Strap on your seatbelts and hold on tight because the pace of reading just went supersonic!
Hover Car Racer is a 2004 Australian science fiction novel by Matthew Reilly, originally released as a free serial online.
The invention of hover technology has transformed society, and one of the world's most popular sports is racing hover cars modified from traditional race cars. Fourteen-year-old Jason Chaser is an amateur racer who has been accepted into the International Race School along with his twelve-year-old adoptive brother, the Bug, an autistic math savant who acts as his navigator. Race School is a brutally competitive environment, but Jason is determined to graduate and become a professional racer.
Hover Car Racer contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The book is set "a few years from now."
- All of the Other Reindeer: Ariel Piper is the first female racer ever to be accepted into the Race School, which was male-only until recently, and she's ostracized by most of the boys. Principal LeClerq even persuades some of the students to sabotage her equipment so she'll lose races and drop out of the School.
- Artistic License – Geography: Based on the lengths of the race courses we read about, Tasmania in that book is less than a quarter of the scale it is in real life (which would also explain how the entire island being bought by the International Race School would be plausible in any way).
- Bringing Running Shoes to a Car Chase: Xavier Xonora rams into Jason, causing both of their hover cars to crash 500 meters from the Finish Line. Jason is in a position where he can't easily get out of the cockpit, so he removes the steering wheel, gives it to the Bug, and has him run the rest of the way, since according to the rules of this race, the first car to get the steering wheel across the Line wins. When the Bug has almost made it, Xavier gets his car working again and races after him. The Bug dives across the Line, holding the steering wheel in his outstretched hands, and wins by less than a foot.
- Career-Ending Injury: Scott Syracuse, Jason's mentor at the Race School, used to be a champion racer until his neurotransmitters got busted in a crash. Brain damage is the only kind of disability that can't be cured by modern medicine.
- Chekhov's Skill: Manual hovercar pit stops. In the highly automated/computer-driven world of hover-car racing they're considered so anachronistic only Jason and his team train to do them - which comes in very handy when a virus crashes all the systems in one race, leaving them with a crucial advantage.
- Crowd Chant: The audience chants "We love the Bug!" after Jason passes out during a 9G turn, and the Bug leans forward to pilot the car to the finish.
- Disqualification-Induced Victory: After Jason loses a race to Barnaby, his mechanic, Sally McDuff, discovers that Barnaby has placed a microwave emitter next to her supply of magneto drives, draining their power. Barnaby is disqualified and Jason is declared the winner.
- Down to the Last Play: Jason wins or loses several races by just a few centimeters.
- Failed Future Forecast: In-universe example. After the Italian Run a newspaper prepares two versions of the front page but prints the wrong one, leading to Jason reading a story with the headline "The Death of Jason Chaser".
- Graceful Loser: Alessandro Romba, the veteran hover car racer on the cusp of a historic Grand Slam, congratulates Jason on a good race when he wins the Masters championship, and tells him to go celebrate.
- Hates Being Touched: The Bug only lets two people in the world touch him: Jason and his mom. He won't even let his dad touch him, until he hugs him at the end of the book.
- Honey Trap: No sex is involved, but Jason's rivals, Xavier Xonora and Barnaby Becker, persuade Xavier's beautiful cousin Dido to pose as one of Jason's fans so he'll go on dates with her and tell her about his strategies and weaknesses, after which she reports back to Xavier and Barnaby.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The Bug's real name is never mentioned.
- Photographic Memory: Bug has one, allowing him to remember the way through a complicated shortcut maze.
- Punch a Wall: Jason punches his steering wheel after yet another mysterious mechanical failure causes him to lose a race.
- The Quiet One: The Bug only talks to Jason and their adopted mother, and then only in a whisper.
- Straw Misogynist: Ariel, arguably the school's best racer, has to confront a whole world of them. One actively propositions her, telling her it's the only way for a girl to get ahead in the hover car game - later, with help from Jason he unknowingly races her and she beats him as payback. Later, Principal LeClerq actively sabotages her in championship races simply because she's a girl.
- Unnecessary Roughness: Fabian and Trouveau crowd Jason on the course, trying to bump into him to force him to crash.
- The Voiceless: The Bug. He only talks directly to Jason and his mother (not his father though), and even the readers don't hear him. Except at one particularly dramatic moment.
- Wrench Wench: Sally learned about hover cars from her eight older brothers. She first built her own rocket when she was fourteen.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: Two cases. The more obvious one is Syracuse claiming that 10 out of 2000 equals 0.005% (it's actually 0.5%, or a proportion of 0.005); the less obvious one is in one of the early leaderboards - Jason has more points than would be possible for someone at such a low ranking and at that point in the year.
