Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware
A Pals in Peril Tale, Book 3
M. T. Anderson
Beach Lane Books
Fiction, MG Action/Humor/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In the drab little town of Pelt, there isn't much worth getting excited about (well, excepting the odd invasion by stilt-walking whale armies, but thus far that was a one-off event). One thing that does grab the town's attention is a good sports match, particularly when it comes to the rousing game of Stare-Eyes. The high school varsity team could well make the state finals... if they can beat the champion team from Delaware, that is. But the day gets off to an inauspicious start when hordes of beetles swarm the town, as if panicked by some approaching force of great and terrible evil, and things only get worse from there.
Jasper Dash (Boy Technonaut, and star of a nearly-forgotten series of young adventurer books promoting the wonders of Gargletine breakfast drink) is the varsity team's secret weapon, having honed incredible staring powers during his stay at a remote monastery. But something is very, very strange about today's match, and the Delaware team - such as how their eyes change to slit-pupiled serpent eyes mid-match (which is clearly an illegal substitution, though the referees don't seem to notice it). And his friend Katie sees illegal artifacts being smuggled in the back of their team van. Then a psychic call for help reaches Jasper, summoning him (and his friends, Katie and ordinary girl Lily) to the wildest place on Earth, a realm of impenetrable jungles and lost cannibal tribes and mystical secrets beyond understanding, a civilization ruled by an iron-fisted despot with spies on every corner and in every spigot, a location cut off from the rest of civilization for over a hundred years by impossibly high tolls: the fabled, mystic realm of Delaware.
REVIEW: The third installment of the hilarious adventure series spoof turns its focus on exotic ethnic stereotypes as it transforms the state of Delaware into a fantastical realm out of a pulp writer's fever dream, a mythologized "Other" land with strong dashes of untrustworthy foreign governments for spice. Once more, the author flings himself gleefully into the conceit, spinning a wild and tangled yarn that hits about every "exotic adventure" trope and cliche available (and more besides). Whereas the last book progressed the characters a little, this one feels more like a holding pattern. Katie is still hoping to be a "normal" girl someday, not the weekly savior of Horror Hollow; her crush on a Stare-Eyes school champion, Choate Brinsley, ends in inevitable heartbreak (whereupon her mother reminds her of her advice never to fall for boys whose names sound like prep schools), but she makes little more effort to "normalize" her life. Jasper, meanwhile, still knows he's out of step with the rest of the world but not what to do with it... and, here, being out of step comes in handy, as he's the only one who knows the truth about Delaware. (Or is it the truth? Perhaps, as a character notes later, the Delaware they find themselves in, the tin-pot dictatorship with a sprawling capital city full of mules and goats and massive cargo-hauling tortoises from the desert lands, is the sort of place only a boy like Jasper Dash could reach, defying conventional wisdom and modern cartography and probably at least one lesser law of physics to exist.) Lily still feels out of place with her two world-saving companions, being not nearly as athletic or good in a fight or clever with a comeback, and struggles to fit in and not hold them back. But the story centers more on Jasper, who by nature cannot grow or change, as the whole adventure ties into more of his lost history; the hidden monastery where he acquired so many useful skills wasn't in Nepal or Tibet but in the misty mountains of Delaware (a state that normally has no mountains, but then normally the state doesn't have jungles or dinosaurs or kangaroo-riding cannibals or six-armed, tusked mountain tribespeople and the like, so "normal" can take a hike down the freeway). Along the way the reader is treated to some brilliant, if nonsensical, mind's-eye candy and great turns of phrase, and a few sly observations and moments that slip in sharp underneath the silliness. It's still quite a fun series overall, though one wonders if it isn't growing a touch stagnant around the edges.
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