[HN Gopher] Mad Scientists' Club: The Books
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Mad Scientists' Club: The Books
Author : JKCalhoun
Score : 84 points
Date : 2024-01-16 15:35 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.madscientistsclub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.madscientistsclub.com)
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I loved those books!
| WillAdams wrote:
| A favorite from my childhood --- I'm very glad that they are back
| in print (prices were getting ridiculous for a while).
|
| The short stories are better, and to my mind, the later novels
| can be skipped (unless one is a completionist)
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I thought _The Big Kerplop_ was pretty good but _The Big Chunk
| of Ice_ was too clever by far. Skip that one if you can.
| pliftkl wrote:
| Thank you for posting this and giving me an injection of
| nostalgia. :)
|
| I loved these books as a kid, and have probably not thought about
| them in 40 years. Unfortunately, my own daughter is probably too
| old to enjoy them the same way I did.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| A wonderful series written by a real life engineer. I read them
| as a kid and read them to my children. (As did several of my
| friends.)
|
| Some of the details are a bit dated. The stories are meant to be
| contemporary, but Bertrand Brinley wrote them in the 1960s. He
| also set them in a small town which was already a bit dated by
| then.
|
| The tech is also from a different era. These boys were ham radio
| users which gave them a few advantages since most of the world
| didn't use the radios or the cell phones that weren't invented
| yet. Computers and the Internet hadn't been invented yet but you
| can tell from reading that the club members would be the first to
| adopt tech like Linux.
|
| The stories are generally optimistic about the powers of
| technology, but less than optimistic about the adults who are
| often clueless or prankworthy. That's a common theme in YA
| fiction, I suppose. Someone needs to be the butt of the jokes or
| a story doesn't work.
|
| Highly recommended.
| WaffleIronMaker wrote:
| As someone born in 2004, these books made Ham Radio seem so fun
| and engaging to me, and definitely were a part of me getting my
| license. I hope that my bodged together projects would have made
| the gang proud. I would love to see a book series like this
| updated with modern technology, keeping the same jury-rigged
| aesthetic.
| BarbaryCoast wrote:
| I read these as a child in the 60's. When Purple House Press re-
| issued them, I snapped them up. They've also re-issued some other
| favorites, like the Alvin Fernald series. I like to buy direct
| from them, so they don't have to share the money with amazon.
|
| Now if someone would re-issue the Miss Pickerel series...
| irrational wrote:
| Miss Pickerell!!!! You have no idea how long I've been trying
| to remember her name! I remembered it started with a P, she
| went to outer space, and liked pistachio ice cream. That turns
| out to not be enough to google her. Thank you!
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Good stuff; this and the Danny Dunn series are fond childhood
| memories. I still remember this joke from the hot air balloon
| race decades later: _"...Harmon Muldoon called his_ [hot air
| balloon] _the 'Green Onion,' and it looked like one. 'I hope it
| springs a leek,' quipped Dinky Poore..._"
| WillAdams wrote:
| I had to track down a copy of _Danny Dunn and the Homework
| Machine_ to give to some cousins of mine who recently had kids.
| mindcrime wrote:
| I loved these books as a kid back in the 80's. I'm sure they
| played a key role in shaping my interests and worldview. These,
| along with the "Encyclopedia Brown" books, the "The Three
| Investigators" series, the "Tom Swift Jr" series, and "The Great
| Brain", plus the original Doyle canon of Sherlock Holmes stories,
| were constant companions in my youth. Oh, and those "Choose Your
| Own Adventure" books. Those were great.
|
| Every year the local Barnes & Noble does a Christmas book drive
| thing to provide books for under-privileged children in the area.
| I usually chip in at least a few titles, and if I could actually
| find any of those on the shelf (aside from Sherlock Holmes), I'd
| probably get some of them, so some young kids today could
| experience the same thrill.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Tom Swift Jr. is definitely worth a look, if only for the
| titles you can't not read in a 1950s radio voice.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift_Jr.#List_of_titles
| at_a_remove wrote:
| We must have had very similar reading lists, although I think I
| subbed in Trixie Belden (an odd choice for a boy) for the Three
| Investigators.
