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The Big Kerplop
from the good-role-models dept.
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.
Why does it not surprise me. (Score:5, Funny)
Rename. (Score:5, Funny)
"Darwin Awards Club" is more like it.
Junior Scientists and Drunken Rednecks (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Parent
Hooray! (Score:2, Funny)
Wait, this is
Re:Hooray! (Score:2)
Then it's just fun.
Oh great, I can just see it now (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh great, I can just see it now (Score:4, Funny)
Would this be slashdotting the air force?
"Sir, we're getting reports of UFOs all across the world... All of our birds are flying."
"Call the president, set the terrorism level to periwinkle!"
Parent
Kids today... (Score:5, Funny)
It's because we no longer have to walk 3 miles to school uphill both ways anymore.
Re:Kids today... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 ?
Parent
The were no good old days (Score:3, Insightful)
When exactly were these good old days. It wasn't so great before. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Thalidomide, rampant use of nasopharyngeal radium for all kinds of bogus reasons.
Back in the day (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
er, Bill Nye [nt] (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just mentioned the Club... (Score:2)
Re:Just mentioned the Club... (Score:2)
Re:Just mentioned the Club... (Score:2, Informative)
There was also a series of kid's mystery type books (along the lines of Encyclopedia Brown) about Hawkeye Collins, a kid who drew pictures of the scenes of crimes, thus spotting the clues and saving the day. It was pretty derivative of EB, but since I also
Re:Just mentioned the Club... (Score:2)
Re:Just mentioned the Club... (Score:3, Informative)
Bill Nye was the downfall of kids science (Score:3, Interesting)
Then came along Bill Nye with the weight of Disney behind him, which outmarketed Beakman with a watered down science show with little real value, so bland that it made no impact on kids.
Bill Nye was the bastard that killed off any real interest in science because it pushed out all other forms of kid-oriented science media with bland watered down science of little significance.
Minisub (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, these books were an inspiration for many early experiments involving batteries, wires, nails, motors, and light bulbs. I am sure they helped convert me from taking things apart, to wondering how things are put together.
Re:Minisub (Score:3, Funny)
They were showing off their scientific writing skills here.
"Dinky Poore and Henry managed to get it out, but that's another story" is, of course, equivalent to "sub-waterfall extraction is trivial and left as an exercise to the reader."
I read these as a child (Score:4, Interesting)
The candle powered chinese lantern prank sounds kind of neat, except that if kids try to emulate it they run a real risk of starting serious fires, if their balloon comes down in dry grass or brush with the candle still lit.
As an aside: In WW2 the Japanese used high altitude baloons launched into the jetstream carrying an incendiary payload, which were expected to drift across the pacific and start forest fires across North America when they landed. A captured example sits on display in the Ottawa War museum.
candle power (Score:3, Funny)
self-preservation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:self-preservation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:self-preservation (Score:2, Informative)
This review needs a Disclaimer (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:This review needs a Disclaimer (Score:5, Funny)
3) Pain is Temporary
4) Glory lasts forever.
Google will tell you whoe uttered these four Lemmas of BMX/Skater wisdom.
Parent
Alas, it is already too late. (Score:5, Interesting)
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." [foxnews.com]
Re:Alas, it is already too late. (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing will boost the self-esteem of slower/weaker children faster than a pie tin full of gasoline.
Parent
Re:Alas, it is already too late. (Score:2, Insightful)
Since when do kids have to feel good the WHOLE DAMN TIME?! This is the sort of ridiculous approach that leads to overprescription of Ritalin and other emotionally-affective medication, and the whole "think of the children" movement.
Why don't we just wrap 'em up in plastic, stick a feeding tube in one end, an elimination tube in the other, and leave 'em to hang for the rest of their lives? (Hey, didn't I see a movie about that?)
Re:Alas, it is already too late. (Score:3, Insightful)
No shit.
Whatever happened to feeling good about yourself because you accomplished something, not because conditions were set up from the beginning to guarantee your success?
You know, I never felt that good after playing kickball in elementary. Then again, a lot of my peers that felt great after kickball didn't feel so good once they got their math tests back. So god damn what? Should we have eliminated the competition from the kickball ga
The first books that made me think 'What if...' (Score:2, Interesting)
They were a great read and I still chuckle thinking about them now. 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!
I think the best sign of how good these books are is that when I was a kid I wished the Mad Scientists Club was real and I could be a member....
Re:The first books that made me think 'What if...' (Score:5, Insightful)
>
> 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!)
