Customer Reviews

The New Adventures of the Mad scientists' Club

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you loved Bertrand R. Brinley's first collection of stories about The Mad Scientists of Mammoth Falls The Mad Scientists' Club or the two novels: The Big Kerplop!: The Original Adventure of the Mad Scientists' Club and The Big Chunk of Ice: The Last Known Adventure of the Mad Scientists' Club, then you'll also love "The New Adventures of The Mad Scientists' Club". The boys return in five new stories, again mixing simple yet sound science and a gently wicked sense of fun.

In "Big Chief Rainmaker", a story originally planned for inclusion in the first book, the boys make clever use of simple scientific principles to break a killer drought by making it rain. Unfortunately, making it STOP raining, turns out to be a good deal harder.

In "The Telltale Transmitter" while investigating a series of unexplained seismic anomalies, the boys make an unexpected discovery.

In "The Cool Cavern" the boys acquire a WWII-era midget two-man Japanese submarine and stash it in a cavern behind Mammoth Falls' namesake Mammoth Falls while restoring it to functioning. Then one night the cavern roof collapses, hopelessly trapping Harmon Muldoon's gang, who had come to spy on the submarine, behind tons of fallen rocks. Or are they?

In "The Flying Sorcerer" Dinky Poore is so obsessed about wanting to see a UFO that he quits showing up for club meetings, until his fellow club members promise to build him a UFO. Hi-jinks ensue.

In "The Great Confrontation" Harmon Muldoon's gang kidnaps Dinky Poore and Harmon's cousin, Freddy Muldoon, and offers to trade them for the submarine and the right to use the Cool Cavern. Boy, are they going to be sorry!

As a boy, while I enjoyed this book very much, I never liked it as well or reread it as often as the first one, and after rereading it as a man I think I know why. It isn't the writing, which if anything has improved; it is the overarching theme of all the stories. If the first book could be re-titled "The Mad Scientists' Club Triumphant", this book could be re-titled "The Mad Scientists' Club Get Their Comeuppance". In "Big Chief Rainmaker" the boys go from heroes to goats, and in "The Cool Cavern" the boys get made utter fools of. "The Telltale Transmitter" turns out to be a fairly conventional crime-solving, and even the wackiest story of all, "The Flying Sorcerer", is essentially "The Strange Sea Monster of Strawberry Lake" redux, except with a less triumphal ending, and it isn't until "The Final Confrontation" that the boys finally get even with Harmon Muldoon's gang for the events of "The Cool Cavern". The result is a little more downbeat than I prefer. In addition I regret the lost story possibilities of the restored midget submarine, which Brinley never made use of.

Note: the Purple House reprint of The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club is worth picking up even if you own an older edition because it includes an introduction written by Bertrand's son Sheridan and a chronological listing of the stories so you can read them in the order they were written (the order of the stories in the book was not changed). Reading them chronologically clears up some confusion over places, geographical references, and characters.

The original Mad Scientists Club was my favorite book as a kid. This one is equally outstanding. Sadly, it is out of print.
On the bright side, the first MSC has been rereleased recently, with plans for the New Adventures and the rare 3rd book THE BIG KERPLOP! Help keep this wonderful series alive! Your kids will love them! I can't wait until my 2 1/2 year old son is old enough to enjoy these books.

When I was growing up, I really enjoyed reading the 'Mad Scientists Club' and its influence may partly explain why I ended up in engineering research. Until recently I had forgotten all about it until I was looking at books by my favorite authors as a youth, such as Stephen Meader and Jim Kjelgaard. I came across the Brinley books and I decided to re-read the original and discovered much to my delight that there was a sequel of short stories and two additional full-length books by Brinley.

I read the sequel, 'The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club'and I was both ecstatic and a little dismayed. The stories are uniquely excellent melding adventurous vignettes with some science. However, I noticed that the sequel showed some changes in personalities from the first book. I was a little surprised to see that in The Flying Sorcerer' Henry was both not fully truthful with Colonel March, but even after he was told how much personal trouble he was causing him, Henry proposed that the club continue with additional flights of the flying saucer. The readers had been told in 'The Cool Cavern' that Col. March had done them a big favor in helping them acquire the plexiglass nose from an old B-17 bomber for their midget sub. I guess it did not seem in character for them to treat their friends so shabbily. I know that the Mad Scientists are supposed to represent our rebellious American youth who do not respect authority, but I thought the stunt was taken a bit too far. Moreover, I was surprised when I read that Mortimer Dalrymple stole the rotor from Col. March's Air Force car, which is not only a dirty trick, but patently illegal. I am not sure if it was the length of time between Brinley's writing of his first story in 1960 to his last in 1968, but the characters in the sequel seem to not be as 'kind and gentle' as in the first book.

