The Copper Room – Henry Melton

©2011 Wire Rim Books, Hutto, Texas

Christmas came early for me this year. I arrived at the post just a couple of short weeks ago to find a copy of Henry Melton’s latest installment in the Small Towns, Big Ideas series. When I find such a wonderful prize waiting for me, it’s hard to finish the reading I’m doing before cracking open the new title from Melton. But I restrained myself (for at least three days), then got right down to business and was (as always) glad I did.

Each volume of Melton’s YA series focuses on a teenage protagonist (or set of same) and the adventures they encounter. Most of the stories include a bit of romantic tension, but this is the first time that the relationship between our two main characters (Jerry and Lil) are thrust into situations that cause their “puppy love” feelings blossom more quickly than most.

Jereomy Harris helps his Uncle Greg build a copper Faraday Cage large enough to be a room. The point behind the invention is to make time stand still (inside or out). It’s the perfect place for Jerry to catch up/keep up with his studies for the last few months of High School. He can cram eight hours of study time in the room into about thirty seconds in the real world time.

Then he meets Uncle Greg’s neighbor’s daughter, Lillian. Lil is a cheerleader for a rival school. But that matters not to the two teenagers. They start seeing each other, then by accident they bump the controls to the Copper Room hurtling them decades into the future. During the course of the adventure, they learn to operate the room keeping them out of trouble, while at the same time letting them influence change in society (even when society has taken it upon itself to self-destruct). 

What makes this time travel story different from most (including Melton’s own previous venture into the time travel genre) time travel stories is that Jerry’s time machine only lets travelers go in a forward direction. What makes this new story a different step for Henry is his dabble into romantic teenage struggles. I must applaud him on giving his characters restraint and commitment to purity.

He deals with history, future speculation, what-ifs concerning not only traveling in time, but also life on other planets, space travel, and re-establishment of a society after nuclear war. And he does it in a superb and readable manner. Thanks for the early Christmas, Henry. And reader, even if you don’t get to enjoy this story before Christmas, get it and enjoy it afterwards. I’m sure that you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. Five reading glasses.

—Benjamin Potter, December 22, 2011

 

[This book was provided for review by Wire Rim Books of Hutto, Texas. Opinions are my own.]

Bearing Northeast – Henry Melton

©2011 Wire Rim Books, Hutto, Texas

This year, Henry Melton has already been busy. Two books have already been released. The first is this edition in the Small Towns, Big Ideas series.

In this episode, Elizabeth (Biz) and Seth are trying to keep life together after losing their parents. They’ve even developed rules to keep them together—with Biz as the guardian of her minor brother Seth. Upon making final arrangements to sell the summer place in Crescent City, California and move back to the house in Fresno, something falls from the sky and damages a tree. That something turns out to be a canister with a semi-broken GPS device inside.

Seth convinces Biz to take a road trip to discover the origin of the device (which has a Northeasterly Bearing displayed) when she gets down-sized at her job. The cross-country adventure takes them through Yellowstone, by the Great Lakes, and on into Canada. The small town involved in this story is actually Churchill Falls, Labrador, Canada. It is a small village where electricity is produced for much of southeastern Canada and even northeastern United States. The local science club is trying to harness some of this energy to do something new.

This one reads like a travelogue, an adventure story, a spy novel, and a Twitter conversation between Seth and his on-line buddies.

The big drawback to this story lies in the occasional tedium that accompanies the space-age stories—even if America’s space program seems to be grinding to a halt in the same year that the story is published. All in all, Melton has shown himself well once again, and his debut of new series The PROJECT Saga is just around the corner (with review in a matter of weeks), so Bearing Northeast earns another four out of five reading glasses.

—Benjamin Potter, July 26, 2011

 

[This book was provided for review by Wire Rim Books of Hutto, Texas. Opinions are my own.]

Follow That Mouse – Henry Melton

©2010 Wire Rim Books, Hutto, Texas

After an outing into a different series (debut “Home Planet Adventures” story Pixie Dust), Melton is back with a new “Small Towns, Big Ideas” story. This time with the smallest of towns—Ranch Exit, Utah—and the biggest of ideas—save the world.

Most of Melton’s stories fit fairly easily into the Science Fiction category, others are more in line with the Fantasy genre. Follow That Mouse brings together the best of both these worlds—the science, and the fantasy.

Dorothy Comal (Dot Com to her friends) and her friend Ned Kelso stumble onto a war of wizards that threatens to wipe Ranch Exit completely off the map. And this while they are working on school projects designed to put it on the map.