Parent
Which would be worse... (Score:4, Interesting)
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."
Re:Which would be worse... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but the thing you're missing is that Rowling's presented probably the
Scars (Score:5, Funny)
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:Scars (Score:2, Funny)
far longer than ever expected.
darn scarred, survivalist, starter husbands!
Hobanobacoba (Score:4, Interesting)
Who's to say how much exposure to these characters and stories shaped the way that I look at the world? Maybe I would have been the same without them, but I can't help but thinking that you are what you eat intellectually. I'm not making a case for games and TV poisoning the youth of the world, rather I think that teaching children to actually think about things may be one of the best lessons you can give, and one of the ways to do this, is show some examples of characters that do use thier brains.
What was that series of books? (Score:2)
Speaking as one of the 'kids' of today... (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't read these books, but I've done my fair share of back yard demolitions. I think that anything that encourages children to do the same (responsibly and from the standpoint of intellectual curiosity) is admirable. Sure you have to show some common sense around dangerous substances, but you're not going to learn any if you're sheltered by adults your whole life.
I think that if kids today are any less adventurous than the kids of the fifties it's because their parents encourage them to be. Of course no father wants his son to be in any danger. My father's solution was to buy me a pair of safety goggles, some work gloves, and sit down with me to demonstrate the correct, safe, responsible way to light a bonfire with a zipline, 10 gallons of gasoline, and a model rocket.
Sure, not every parent will go to that extreme, but how about a middle ground? Start with safety tips and responsibility discussions while playing with sparklers and firecrackers on the 4th of July. Quality time with the kids plus valuable lessons that they can see demonstrated by an authority figure.
rocket fuel 101 (Score:2, Funny)
I had a blast mixing this stuff and lighting it in my backyard.
One day I decided to raid my chemistry set and adding random chemicals to the mix to see what would happen.
I remember learning how volatile sodium and potassium was so I mixed every chemical I had with these chemicals into the mix. Including NaCl. Damn fun times.
But let me also say because of the exlosion that happened I am v
The Mad Scientists Club RULES (Score:4, Interesting)
I bought it through school and never regretted it.
One of the things I didn't know about the author is that he was one of the American officers to negotiate with the North Koreans, who were, and are, about the most obnoxious, lying, vicious chicken-shit bastards ever to be brought to the table. THAT must have shaken his faith in humanity.
He ALSO, in The Big Kerplop, (which was on a USENET book group some months ago) answered a question we had debated fiercely among the jr NCOs when I was in the Canadian Militia, which is 'How best to get a section across an open road?'
Turns out the best way is all at once in a rush as Henry Mulligan points out, it only gives them one chance to spot you.
Brinley's Other Book (Score:3, Informative)
This famous, or infamous, paperback describes how to safely build, fuel, and fly steel-cased rockets powered by zinc-sulfur mixtures. It's the sort of activity that the teens in Rocket Boys (AKA "October Sky") did.
Brinley doesn't pull punches. Doing things right, by-the-book, requires you to have several square miles of land, and sandbag bunkers for storage, fueling, launching, and observation. There's a big first aid section with instructions on dealing with belly wounds and nasty burns.
Its fascinating but sobering stuff; most readers will realize that they're better off with Estes and Aerotech stuff.
Stefan
The big WHAT? (Score:3, Funny)
scitoys (Score:3, Informative)
I tried several experiments (and I don't even have kids, I just like to do this kind of stuff and I'm either too lazy or stupid to come up with my own stuff) and it's just fun to do... For us geeks, the site includes an argumantation of why a certain device works and how with the laws of physics and all...
True Life Story (Score:3, Interesting)
A spectacular UFO story appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle one day. Hundreds of people had spotted a small, glowing cylindrical spaceship floating slowly out over the bay. It was described as being about 9 feet long by 3 feet in diameter, like a large water heater. A drawing by an eyewitness even showed a small humanoid figure reclining at the controls inside.
The very next day there was a followup article in the Chronicle, in which a bunch of students admitted they had launched dozens of small balloons, made from dry cleaner bags and drinking straws and powered by birthday candles. What struck me was the certainty of the eyewitness reports and the details they gave of the size and nature of the craft and its pilot.
Hey! I resemble that remark... (Score:5, Funny)
'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 ;-)
The first rule of mad scientist club is (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Why read a review of a bad book? (Score:2)
Your right, bad reviews usually don't have the same attention holding power.