This week we wrap up our retrospective of movies featuring Jules Verne’s immortal creation Captain Nemo with the 2003 steampunk literary mashup The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Choose Your Own Adventure - Saving the Ocean
Nemo literally has to save the ocean in my new book, Young Captain Nemo. He has to battle in the mysterious Great Pacific Garbage patch, and “Lodgers” — giant hermit crabs that have made their home in old World War II plane wreckage.
But guess what? In real life, saving the ocean is everyone’s job! So this choose-your-own-adventure can lead you through a maze of choices that can help you make the small decisions that could mean BIG changes for sea life!
Chapter 1: Dinner with the babysitter.
It’s six-o’clock, and your stomach is rumbling. After a busy day of school, followed by tuba practice with Mr. Humperdink, and walking home the long way to avoid Mrs. Feldman’s snappy poodle, you are feeling practically weak with hunger!
You walk in the front door and your babysitter greets you. Great. Maggie-the-maniac is babysitting again. You’re convinced that Maggie is trying to re-live her youth through you and your little sister. She’s always insisting that you build blanket forts, or play freeze tag, when you and your sis usually just want to lay around and read, or watch TV.
“Jakey’s home!” Maggie shrills as you open the door. “Jakey! Put that tuba down and come over here. We’re just about to order dinner. Your parents left some money.”
You look at the two menus that Maggie laid out. One is for “King Shrimp,” where they deliver way more fried shrimp than any human being could ever eat for only $9.99. The other is for a place right down the street that promotes that it imports responsibly-raised seafood. It’s a little pricier. Which do you choose?
A) You vote for the slightly more expensive restaurant, and skip your usual appetizer of lobster tails to afford it!
B) You vote for the cheap fried shrimp and get extra lobster tails.
If you voted for option A, you helped save the seas—and probably enjoyed tastier food! Go on to Chapter 2.
If you voted for option B, you might have a tummy ache right about now… Go on to Chapter 2.
Chapter 2: Beach Day!
You spend a day at the beach with an incredible picnic. You’ve got sandwiches, you’ve got chips, you’ve got soda. And when you’re done… you’ve got trash! You stuff some of it in your bag, but when your bag gets full you look around and realize there is other trash strewn along the beach. You could leave your trash and no one would ever know. You decide to…
A) You leave your trash—who cares? No one will notice.
B) You pick up your trash, and some of the other trash on the way to the parking lot.
If you voted for option A, you’re being a litterbug—that’s kind of a bummer. Next time you have the chance, pick up a few extras to make up for it! Now it's time to read a great book!
If you voted for option B, you’re saving the seas! Way to go—you should feel great about making the world a little bit safer and cleaner. I'm guessing you need a new book to read.
But guess what? In real life, saving the ocean is everyone’s job! So this choose-your-own-adventure can lead you through a maze of choices that can help you make the small decisions that could mean BIG changes for sea life!
Chapter 1: Dinner with the babysitter.
It’s six-o’clock, and your stomach is rumbling. After a busy day of school, followed by tuba practice with Mr. Humperdink, and walking home the long way to avoid Mrs. Feldman’s snappy poodle, you are feeling practically weak with hunger!
You walk in the front door and your babysitter greets you. Great. Maggie-the-maniac is babysitting again. You’re convinced that Maggie is trying to re-live her youth through you and your little sister. She’s always insisting that you build blanket forts, or play freeze tag, when you and your sis usually just want to lay around and read, or watch TV.
“Jakey’s home!” Maggie shrills as you open the door. “Jakey! Put that tuba down and come over here. We’re just about to order dinner. Your parents left some money.”
You look at the two menus that Maggie laid out. One is for “King Shrimp,” where they deliver way more fried shrimp than any human being could ever eat for only $9.99. The other is for a place right down the street that promotes that it imports responsibly-raised seafood. It’s a little pricier. Which do you choose?
A) You vote for the slightly more expensive restaurant, and skip your usual appetizer of lobster tails to afford it!
B) You vote for the cheap fried shrimp and get extra lobster tails.
If you voted for option A, you helped save the seas—and probably enjoyed tastier food! Go on to Chapter 2.
If you voted for option B, you might have a tummy ache right about now… Go on to Chapter 2.
Chapter 2: Beach Day!
You spend a day at the beach with an incredible picnic. You’ve got sandwiches, you’ve got chips, you’ve got soda. And when you’re done… you’ve got trash! You stuff some of it in your bag, but when your bag gets full you look around and realize there is other trash strewn along the beach. You could leave your trash and no one would ever know. You decide to…
A) You leave your trash—who cares? No one will notice.
B) You pick up your trash, and some of the other trash on the way to the parking lot.
If you voted for option A, you’re being a litterbug—that’s kind of a bummer. Next time you have the chance, pick up a few extras to make up for it! Now it's time to read a great book!