| mindcrime wrote:
| > although I think I subbed in Trixie Belden
|
| I never read any of those, but that reminds me, I left off
| the "The Hardy Boys" and "Nancy Drew" stories from my
| original list. Those were also frequently read in my home as
| a kid. :-)
| wduquette wrote:
| Heh. I loved these back in the 70's, and remember them fondly.
| Along with Encyclopedia Brown, many of the Three Investigators
| books, and all of the Great Brain stories. Never got into Tom
| Swift particular, but I did read the Danny Dunn novels (Danny
| Dunn and the Homework Machine got me interested in computers)
| and The Many Inventions of Alvin Fernald.
| mindcrime wrote:
| > but I did read the Danny Dunn novels (Danny Dunn and the
| Homework Machine got me interested in computers)
|
| Amazing. These[1] sound _exactly_ like something that would
| have been up my alley, but I 'd never even heard of this
| series until right now. I might just have to find some of
| them and go back and read them now. Wonder how they hold up
| for reading by an adult in our times?
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn
| Fb24k wrote:
| Wow, these were excellent. The Strange Sea Monster of Strawberry
| Lake was a favorite as a kid in the 80s.
| hcrisp wrote:
| I loved these so much that I created my own Mad Scientist's Club
| with my neighbor friends which held meetings in our (very hot)
| shed loft during the summer.
|
| I just finished reading some of them to my pre-teen girls, and
| they enjoyed them quite a bit despite the fact that very few girl
| characters are part of the plot. A few quotes made us chuckle
| ("Shut up and stop rocking the boat!" was one). We even figured
| out which boy was the narrator, even though he never mentions his
| name.
|
| I guess it speaks to their universal appeal to kids of curious
| minds who like hearing of scrappy, madcap adventures attempted by
| smart but hair-brained individuals of their age. The books always
| gave me the sense of unbridled freedom to invent, explore, and
| maybe pull one over your knucklehead neighbor or unsuspecting
| parents.
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| I am seriously considering starting a club now actually. I have
| a few friends who would fit right in.
| mbutler4 wrote:
| These books were formative for me as a kid, I lost them to my
| mom's garage sale obsession years ago, but found that the
| author's son, Sheridan Brinley, worked with the publisher to not
| only release them as a compendium, but include an unpublished
| story in the volume as well. I bought it as soon as I found it on
| Amazon and have read it at least 4 times since... It's like a
| trip back to my childhood and candy for my brain. Still in love
| with these stories after all these years.
| raldi wrote:
| I loved these books as a kid and had a great time rereading them
| with my then-seven-year-old. One of my favorite bits was the
| description of the difference between the club's two smartest
| members: One was adept at figuring out ways to get out of
| trouble, and the other was really good at thinking up fun ways to
| get _into_ trouble.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Tangentially, there is a modern series in the same spirit called
| Mad Scientist Academy that are quite fun.
|
| https://www.matthewmcelligott.com/newwebsite/books/msa/
| LargeWu wrote:
| Loved these as a kid growing up in the 80's, read the collections
| many times. They were a little bit dated, but in a way that felt
| magical and nostalgic.
| chiefgeek wrote:
| Thank you! I've looked for these books on and off over the years
| but couldn't remember any titles, just some of the plots. Loved
| these as a boy in the late 70s!
| aaron695 wrote:
| I'm not sure how I've missed the two extra books were released.
| Maybe I read them on the Kindle. I've followed it pretty
| religiously getting books at second hand shops to gift when I
| could.
|
| Books -
| https://booko.us/search?query_type=1&q=Bertrand+R.+Brinley
|
| "No Coins, Please" if you liked "The Great Brian" -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Coins,_Please
|
| A common theme of kids being independent to adults and doing
| original stuff and not having to be being detectives.
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