Rick Brant

Last updated
Rick Brant
Rick Brant Volume1.jpg
Volume 1

AuthorJohn Blaine, pseudonym
Harold L. Goodwin
Peter J. Harkins
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreAdventure
Science
Publisher Grosset & Dunlap
Published1947-1990 (#1-24)
Media typePrint

Rick Brant is the central character in a series of 24 adventure and mystery novels by John Blaine, a pseudonym for authors Harold L. Goodwin (all titles) and Peter J. Harkins (co-author of the first three). The series was published by Grosset & Dunlap between 1947 and 1968, with the previously unpublished title The Magic Talisman printed in 1990 in a limited edition as the concluding #24. [1]

Contents

Description

The Rick Brant series has a scientific tone and was taglined as "Electronic Adventures", "Science-Adventure Stories", and finally "SCIENCE Adventures". The science in the stories is realistic for the era, unlike the more fantastic science of the Tom Swift, Jr. series.

In the series, Rick lives on Spindrift Island off the coast of New Jersey, where his father heads the Spindrift Foundation, a group of scientists. Rick is involved in various adventures at home and abroad. The Spindrift Foundation sends scientific expeditions to various foreign locations, with Rick sent along as an assistant. United States locales include New Jersey, Nevada, Virginia, and Washington D.C. Foreign locales include the Virgin Islands, Tibet, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Tahiti, India, Nepal, Egypt, Nigeria, and Europe.

Hal Goodwin was a popular science writer with a strong technical background and a sense of style unusual in the juvenile adventure-series field. The books are suspenseful, well-plotted, atmospheric, and enriched by humor and acute characterization as well as personal experience. Exotic locales such as tropical islands, the Philippine jungles, and the Himalayas are given vivid and well-researched depictions, as are a variety of specialized hobbies and professions, such as scuba diving, infrared photography, home rocketry, and the inevitable espionage work. Like the Ken Holt mystery series, the tales appeal to a slightly older audience than do comparable Grosset & Dunlap series. Ken Holt had a crossover cameo in The Flying Stingaree, and Rick lent some of his gadgets to Ken in The Mystery of the Plumed Serpent, by agreement of the two authors.

Rick is also a private pilot who owns his own airplanes and uses them in a number of the books. His first plane was a Piper Cub, presumably a Piper J-4, and his second was a "Sky Wagon", presumably a Cessna 180 Skywagon.

Main characters

Secondary characters

Various Spindrift scientists also appear through the series:

Publishing status

The publishers were averse to any suggestion of the supernatural in the series. An ambiguous end to The Blue Ghost Mystery was dropped, and an entire book (The Magic Talisman) was rejected due to its inclusion of ESP elements. This lost tale was eventually published in an independent edition in 1990.

Beginning in the 1980s, Grosset & Dunlap began transferring the copyrights to Hal Goodwin. The rights are now held by the John Blaine/Rick Brant Trust. The Goodwin family has been working to bring the works back in print, starting with the rarer final four books.

Rick Brant never graduated to any other medium of entertainment, although there are notable similarities to be found in the Jonny Quest franchise.

On November 9, 2010 an e-book, The Rick Brant Science-Adventure Series, was released on Amazon for the Kindle eReader containing eleven of the original novels.

