Peter Wayner ISBN 1930900228 summary The Mad Scientists rediscovered, in greater depth -- fun reading for kids and adults.

This novel isn't really new, although it is for all practical purposes. The author, Bertrand Brinley, had much success with the collections of short stories about the seven boys who dreamed of being scientists one day. The short stories continued to stay in print and even seemed to inspire a hack Disney adaptation, but only rumors about The Big Kerplop circulated on the Internet. When the copies of The Big Kerplop would trade on Ebay, they often closed at prices in the hundreds of dollars. Free markets can't ignore messages like that and the Purple House Press purchased the rights and relaunched the books.

It's easy for a Slashdot reader to understand how the stories could command such affection. The boys in the stories live in the netherworld between capability and responsibility. (Enjoy it if you're still there.) They have ham radio sets, fishing boats, weather balloons, and plenty of other gadgets to put to use in tweaking the noses of their buffoonish elders and only a few chores to get in the way.

The books are set in the early 60's before Bhopal, Three Mile Island, and Agent Orange rained on the big Science parade. Brinley worked for Lockheed and Martin during one of the the most romantic periods in aviation history, save perhaps the early days of the Wright Brothers. The books are infused with a certainty that rational thought guided by the scientific method and salted with a bit of pluck and wit could solve any problem. I think everyone here can agree that the entire club would be open source coders today, although it's not clear if they would embrace the BSD or GPL license. It may not even be stretching things to say that groups who wrote and distributed DeCSS are working through the same themes as the Mad Scientist Club, albeit on a global scale.

The novel is prequel to the collection of short stories that tells the backstory of how the boys found each other and discovered how a firm devotion to scientific principles could be put to work showing up the grownups. As they say on Fark, hilarity ensued many times.

The earlier short stories took up only 20-30 pages apiece, but this novel stretches to more than 200 pages, making it an entirely different animal. The characters are better drawn, the scenes are set with more than a sentence or two, and the plot twists back upon itself a few times. It's a leisurely read that makes the earlier stories seem a bit cartoonish or slapstick. This sophistication is a pleasure for me to read at my technically grownup age, but it may be why the novel didn't gain the same traction as the short stories. The laughs are driven more by character and dialog than by the setting and action. The short stories are basically set pieces, but the novel is more of a study in character. That's good for anyone who grew up loving the books, but it may mean that the current crop of 8-12 year old boys should wait a year or two before diving in.

The length of the novel also gives Brinley more room to flesh out the adults and let them play more than rubes to the Mad Scientists' schemes. The town's politicians are still a bit overstuffed, but Colonel March, the commander of the local Air Force base, is hardly a foil or a nemisis. Constable Billy Dahr, though, is still around to be the goat.

I suppose I should say something about the story. The Club, or at least the early core of what would become the Club, is out fishing on Strawberry Lake when a fleet of B52s flies over. Something makes a big kerplop in the lake and the Club spends the rest of the book saving the day, defying their elders and deploying some cool gadgets and the scientific method. This is a deeper, richer and very satisfying return for the characters.

Some of these tricks could get you some scars I guess but that's not the worst future awaiting a young reader. First, chicks dig scars -- although that theorem lies well outside of the scope of this book. Second, this may be the adult in me, but kids today seem fatter, lazier, and more hogtied than ever before. Yes, these words will haunt me when my children get bigger, but I think that Brinley hits the sweet spot between obedience and irreverence. Forethought and care save the day in these books, not caprice and whim. The characters are neither insolent nor cowed by authority. The important thing to remember is that the scientific method celebrated by the books does not suggest replacing a few candles with a burning pie plate filled with gasoline. At least not without first doing a bit of research on the safest way to ensure all of the energy turns into hot air.

You can purchase The Big Kerplop from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page. Peter Wayner is the author of several dangerous and incendiary books like Disappearing Cryptography and Translucent Databases . Don't burn them without standing at a safe distance.

Comments

Why does it not surprise me.

[mikeophile]

It seems almost obligatory that a review of a book called The Big Kerplop would have to reference Fark?

Rename.

[grub]

"Darwin Awards Club" is more like it.

Junior Scientists and Drunken Rednecks

[mikeophile]

I think the only thing seperating them is their vocabulary.

Junior Scientist: Observe as the addition of the oxidizer to the fuel causes an exothermic reaction.

Drunken Redneck: Hey y'all! Watch this! It'll be a hoot!

Oh great, I can just see it now

[Mayak]

10,000 fire balloons across the country take flight c/o Slashdot. I can't even imagine how many forest fires, UFO sightings, and general mayhem incidents this will cause. I'm going to build mine now. :)

Kids today...

[gradius3]

but kids today seem fatter, lazier, and more hogtied than ever before.

It's because we no longer have to walk 3 miles to school uphill both ways anymore.

