Science Fiction for Kids: The Adventures of Thelonious

"In ancient times human beings ruled the Earth -- at least that's what the old legends claim. But is it true?" - Thelonious Chipmunk, from The Travels of Thelonious

It’s a familiar theme for science-fiction fans: all civilization and the entire human race is destroyed by conflict or disaster. Then intelligent animals arise to dominate the world. But soon those new masters of the Earth begin making the same mistakes as their human predecessors. Of course, The Planet of the Apes is probably the most famous example of such stories, the novel and both the original 1968 film starring Charlton Heston (co-authored by Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling) and the crazy-fast-action Tim Burton remake of a few years back. Comic book fans may also recall Jack Kirby’s long-running DC series Kamandi – The Last Boy On Earth, where "Beasts Act Like Men! Men Act Like Beasts!"

Strangely enough, the post-human era is presented once again, this time in a wonderful trilogy of children’s books by Jon Buller and Susan Schade: The Fog Mound adventures. It’s first-class science fiction for children, though I should mention that there are some scenes of cruelty and violence between the animal characters, and, in the third volume, Thelonius and his friends have a frightening encounter with Upsilon the Wolfman, and must listen to the “crunching of small bones” as the scary beast and his companions dine. However, throughout the stories the animal characters display real compassion and loving care towards each other, and they often reminded me of the rabbits in Watership Down, another favorite "furry" book.

But be warned: As I found out, these books are so good that if you read them to children at bedtime, as I did for my son, Ronnie, they will not want to go to sleep. They will beg you to keep reading and reading these fascinating adventures.

In the first volume we meet the story's hero, Thelonious Chipmunk.

Thelonious Chipmunk is a Talker -- an animal who has inherited the gift of language from his ancestors -- and he, for one, believes in humans. Who else could have made the old paper postcard he treasures? Who else could have built the tall building shown on the postcard? His desire to know more about the humans is fulfilled in a surprising and dangerous way when Thelonious is swept down the river into a strange new world -- a world of architectural ruins and puzzling artifacts, where gangs and warlords prowl amongst the crumbling remains of civilization. With three new companions -- a bear, a porcupine, and a small brown lizard -- Thelonious embarks on a search for the far-off Fog Mound. It is a journey that becomes nothing less than a quest to uncover the secrets of Earth's past.

After living on the Fog Mound for quite some time, Thelonious Chipmunk and his friends are ready to continue their travels. There are some old questions to be answered and new places to be explored. So, with the addition of new friends Bill the Human and Cluid Chipmunk, the animals sail off down the river in a specially designed boat. As in The Travels of Thelonious, the intrepid chipmunk pursues his personal quest to uncover the differences between legend and history. And to answer the most troubling question of all — what happened to the humans?

Thelonious Chipmunk and his friends face a whole new series of adventures after they reach the mysterious Mattakeunk Institute and discover . . . a time machine! Will the time machine lead them to the answers they seek? Perhaps some of the answers will come when the animals' traveling companion, Bill the Human, regains his ability to speak. However there is one pressing need above all others -- the need to save their beloved Fog Mound from the Dragon Lady herself, and her evil ratmink assistants.

-quoted from Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers


D’os Vadanya,

VIKTOR KUPRIN


Technorati tags: science fiction, sci-fi, sf, children's books, The Adventures of Thelonious, The Fog Mound, The Planet of the Apes, comics

Eclipse Comics' Fusion

Every Saturday afternoon Ronnie, my six-year-old son, and I attend the kid's matinee at The Cinemat, Bloomington's great DVD-video rental and screening room. Hosted by The Kick, our town's one-and-only superhero sidekick, the classic cartoons and old-time movie serials are fun for both of us, though Ronnie has a tough time choosing his free toy from The Kick's treasure chest of gifts for the kiddos.

After the show we sometimes have a little time to kill before catching the bus home, so we head down the block to Vintage Phoenix, Bloomington's wonderful comic shop, located just off the downtown square. While browsing through the 25-cent back-issue bins, I found a couple of copies of Eclipse Comics' 1987-89 Fusion, a delightful science-fiction/space opera series that on first reading had some similarities to the popular Firefly TV show except with some funny furry characters as part of the crew.

Science-fiction has always been a tough sell for comics, with superheroes, horror, and comedy being the mainstay. Some notable exceptions would be England's Dan Dare, King Features' outstanding 1960s Flash Gordon series, Gold Key's Magnus Robot Fighter, and sci-fi/superhero hybrids like DC's Adam Strange. I've always thought that much of the popularity and success of Marvel's Fantastic Four, Mighty Thor, Iron Man, and other Silver Age comics stemmed from their distinctive science-fiction elements.

It was a nice surprise to discover Fusion, and I hope that in time I can find the other back issues. While my son prefers the latest publications of Transformers: The Animated Series, I am enjoying the space adventures of the Tsunami crew.




From the Wiki:

Fusion was a comic book published in 1987 by Eclipse Comics, whose creative team included the writer Steven Barnes, the artists Lela Dowling and Steve Gallacci, conceptual editor Lex Nakashima and many more.

The world of Fusion is centuries in our future, when a series of galactic wars have led to a spiraling arms race between "tekkers and splicers" - that is, between those who take a technological and technocratic route to improving humanity, and those who have abandoned humanity altogether through genetic engineering. The story involves the exploits of a group of space mercenaries in an era when humans who have not been enhanced either genetically or cybernetically, are becoming extremely rare.

