Customer Reviews

Jack: Secret Histories (Young Repairman Jack)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Some minor SPOILERS...

Repairman Jack, today, is a paranoid urban mercenary who makes his living "fixing" situations. He prefers to live his life off the government grid, and because he's so average looking, he easily blends into the background. But when the fit's about to hit the shan - and the coppers and the government and the usual agencies just won't cut it - then you call on Repairman Jack. For my money, Jack is about the coolest cat there is, the best guy to count on when the devil's at your doorstep. There are eleven full-length eerie thrillers written about him (not counting NIGHT WORLD), as well as a handful of short stories, and if you haven't clued in to him yet, I suggest strongly that you do so. Repairman Jack is righteous!

But this isn't about Jack as he is right now. This is about when he was a kid, just before his path veered into weirdness. JACK: SECRET HISTORIES is author F. Paul Wilson's first foray into Young Adult fiction and also his attempt to flesh out Jack's blank slate of a past. It is the first in a new series. If you're curious about what Jack was like when he was a kid, or if you've wondered what made him the way he is today...well, get ready, F. Paul Wilson is about to start laying it out for you.

So this is back when Jack was 14 years old, a normal kid living in tiny, lame-o Johnson, New Jersey. But today is when his life starts to get odd. He and two of his friends, Eddie and Eddie's older and offbeat sister Louise (but call her "Weezy"), are traipsing about the foreboding Jersey Pine Barrens, mostly because Weezy wants to show them a stretch of burial mounds. Caught in a downpour, they end up unearthing a black cube carved with mysterious designs. And a corpse.

The kids actually think it's all pretty neat. But that changes. The corpse, it turns out, was done in thru a hideous ritual two years ago. Jack begins to get nervous when three deaths soon follow the discovery of the body. Then the nagging questions crop up. Why is it that only Jack seems to be able to open the box? And what has that secretive Lodge got to do with everything? What was that fleeting shape they glimpsed in the woods? Of course it can't be the mythical Jersey Devil, could it? Jack has been gently scoffing at Weezy's fervent assertions that the world hides a secret history, and that the enigmatic cube is linked to it. But now...

Although F. Paul Wilson tones it down to fit his teen audience, JACK: SECRET HISTORIES still comes with thrills and intensity. As usual Wilson sets a brisk pace. In no time at all I was caught up in young Jack's exploits. And, yes, it seems like Jack gets to do his very first fixes in this book. Note that while Jack serves up several dishes of comeuppance to the bad guys, his inspired retaliations against his bullying older brother are almost as riveting. Or as Weezy says to Jack, after Jack had just orchestrated a clever getaway from their mysterious pursuers: "You're scary, you know that? What kind of mind thinks up something like that?"

F. Paul Wilson re-introduces Jack's sister Kate, brother Tom, and his dad. We meet for the first time Jack's mother and Eddy and Weezy (whom Jack is half-crushing on). There's also Jack's alcoholic friend, Steve, who I thought was a boring character, even if his story arc does figure into how Jack stumps a murderer. It's intriguing (and a bit worrying), trying to anticipate how these childhood friends will impact Jack's future; we do know that, so far, they haven't been in any of the Repairman Jack novels.

I hesitate to label SECRET HISTORIES a spooky read. There are supernatural/sci-fi elements here, but nothing that frightening or chilling. Longtime readers are all too aware of Jack's eventual destiny as the world's champion against a malevolent cosmic entity, and that, in the Repairman Jack series, F. Paul Wilson is drawing closer and closer to that confrontation. It seems that the Ally and the Adversary have always touched Jack's life. Even in this book, their presence is felt, if at a more remote distance. There's even an old lady and a dog (a constant thorny theme in Jack's life).

The central story itself is fine and engrossing enough, but I really got into the minutiae of Jack's childhood. No surprise that he was always overfond of pulp adventures (the Shadow, the Spider, etc.). But I got a kick out of reading about his job at the Used Goods store, where he finds a certain book which would serve him well in his future career as vigilante for hire. In other books I've read of Kate and Tom and Jack's dad interacting with the adult Jack, so it's interesting to note how different and how similar the relationships are when Jack was so much younger. Jack learns some life lessons here, which no doubt had a hand in shaping the man he'll become. Even in this book, one can track Jack's evolution from innocent, regular teen into someone who begins to sense that there are things out there beyond the norm, that there really might be a secret history to the world. Young Jack wouldn't mind snooping around.

Repairman Jack is one of the most intriguing fictional characters in modern literature today.

