The Accelerati Trilogy

The Accelerati Trilogy

I'm about halfway through the second book, Edison's Alley. It's a darkly hilarious set of kids books. The basic idea is that the main character, Nick Slate, accidentally sells a bunch of Nikola Tesla's inventions, which are disguised as normal household items, and not he must retrieve them before the Accelerati, a secret society founded by Thomas Edison, can acquire them and turn them into weapons. All of the inventions have weird effects loosely linked to their appearance like the dryer that can shrink anything, including living creatures, or the Speak-and-Say which always finishes your sentence with the right prophetic thing.

One of the major draws of the series is that it highlights how the technology is incredibly dangerous. People die regularly in the books and somehow, no one seems to notice, possibly as a consequence of the various Not-My-Problem Field devices that the Accelerati use regularly.

Another Shusterman book. Nice.

Yeah. I'm enjoying his stuff. I've also read Bruiser and The Schwa Was Here, both amusingly dark. Then there's the Unwind trilogy, which is fascinating in its exploration of what the abortion debate looks like if we cast teenagers as the "not human enough to deserve life" group.

And then there's The Skinjacker Trilogy.

All of Shusterman's works are very dark.

I have a headcannon that combines most of his works together in one reality, and as it turns out, when you combine them they get even darker.

edited 16th Aug '15 11:59:52 AM by Bk-notburgerking

I liked the Shut Up-N-Listen. Can we start a work page on this?