If you voted for option B, you’re saving the seas! Way to go—you should feel great about making the world a little bit safer and cleaner. I'm guessing you need a new book to read.
"Armed with his wits, his friends, and his Nemotech submarine, a twelve-year-old descendant of Jules Verne’s famous antihero is determined to help make the ocean a safer place one adventure at a time in Jason Henderson's Young Captain Nemo, first in a new middle-grade series."
Monday, March 25, 2019
The Amazing (AKA The Return of) Captain Nemo: The Captain Nemo Retrospective
We continue looking at famous Nemos with the 1978 Irwin Allen SF adventure The Amazing Captain Nemo AKA The Return of Captain Nemo, starring Jose Ferrer and Burgess Meredith.
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Captain Nemo & The Underwater City: The Captain Nemo Retrospective
We discuss the UK 1969 film Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, starring Robert Ryan and Chuck Connors.
Thursday, March 7, 2019
Castle Talk: Travis Stevens, Dir. of Girl on the Third Floor
Travis Stevens talks about his writing and directing debut, GIRL ON THE THIRD FLOOR, which premieres in March at South by Southwest.
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
5 Great Adventure Books
My daughter (one of my daughters, there are two around here) and I were talking about the kinds of books we like to read. If you’re serious about writing you should read anything you get your hands on, but you still find your favorites. She likes historical stories with a little romance but can’t stand contemporary romance.
I love to read adventure books and thrillers. I’ve published a lot of what I’d call fantasy-adventure—the Alex Van Helsing books are basically spy adventures with some magic. But I’ve never actually published a straight, no-magic-involvead adventure until Young Captain Nemo, which comes out in March 2019.
Young Captain Nemo comes from a long tradition of adventure novels that revolve around expeditions: the main character gathers his or her crew and sets out to learn or bring back something. It’s a story as old as the Golden Fleece, which Jason had to go find in his ship Argo. I’m a sucker for anything where you tell me, “okay, they hear there’s this thing across the world and they gotta go get it, but they only have a few days.” If it could include a map and a dotted line, I am so there.
So Gabriel’s first adventure is one of those, but it’s not here yet. If you’re looking for a list of great adventure books, here are 5 Great Adventure Books to keep you busy until then!
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne - This book and the next, as I’ve written before, are the source of the story of Captain Nemo and his great ship Nautilus. 20,000 Leagues is a classic quest adventure: Professor Arronax sets out to discover the mystery of a sea creature only to discover the creature is an experimental submarine, which he joins for a journey that includes unknown caverns, escapes from collapsing ice floes, and the sunken city of Atlantis.
- Mysterious Island by Jules Verne - Forget what you might know from movies involving giant crabs and things, Mysterious Island is a straight adventure about a group of men trying to survive on a desert island. You can learn so much from this book, but the best thing is the team’s relentless optimism in the face of their challenges.
- Congo, Michael Crichton. Another one where you should pretend there never was a movie. Congo was Crichton’s pitch-perfect homage to classic jungle adventures. In this one, a team including an intelligent gorilla go in search of a lost city. Just fantastic.
- The Odyssey, Homer + Translator. At some point everyone who wants to be a writer needs to read the Odyssey, because so much of our references in Western Civilization come from here. In modern terms, the Odyssey is a fast-moving fantasy involving dangerous sirens who try to hypnotize Odysseus and his crew to the giant Cyclops. (By the way, Odysseus uses a fake name at one point, giving Jules Verne the name of his antihero: Nemo.
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain. People forget how beautiful this book is, the story of a boy making his way down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave he loves like a father. Often tense and sometimes shockingly violent, Huckleberry Finn is one of the great American classics. And man, Twain is great with a voice.
Those are my Top 5 Best Adventure Novels, but I’d stand to be corrected. I’m always looking for more to read, so send them along.
And don't forget to order your copy of Young Captain Nemo. Keep the adventure going, and share it with the kids in life.
"Armed with his wits, his friends, and his Nemotech submarine, a twelve-year-old descendant of Jules Verne’s famous antihero is determined to help make the ocean a safer place one adventure at a time in Jason Henderson's Young Captain Nemo, first in a new middle-grade series."
Monday, March 4, 2019
Castle Talk: Eyal Kless, Author of The Lost Puzzler
Eyal Kless is a classical violinist who currently teaches violin in the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University, and performs with the Israel Haydn String Quartet, which he founded. He calls in from a visit to Stuttgart to discuss his new post-apocalyptic book The Puzzler, a rich vision about the search for a boy who can unlock any puzzle.
Mysterious Island (1961): The Captain Nemo Retrospective
In anticipation of the release of Young Captain Nemo by Jason Henderson, we kick off a new retrospective on movies featuring Jules Verne's immortal Captain Nemo with the 1961 film Mysterious Island, featuring the amazing special effects of Ray Harryhausen.
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