If everything works out, they’ll save not only Ranch Exit, but also the world, and find each other in the process. You’ll like this story, and it even has dancing mice! (five reading glasses, this is Henry Melton at his best. More awards in the future?)

—Benjamin Potter, October 7, 2010

Lighter Than Air – Henry Melton

©2008 Wire Rim Books, Hutto, Texas

Henry Melton has been a busy bee in the publishing department in 2008. So busy in fact, that he’s kept me busy reading young adult science fiction for review. Melton is the Darrel Award winning author of Emperor Dad, and the prolific publisher of his own “Small Towns, Big Ideas” series of YA Fiction. Lighter Than Air is the fourth in the series, the third that has been published in 2008.

Jon Kish is looking for the perfect Halloween prank. Every year the older boys at the Munising, Michigan High School try to out-do one another with the perfect prank. Reigning champion Bud Falco is in Jon’s sights, but Kish doesn’t know yet what he’ll do to upstage Falco’s re-wiring skills. Then he happens upon George Perkins’ work lab filled with an experiment called “buckyfoam.” Jon and neighbor George get reacquainted as the older man explains the process to Jon who soon finds himself in a loose apprenticeship to George.

The story is complicated (or enhanced depending upon one’s point of view) by the family dynamic for both of the scientists. George has moved home to be near his mother whose health is failing, leading eventually to a fatal stroke. Jon and his younger sister are involved in their own sibling squabbles to the disappointment of their weary mother—who discovers that among all the other issues in her life, she has stomach cancer. Jon’s father, Sam, disappeared five years earlier creating overwhelming hardship on his wife and children as they try to cope and keep the home place going.

In Lighter Than Air, Melton weaves a tale of secrets and suspense, science and pranks, emotion and intrigue. One of the drawbacks to the story lies in the same gripe I have with many science fiction stories—detail. While detail is important, some of the necessary detail when dealing with scientific experimentation gets tedious. Even so, the tedium of the scientific jargon is minimalized by Melton’s exquisite ability to tell a story. The CIA story line that follows Cherry Kish’s search for her absent father keeps the attention of any fan of espionage fiction. And the scene where Jon and his friend and co-conspirator, Larry, unleash their UFO on an unsuspecting Halloween Festival crowd is priceless.

The scary part of the story, though, is not how the characters deal with the issue of death, but that of Internet predators. In this case, the predator is a terrorist operative posing as a secret agent who volunteers to help Cherry find her father. We later find out that the on-line friend is just using Cherry to ferry information to his terrorist friends without detection by the US government. I found the possibility all too real, and you might as well.

As always, characterization and plot development are superb. Melton has another winner with Lighter Than Air. I give Lighter Than Air four out of five reading glasses. Look for more “Small Towns, Big Ideas” stories in 2009.

—Benjamin Potter, October 13, 2008

Extreme Makeover – Henry Melton

© 2008 Wire Rim Books, Hutto, Texas

Once in awhile you read something that is really fun. If you pick up a Henry Melton book that’s what you’ll find. Extreme Makeover is his third in a series he’s called Small Towns, Big Ideas. The first (which I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read), Emperor Dad won the Darrell Award (from the Science Fiction community) for Best Novel. The second, Roswell or Bust, was my introduction to Melton’s writing and I found it to be highly engaging. The newest release is certainly good company for its predecessors.

Deena Brooke, overweight and self-conscious, living a sad existence because of an overprotective mother, brushes with death on a stormy school trip. The result of that brush is the invasion of alien nanobots in her body. The tiny robots repair her damaged tissues and help her to become more than she ever was. Her adventure includes developing new attitudes and physical strength, falling in love with the mysterious smart boy who pretends to be average, and saving the world from ultimate disaster.

Luther—who actually turns out to be 20-year-old Luke—is on the run from Las Vegas bad guys who have already killed his parents and are after some secrets that he doesn’t even know he holds. As the two young people discover the new talents acquired by Deena, they figure out the presence of the nanobots and how they are being used by aliens to destroy the Earth.

As always this is a superb example of young adult science fiction. The story reads quickly and keeps the reader wanting to turn page after page. The mixing of several plots is not only not distracting, but it makes the story more intriguing. Hats off to you again, Henry. Keep churning out those stories. Readers will want to get their hands on all the stories in this series as they are released almost too fast to believe.

Extreme Makeover is again rating four and three-fourths reading glasses. Good reading, good entertainment, just plain good fun.

—Benjamin Potter, August 11, 2008