He's a literal urban mercenary, who takes repair jobs that need to be kept hush hush, or deal with things that are against the law.

Things that people don't want to have the police or other officials involved with.

Even though he's a mercenary for hire, he's still a very ethical and righteous man - even if he is what amounts to a career criminal.

Jack was created by the not only prolific but excellent author F. Paul Wilson. The first novel he appeared in was `The Tomb', which was part of his Adversary Cycle series of books.

The character grew from that point, and even though it took several years for him to appear again, he is now part of his own series which at the time of this review, now spans over ten books.

And they're all worth reading.

Mr. Wilson came up with a brilliant idea to introduce a new generation of readers to his pivotal character. He began to write a trilogy for teens - known as the Secret Histories. The trilogy deals with Jack as a teenager, and all the events that lead up to him becoming the man he is in the other novels.

Before I go any further, my usual disclaimer. I will not reveal any spoilers that you couldn't get from reading the back cover of the novel. I won't ruin it for anyone.

The first novel, Jack, introduces a couple of Jack's friends, people who were important to him as he grew up. We also are treated to seeing what Jack's life was with his whole family.

And, for any fans of the series, there are all of Mr. Wilson's trademarks, things and events that have been mentioned in his series that appear in the first book. A real thrill for long time readers.

Although many new readers, such as my son, will not catch onto the clues unless he begins to read the adult series.

The novel begins with Jack and his friends off in the woods around the town he grew up in. They discover a mound and upon further investigation, find the remains of a murder victim, as well as a strange artifact.

The discovery becomes the buzz of the town and with it other more sinister events begin to take place.
The novel mainly deals with Jack's history, which is very much welcome. As I stated above, we get to meet people that were important to Jack as a young adult and see events that shaped him into the man that he became.

Oh, yes, there was indeed violence, but nothing like you would read in the regular novels. The violence always takes place off camera, so it is most definitely kid friendly for younger readers. And there are no sexual situations or for that matter foul language.

A great read even for adults like myself, as it fills in a lot of history. I eagerly await the next novels in the trilogy.

5 out of 5

In 1983 New Jersey, teenager Jack enjoys playing Atari games with his friends, siblings Eddie and Weezy; his other pastime is riding his bike. Jack prefers to stay away from his home as his parents are pests, his older sister demanding and his older brother an abusive jerk.

Jack and his two buddies are biking in the Pine Barrens when they find an ancient burial site. Unable to resist they search for hidden treasure only to find a more modern but rotted corpse and an odd looking black box with arcane symbols etched on it. Neither Weezy nor Eddie can open it; only Jack can. They soon learn the victim was a member of the elite Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order. Not long afterward other members are murdered. Jack investigates the enigmatic box and the serial killings of the Order.

Repairman Jack teenage sleuth is an enjoyable whodunit as fans obtain a look at the strange hero's early life in suburbia. The story line starts a bit slow especially for those who know Jack as F. Paul Wilson methodically sets time and place more so for older followers of the series. Once we know Jack, the plot takes off as he makes inquiries that places him in jeopardy, but sets him on his future life's path. JACK: SECRET HISTORIES is a wonderful refreshingly different entry that targets young adults, but series readers will relish young Jack in action.

Harriet Klausner

I really liked the "Repairman Jack" series; I really, really did. At some point, however, Wilson decided that he was going to start making the books significantly less self contained, where the story from one would start to spill more and more to the next (see 'Legacies' vs. 'Bloodline' for an example of each, respectively).

Had he been doing that from the get-go, I doubt that I would have read and purchased the nearly dozen books in the main series; I would have given up after the first two or three.

I bring this up as my main issue with 'Jack: Secret Histories' is not only that the plot continues into the next book with very little chance for resolution until the THIRD in this prequel series - there is also the fact that the reader is pretty much assumed to know who Jack is in the first place and thus why one would care about any of this at all.

On top of that, it would appear that Wilson is has been taking a pafe from George Lucas' playbook and deciding to insert all sorts of characters and events from future books/the overall related "Adversary Cycle" plot into this novel without any apparent reason.
Is it supposed to indicate that Jack has had a lot more experience with supernatural craziness in the past? If that's so, then a good deal of the earlier "RJ" novels don't make much sense (with Jack tending to be very skeptical of all the weirdness, having never seemingly dealt with it before).
Is it to make the "Adversary Cycle" seem like a much greater whole? Seems like a poor reason to include a character from 'The Touch' (I think - it was either that book or the story "Dat Tay Vao," but both works deal with the same power in question). Shoehorning in characters from other parts of the story doesn't make it seem more well thought out - it just seems cluttered.