While the comic book also included inserted comics of some variety, such as Dr. Watchstop, the most frequent insert was Weasel Patrol, a comic stemming from doodles drawn of Tan.

Regular characters
The only recurring characters are the crew of the mercenary spaceship Tsunami.

Indio Tremaine: Captain. Human. Born into the Clan of the Three Suns, of which she is the only survivor.
Dow Cook: Synthetic human bio-engineered invulnerable to shock and trauma and with enhanced self-healing ability. Very insecure about himself.
Tan: A musteliform bred from Terran otter stock. Canadian, an alumnus of Labatt's Tech (a fictitious university named after the beer). An alcoholic mechanical and electronics wizard with a severe gambling problem. Never goes anywhere without his leather pilot cap and goggles.
Beolvoch: A meehook. Something like a dinosaur with feathers. Has an extremely high metabolic rate and thus a voracious appetite for raw meat. Must eat regularly and copiously to stay active. Consequently spends much time in a suspended animation state or complaining that he is hungry. Appears to be a genuine alien species rather than uplifted and genetically engineered earthform.
Alshain: A felinoid; a temperamental and somewhat edgy pilot.
Carz: A leoniform with only one working eye. He is generally a steadying influence, but when he loses it, beware!
Herrick: A hawklike creature, of military caste. Dies very early in the series, in one of many moves which went against formula. Appears in "how we got here" sequences.
Haven: A birdlike creature with well developed nesting instincts. She is a doctor by training.
Eddie: Modelled after some creature with very long ears and a prehensile tail. Likes to hang upside down. A cool dude in shades and khakis or hawaiian shirts. Nothing rattles Eddie. Was a classmate of Tan at Labatt's.

D’os Vadanya,

VIKTOR KUPRIN



Technorati tags: science fiction, sci-fi, sf, comics, Eclipse Comics, Fusion, space opera

Recovery, the Beluga submarine, and Voyage to the Deep

I survived my visit to the surgeon last Friday, and I’m happy to report that I’m feeling better every day, even quasi-human some of the time. My dear wifey and son have been most attentive to my needs during my recovery, and my dear cohorts at work have (so far) left me alone to convalesce, bless them all.

One of the few things I can do while flat on my back is, thank goodness, read. Before I went on medical leave I was able to stock up on some special-request books from the Indiana University library, including the following:

Cry of the Deep: The Submarine Disaster That Riveted the World and Put the New Russia to the Ultimate Test, by Ramsey Flynn – A gripping account of the loss of the submarine Kursk.

Rising Tide: The Untold Story of the Russian Submarines That Fought the Cold War, by Gary E. Weir and Walter J. Boyne.

Hostile Waters, by Captain Peter Huchthausen, USN (ret).; Captain First Rank Igor Kurdin, Russian Navy; and R. Alan White – An account of the loss of the Russian submarine K-219 during the height of the Cold War.

Cold War Submarines: The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines, by Norman Polmar and Kenneth J. Moore.

As you can tell, I was in an undersea mood having just read William H. Keith’s submarine warfare-in-the-future novel Sharuq. And even thought I’m an Air Force veteran, I’ve always been interested in ships and submarines. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne was probably the first true science fiction book that I ever laid eyes on as a boy, and Captain Nemo was certainly my first and still favorite anti-hero. Adding to my oceanic inspirations was the fact that my father was a Navy man, a torpedoman’s mate, during the Cold War. Dad served aboard the USS Fulton, the famous submarine tender that supported some of the most historic submarines in Navy history, including the Nautilus, the Skipjack, and the Triton. I spent many an hour browsing through my dad’s Bluejacket manual, gazing at photos of those amazing subs. And now my six-year-old son is doing the same, looking through the great pictures in the Cold War Submarines volume, even sketching some drawings for his laid-up dad.

I almost dropped the hefty Cold War Submarines book when I came upon the photo and schematic of the Soviet’s Project 1710 – NATO Code name Beluga submarine. Commissioned in 1987 as a research platform for streamline hull design, the Beluga is the spitting image of a fictional submarine called the Proteus, from Dell Comic’s early 1960’s four-issue mini-series Voyage to the Deep. Drawn by one of my favorite “silver age” comic artists, Sam Glanzman, this submarine/SF series was undoubtedly an unofficial inspiration from Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea motion picture that later became a television series on the ABC network. Glanzman also drew another of my favorite early-1960s Dell comics, Kona: Monarch of Monster Isle, a great Lost World/SF series filled with dinosaurs and other overgrown beasties.

In the Voyage to the Deep series, the Proteus was the first American submarine able to dynamically “change its mass” via some amazing new technology. Glanzman showed the sub actually changing its length and weight at critical times during its voyages. There were vague references to “The Enemy”, i.e. the Soviets, and the plots were very much like those that would later be seen on Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV series.

But you have to give Sam Glanzman some credit. He depicted the ultra-modern submarine’s design in perfect form … 25 years before it was actually built! Unfortunately for the Soviet Navy, they were not able to dynamically alter the Beluga sub’s mass during its voyages!

Best wishes,

Viktor Kuprin







Technorati tags: science fiction, sci-fi, sf, comics, submarine, Sam Glanzman, Soviets, Cold War,