List of titles

  1. The Rocket's Shadow (1947) Rick meets Scotty and investigates sabotage of Spindrift's experimental rocket.
  2. The Lost City (1947) Rick and Scotty journey to the Himalayas to set up a relay station to bounce a radar signal off the moon. (Chahda character introduced.)
  3. Sea Gold (1947) Rick and Scotty get jobs at a new plant to extract minerals from sea water, and investigate possible sabotage.
  4. 100 Fathoms Under (1947) Rick and Scotty travel to the South Pacific in search of an ancient archaeological artifact.
  5. The Whispering Box Mystery (1948) Rick and Scotty race against time to stop a ring of spies from using a paralyzing weapon to steal government secrets. (JANIG and Steve Ames character introduced.)
  6. The Phantom Shark (1949) Rick and Scotty cross paths with a nefarious pearl thief in the South Pacific.
  7. Smugglers' Reef (1950) Rick and Scotty use an infrared camera to gather evidence against smugglers.
  8. The Caves of Fear (1951) Rick and Scotty travel to the Himalayas again, this time to stop nuclear materials from falling into the wrong hands.
  9. Stairway to Danger (1952) Rick and Scotty battle a hardened and desperate criminal in an abandoned amusement park.
  10. The Golden Skull (1954) Rick and Scotty search for a sacred relic in the Philippines.
  11. The Wailing Octopus (1956) On a skin-diving vacation in the Virgin Islands, Rick and Scotty stumble across deadly spies.
  12. The Electronic Mind Reader (1957) Rick and Scotty are shocked as one scientist after another falls victim to a diabolical machine. (Janice Miller character introduced.)
  13. The Scarlet Lake Mystery (1958) Rick and Scotty visit a rocket base in Nevada, and encounter sabotage and a life or death situation for Rick.
  14. The Pirates of Shan (1958) Rick and Scotty search for Spindrift scientists kidnapped by pirates in the Philippines.
  15. The Blue Ghost Mystery (1960) Rick and Scotty's Virginia vacation turns into an encounter with what seems to be a Civil War ghost.
  16. The Egyptian Cat Mystery (1961) Rick and Scotty travel to Egypt and discover that an apparently unassuming cat figurine holds a secret.
  17. The Flaming Mountain (1962) Rick and Scotty aid the Spindrift Foundation's mission to save an island from an active volcano.
  18. The Flying Stingaree (1963) Intrigued by mysterious UFO sightings, Rick and Scotty battle against a group of crafty spies.
  19. The Ruby Ray Mystery (1964) Rick and Scotty walk the line between East and West only to have their allegiance questioned and their lives placed in jeopardy.
  20. The Veiled Raiders (1965) Rick and Scotty go to Nigeria to test laser/satellite communication, and are taken prisoner in the Sahara by hostile natives.
  21. Rocket Jumper (1966) Rick and Scotty use a rocket pack to save their loved ones from a fearsome plot.
  22. The Deadly Dutchman (1967) Rick and Scotty's tour of Europe is interrupted by a fiendish gem trader.
  23. Danger Below! (1968) Rick and Scotty probe the cause of the sinking of an oil rig off Spindrift.
  24. The Magic Talisman (1990) Rick and Scotty investigate mysterious goings-on in a house used for a dinner theater magic show. Unpublished by Grosset & Dunlap, this title was published by Manuscript Press in a limited edition of 500 copies.

Titles included in eBook

These titles are also available from Project Gutenberg. [2]

Related Research Articles

<i>Tom Swift Jr.</i> Fictional character in boys adventure books

Tom Swift Jr. is the central character in a series of 33 science fiction adventure novels for male adolescents, following in the tradition of the earlier Tom Swift ("Senior") novels. The series was titled The New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures. Unlike the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys titles that were also products of the prolific Stratemeyer Syndicate, the original Tom Swift stories were not rewritten in the 1950s to modernize them. It was decided that the protagonist of the new series would be the son of the earlier Tom Swift and his wife, Mary Nestor Swift; the original hero continued as a series regular, as did his pal Ned Newton. The covers were created by illustrator J. Graham Kaye. Covers in the later half of the series were mostly by Charles Brey. A total of 33 volumes were eventually published.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Hardy Boys</span> Fictional detectives and book series

The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in a series of mystery novels for young readers. The series revolves around teenage amateur sleuths, solving cases that often stumped their adult counterparts. The characters were created by American writer Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of book packaging firm Stratemeyer Syndicate. The books were written by several ghostwriters, most notably Leslie McFarlane, under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard R. Garis</span> American childrens author (1873–1962)

Howard Roger Garis was an American author, best known for a series of books that featured the character of Uncle Wiggily Longears, an engaging elderly rabbit. Many of his books were illustrated by Lansing Campbell. Garis and his wife, Lilian Garis, were possibly the most prolific children's authors of the early 20th century.

John Peel is a British writer, best known for his TV series tie-in novels and novelisations. He has written under several pseudonyms, including "John Vincent" and "Nicholas Adams". He lives on Long Island, New York. While his wife is a US citizen, Peel continues to travel under a British passport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rover Boys</span> Juvenile book series

The Rover Boys, or The Rover Boys Series for Young Americans, was a popular juvenile series written by Arthur M. Winfield, a pseudonym for Edward Stratemeyer. Thirty titles were published between 1899 and 1926 and the books remained in print for years afterward.