Re:Kids today...

[PsibrII]

They also had 12 ounce GLASS bottles of coke back then. That made it a tad harder to get fat by sucking down 6 liters worth of cola in a day.

And if you lived in a huge metro area, you might get up to 6-7 whopping channels of TV, on which the programming was pretty lame. If you lived in the sticks you could still get those 6-7 channels, but only with a huge antenna that likely had the motor burned out 10 years ago requiring someone to go up on the roof and turn it while someone on the ground yelled up to say if it was better or worse.

Candy flavings were still not too good in the 70s, but you learned to love it because the butter/bacon/whatever fat overwhelem the turpentine aromas of an immature artifical flavoring technology.

And don't forget, there was the sweet and poisonous aroma of leaded gas. On bitter cold mornings you could see that evil grey everywhere.

Ah yes, TV sucked, so kids ran amok trying to entertain themselves. Cola was flavored with cane sugar produced by neer slave labor, now its full of corn sugar that doesn't taste so good an is as addictive, if not more, than heroin. And the nation simply believed that vietnam was a fluke, and wasn't a trend of sending troops to rotting cesspools worldwide for no good reason. Drugs were something that only low born gutter scum used, and kids looked forward to when they could be cool and start smoking, drinking, and getting laid. Playboy was "hardcore" porn. The term "fisting" would be unknown to the masses until the 80s, and even not then really.

Now, kids learn even before they enter school that the world is a cesspool, and if they are lucky they'll get enough of an education from these union protected losers "teaching" in school that they'll be able to spell and read well enough that they can get real info off the internet educational sights. And then, if they know the right people, and work like a slave they'll find a more or less dry part of the cesspool to exist in. And all their hard work will go into taxes to support the masses of baby boomers crying for more bread and circuses in their retirement years, and the welfare cesspits breeding subhuman scum who dream of becomming rap stars and crack dealers.

But hey, who wouldn't find motivation in a future like that ?

Back in the day

[Otter]

The books are set in the early 60's before Bhopal, Three Mile Island, and Agent Orange rained on the big Science parade. Brinley worked for Lockheed and Martin during one of the the most romantic periods in aviation history, save perhaps the early days of the Wright Brothers. The books are infused with a certainty that rational thought guided by the scientific method and salted with a bit of pluck and wit could solve any problem.

And back when machinery was accessible, before integrated circuits, when it was possible to take devices apart, understand them and modify them.

Just to nitpick, note that "Bhopal" is correct if you're talking about public reaction to technology, not about any real consequences. It's not as if catastrophic toxic disasters are a new thing, but the attitude towards the cost and benefits involved changed dramatically.

Just mentioned the Club...

[Speare]

I was just mentioning the 'geek' books which have fallen out of print, or out of favor, in the children's section at libraries. Seems maybe a few of these are being retrofitted and re-released.

• The Mad Scientists' Club series
• Alfred Hitchcock's The Three Investigators series
• Encyclopedia Brown series
• The Great Brain series
• ...

For a while, Disney boosted Phil Nye the Science Guy, and there was a competing concept hitting TV at the same time, but these are science magazine formats. Many kids need more inspiration, often from personable fiction scenarios like these books offered.

self-preservation

[dbc]

I worry about today's kids. How are they going to develop good instincts for self-preservation if they don't try some risky things? I grew up watching my elders work on big, dangerous machines in the shop, and working with big, dangerous animals in the corals. By watching, I learned what they respected, and learned a whole bunch of things to *not* do, like stupid handling of gasoline. So anyway, when I did my own risky stunts, personal safety (self-preservation) was part of the equation. (Elder: "Who took the welding hood??") How do today's kids learn that when we all have CRT-tans and it's a rare neighbor who has a welder, instead of a rare neighbor without one. Kids need to have the scope to do "experiments". But... kids need to internalize some important lessons first, in a safe way. How do we do that? My solution is to try to do as many projects with them as possible, role model safety, and keep the band-aids handy. I think of my townie cousins: Me: "Watch out! Electric fence." Him: "Really? Cool! OW! OW!! OW!!! Shit! Jeezus!" I don't want my daughter to be like that.

This review needs a Disclaimer

[GillBates0]

First, chicks dig scars -- although that theorem lies well outside of the scope of this book.

How very careless of the /. editors to post an article carrying dangerous references like this without any disclaimer or warnings.

Going by the average mindset of the female-starved crowd here, I thought it best to post a disclaimer, before somebody seriously injures him/herself.

The theorem quoted herein is pure hypothesis. We can and will not confirm the above fact about chicks. Nor are we responsible for any damage to life, limb or property arising out of attempts to prove the same. If you kill yourself, you alone are responsible for it

The first rule of mad scientist club is

[baldeep]

you do not talk about mad scientist club!