Regardless, I still really enjoyed reading the sequel and I plan on reading the two re-published full-length books.

I read this books as a boy. Now my kids enjoy it in it's republished version. The New Adventures is another wonderful collection of stories following from The Mad Scientist's club.

Lots of interesting applications of science, boy humour that is not crude or gross, and a presentation of a way of growing up that sadly absent from 99% of boys' lives in North America today.

Five stars for this one. Give your youth or teen a glimpse at what fun science and personal freedom could be like...

The Mad Scientists' Club is back and better than ever. A mini-sub, a gang of bank robbers and a home-made UFO are just some of the adventures you will find between the covers of this book. While there are only five stories this time, when compared to the seven tales in the first book, this book is over 216 pages (vs. the 188 pages of the first book) making each story within the second book both greater in length and in details.
For boys and men of all ages!

I loved the Mad Scientist club series (see my review of the "Mad Scientist Club" book). This is a continuation of that. Yes, the Hardy Boys are good, but this is better!

Black-and-white illustrations by Charles Greer enhance the entertainment value of The New Adventures Of The Mad Scientists' Club, an engaging read for young readers ages 10 to 16 by Bertrand R. Brinley. The New Adventures Of The Mad Scientists' Club is comprised of five madcap adventures of seven young "Mad Scientist" geniuses. A hullaballoo over alleged flying saucers leads into an exciting confrontation in this wacky and enjoyable narrative. Also very highly recommended is the first book in Bertrand Brinley's "Mad Scientist" series for young readers, The Mad Scientists' Club (1930900104).

Tis book is great! I love reading of their adventures, like the time they built the U.F.O., or the time they bought the submarine! This is an excellent choice, and if there is an original "Adventures of the Mad Scientists' Club" book, I want it! From an 11 year old.

There are not enough stories written where young people use science as an aid in life. I like the Mad Scientists' Club because it does bring youth and science together, not too involved, more pragmatic than theoretical and also involves humor or attempts to. This book is one of a group, I have read two others and this third one is the weakest of the lot although the science seems stronger. There are only five stories in this collection but the book is almost as long as the preceding mad scientist club adventures, therefore the stories are longer and more attention can be paid to details. This helps in the science and also allows more character to be shown. In this respect the book is longer but not so humorous.
The first story, "The Telltale Transmitter" is somewhat trite to any avowed reader, banks have been robbed by breaking through walls many times in many books, it is just a question of a reader's taste how often he has encountered it. That may be why the science is so simple, it is beginner's science. As a first read it settles into a deserved niche. "The second story, the "Cool Cavern" seems to me to be written to have the fact that Harman and his group are not trapped in the cave as everyone in town seems to believe, it is written depicting Harman and Sony too unpertirbed to be trapped. Also, the people do not seem to be behaving in accordance with the seeming gravity of the situation, they have their own problems to take care of first. The rainmaker is a little meteorology again, too little trouble is experienced by the club members in making it rain so maybe tdhey are not influencing nature, the author does not make it clear, and the rain stops very conveniently. Then the flying sorceror is wasting money again to no purpose, read it for humor only. The final story lacks science, unless Morse code is science, and why did the boys know shoelaces were use to write code? It is almost like it were planned and not spontaneous. Again, read it for the humor, the book lacks a lot of science and logic,

...none of these stories are up to the level of the weakest story in the original "Mad Scientist's Club." I can't put my finger on what exactly is missing; maybe it was impossible to come up with original ideas for wacky schemes after the marvelous first collection. So here we have some obviously derivative stories, like a fake flying saucer taking the place of a fake sea serpant or an unidentified flying man. I also had a hard time seeing Harmon's gang come out on top in an episode.