Joseph Lawrence Greene was an American author of science fiction novels and short stories whose most familiar creations are Tom Corbett, Space Cadet which, in 1951, became a television series popular with young audiences, as well as Dig Allen Space Explorer, a series of six books published between 1959 and 1962, which focused around the adolescent hero Dig Allen and his interplanetary adventures in the genre of boys' juvenile literature. A prolific writer, he also contributed numerous stories to comic books and was an editor, until 1972, for Grosset publishing while writing under a number of pseudonyms including, purportedly, the house pen name "Alvin Schwartz" and also "Richard Mark", and using sundry variations of his own name, which exemplified such foreign-language wordplays for "Green" as "Verdy", "Verdi" and "Vert".

Tom Swift III is the unofficial name of this series of juvenile science fiction adventure novels, the third to feature a protagonist named Tom Swift. Unlike the previous series, it was not published by the Grosset & Dunlap, but was published by Wanderer Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, which, at the tail-end of the series bought and obtained the rights of the Stratemeyer Syndicate's series. However, all gave the author as Victor Appleton, as with the previous series.

<i>Tom Quest</i> Fictional character

Tom Quest is the central character in a series of eight adventure novels for adolescent boys written by Lone Ranger series author Fran Striker. The first six novels were published by Grosset & Dunlap between 1947 and 1952. The series was later reprinted by Clover Books, when #7-8 were published. The six Grosset & Dunlap titles were issued in dust jacket; the Clover Books reprints and their two original titles have picture covers and no dust jackets. The plot of volume #8 was lifted from Striker's Gene Autry and the Redwood Pirates.

Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898.

<i>The Secret of Wildcat Swamp</i> Book by Franklin W. Dixon

The Secret of Wildcat Swamp is Volume 31 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.

<i>The Firebird Rocket</i> 1978 book by Franklin W. Dixon

The Firebird Rocket is Volume 57 in the Hardy Boys series of mystery books for children and teens published by Grosset & Dunlap. The book was written for the Stratemeyer Syndicate by Vincent Buranelli in 1978.

Harold Leland Goodwin was an American writer.

Bernard Alvin Palmer (1914–1998), born in Central City, Nebraska, United States, was the originator and author of over 165 books for Christian youth, as well as several books for adults. He created series such as the Danny Orlis series, the Felicia Cartright series, and the Pioneer Girls series, which he co-authored with his wife Marjorie Palmer.

<i>Bomba, the Jungle Boy</i> Juvenile book series

Bomba the Jungle Boy is a series of American boys' adventure books produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate under the pseudonym Roy Rockwood. and published by Cupples and Leon in the first half of the 20th century, in imitation of the successful Tarzan series.

<i>Biff Brewster</i> Book character

Biff Brewster is the central character in a series of 13 adventure and mystery novels for adolescent boys written by Andy Adams. The series was published by Grosset & Dunlap between 1960 and 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Belanger</span> American paranormal investigator

Jeff Belanger is an American writer who focuses on the paranormal. He hosts the Emmy-nominated series New England Legends and co-hosts, with Ray Auger, the New England Legends podcast. He is a writer and researcher for Ghost Adventures and has appeared on several episodes. Paranormal researcher Ben Radford calls Belanger a "ghost storyteller" rather than a "ghost investigator." In 2021, Belanger published a book about his experience reaching the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inez Haynes Irwin</span> American feminist and writer (1873–1970)

Inez Haynes Irwin was an American feminist author, journalist, member of the National Women's Party, and president of the Authors Guild. Many of her works were published under her former name Inez Haynes Gillmore. She wrote over 40 books and was active in the suffragist movement in the early 1900s. Irwin was a "rebellious and daring woman", but referred to herself as "the most timid of created beings". She died at the age of 97.

The Honey Bunch series of books were part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate's production of 20th century children's books featuring adventurous youngsters, which included the series Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and the Bobbsey Twins. This series was written under the pseudonym Helen Louise Thorndyke, and published for most of its duration by Grosset & Dunlap. The series began in 1923 and chronicled a young girl named Honey Bunch on her various trips and adventures. Along with Laura Lee Hope's series Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue, it was one of their most famous series for younger children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">S. P. Meek</span> American novelist

Sterner St. Paul Meek was an American military chemist, early science fiction author, and children's author. He published much of his work first as Capt. S.P. Meek, then, briefly, as Major S.P. Meek and, after 1933, as Col. S. P. Meek. He also published one story as Sterner St. Paul.

References

  1. Axe, John (2002). All About Collecting Boys' Series Books. Hobby House Press, Inc.
  2. "Books by Godwin, Harold L." Project Gutenberg.