Alas, it is already too late.

[David Hume]

Now, that the rediscovered full-length novel about the Club, The Big Kerplop is being republished with a bit of a splash, some adults may look at stories like this and decided that there's a danger that kids might start imitating the novels. The bigger danger, though, may come if they don't.

Some of these tricks could get you some scars I guess but that's not the worst future awaiting a young reader. First, chicks dig scars -- although that theorem lies well outside of the scope of this book. Second, this may be the adult in me, but kids today seem fatter, lazier, and more hogtied than ever before.

I understand the reviewer's concerns, and largely agree with them. Alas, I fear it may already be too late. Can we realistically expect that society will allow "children" to perform dangerous experiments when "[a] Santa Monica elementary school has banned the game of tag, once synonymous with youth and innocence, because they say it creates self-esteem issues among weaker and slower children."

Re:Alas, it is already too late.

[dr_dank]

Alas, I fear it may already be too late. Can we realistically expect that society will allow "children" to perform dangerous experiments when "[a] Santa Monica elementary school has banned the game of tag, once synonymous with youth and innocence, because they say it creates self-esteem issues among weaker and slower children."

Nothing will boost the self-esteem of slower/weaker children faster than a pie tin full of gasoline.

Which would be worse...

[djeaux]

... kids building mock UFOs from dry cleaner bags & candles or kids standing on the railroad tracks trying to stop the "Hogwarts Express" with a small stick, er, "wand."

It took Rowling a whole lot more than 200 pages to tell the latest Potter story & she already had the characters & setting in place.

Methinks I need to revisit the Mad Scientists Club of my youth...

I don't think that "Kerplop" will have the latest batch of 8-12 yr old boys out doing "science" instead of trying to be wizards, but that's probably because our "post-post-modern" culture is more attuned to angels & witches than it is to the scientific method. <sigh> I don't blame it on Bhopal, Three Mile Island, or Agent Orange, though. I blame it on LSD, fake mysticism & "I'm OK, You're OK."

Scars

[Ayandia]

It's true. Chicks dig scars. Since scars help you to determine the guys who are more accident prone, they're an ideal way to determine if a guy will make a good choice for a Starter Husband.

You don't want the first one to last TOO long since you'll be making most of your uneducated mistakes with him, so guys with scars are an excellent choice. Plus, they're more likely to die in some tragic, yet totally accidental, way that will be ideal for the huge insurance policies she's no doubt taken out him.

Re:The first books that made me think 'What if...'

[Tackhead]

> Speaking as someone who tried to make their own napalm (and nearly set fire to my Dad's garage) I totally approved of their adventures!
>
> How did it go? ;-)

"Nearly set fire to his Dad's garage". I'd say he did pretty well!

(I grew up on these stories too. My folks gave 'em to me. My folks also supervized me - I now realize they were close enough to intervene if I screwed up, but from far enough away that, at the time, I didn't think they were watching. Good on them, I say. Techniques like that turned me on to science, which turned me on to computers, which turned into a fantastic career and hobby. But I do miss the homebrew fireworks. Dad, thanks for that 1950s-era book of chemistry experiments... and for bringing back some of the chemicals they stopped putting in chemistry sets. ;-)

(Side note: Today's chemistry sets are even worse. I think "dissolve sugar" and "mix vinegar and baking soda, look at foam" are about all that's left. How the hell are you supposed to get an 8-year-old interested in science with that?!?! Fer chrissakes, you don't have to give 'em thermite, but at least let 'em detect the friggin' humidity with cobalt chloride!)

Re:This review needs a Disclaimer

[jovlinger]

2) Bones heal

3) Pain is Temporary

4) Glory lasts forever.

Google will tell you whoe uttered these four Lemmas of BMX/Skater wisdom.

Hey! I resemble that remark...

[B747SP]

I learned how to make hot air ballons from those books! My Mother made us follow the balloons around town on our bicycles to make sure they came down somewhere safe... "You'll set fire to some old lady's washing line!".

'course, when I was a boy, wheelie bins didn't exist, so we had to trawl around the cheap supermarkets for the really cheap (ie: really thin and light) regular sized bins. Nowadays, 300+litre lightweight garbage bags can be had as cheap as ten for a dollar. Today's kids get it easy. We had to walk five miles to the shop, and carry the bags back on our shoulders, uphill both ways

My brother learned garbage bag hot air ballooning by another means: The Really Cool Science Teacher method. As he tells it, they were shown how to make the balloons, but were instructed that they must fly them tethered, "for safety reasons". The teacher gave them nylon fishing line to tether the balloons with, and showed them how to tie it nice and tight to the centre of the frame, right beside the petrol-soaked rag....

Apparently the Really Cool Teacher even pretended to be surprised when the tether burned through ;-)