My other big problem with the book was that it seems like very sketchy material for the YA crowd. The "RJ" stories - for the most part - at their core are dealing with significantly grey areas of moral and social norms; Jack not being a part of larger society, Jack having to hurt people or otherwise break the law to save others... While adults can parse this more effectively (just because of how we are wired vs. kids/adolescents), the younger audience is likely to take away a very different message from the story.

I am so not looking forward to reading the rest of this.

"Secret Histories" is a fun read for the rabid, Repairman Jack fan base, but it would be very, very hard to understand and appreciate for a new reader.

The central feature in most Repairman Jack novels is a series of secular, mundane items to be fixed with a central mystery involving the "Otherness."

In this novel, Mr. Wilson buries the mystery in a nostalgic retrospective of events yet to occur according to where this novel takes place in the time line.

There are writing sins of omission and commission when it comes to mysteries. The writing can reveal too much, or the writer can reveal too little. The original Sherlock Holmes novels generally reveal too little. There is almost no way that a reader could actually figure out what the solution to the mystery is without Holmes' brilliant explanation (that almost always involves introducing entirely new, hitherto unknown facts).

In "Secret Histories" F. Paul Wilson takes glee in stuffing in an extreme amount of trivia from future Repairman Jack novels. For example, young Jack notices that his sister Kay comes back "different" from her time abroad in France. In "Hosts" we find out that Kay finds out that she is a lesbian while in France. Jack's running buddy, goth chick points out that the lodge is connected to the Quakers, but Quakers are not what modern folks understand as Quakers - ala' the Kicker Man from "by the Sword" where we find out that kicker is a bastardization of Q'q'r -- much like Quaker. Oh, I see!

Yes, the whole book is riddled with little factoids.

Honestly, they end up being a significant distraction.

To the washed, rabid fan, Jack comes off as too prescient.

To the new reader, the book comes off as a series of unconnected, random, unsupported facts.

Why not one or two stars?

Mr. Wilson does a great job in introducing many fun and interesting tidbits from 1983.

It is a bit of a loving retrospective.

It is not the best outing for Repairman Jack, and "Secret Histories" is fun, but not a necessary addition to the Repairman Jack series.

In service,

Rich

Another great book in the Repairman Jack series. Written for young adults by enjoyable by all. Gives some interesting back story for the now completed series. A fast and fun read.

Jack's incarnation in a Teen novel was just as good and enthralling as his adult incarnation, and better yet -it looks intimately tied into the the Secret Histories mythos. Also, an interesting thing: over the past ten years of my English teaching career, I've read LOTS of teen novels. One constant: when authors of adult contemporaries turn their hand to Young Adult/Teen novels...those works for teens are SO much better written, more intelligent than usual teen fare...but still palpable for teens. The same is true here.

With a well crafted plot, believable characters you can relate to, and plenty of mystery and adventure, the Jack: young adult series is an enjoyable read for adults as well as teens.
While the language, and descriptions of violence and gore, have been toned down for the young adult audience, F. Paul Wilson hasn't compromised the quality of the writing and storytelling. The tension was enough that I found myself literally gripping the arm of my chair as events played out through the story.
As a longtime fan of Repairman Jack, it is great fun to see very ordinary origins of the skills and talents he later puts to use in his fix-it jobs as an adult. We also get a peek into the influence that the Otherness has had on Jack throughout his life.
Definitely required reading for established fans of Repairman Jack, or for anyone looking for a fun read while relaxing at the beach, or just on the couch.

F. Paul Wilson is absolutely the best. Stephen who?.... etc....etc....etc... The only thing these other writers have is a large propoganda machine..

I reread Secret Histories to refresh my memory before picking up Jack: Secret Circles (Repairman Jack), and I kind of wish I hadn't. I remember liking the book a lot, but a second read made me a lot more aware of some of the flaws. Wilson shoehorns in way too many "Man, weren't those 80s wacky!" kind of jokes, from people rolling their eyes about needing more than 64k of RAM to the crazy concept of a network that would allow you to login and check information, and the sheer amount of forced dramatic irony gets really old, really quickly. That being said, the central story - which involves young Jack investigating a mysterious series of deaths and beginning to realize his unusual talents - is really enjoyable, and it's nice to see Wilson tackle Jack's backstory and tie it in nicely to the ongoing arc. I'm hoping that the first book has worked most of the 80s jokes out of the way, though, and that the second book doesn't feel the need to be as clever as this one thinks it is.