When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, I enjoyed the various “boys series” put out in uniform editions by Grossett & Dunlap-- Tom Swift Jr., Hardy Boys, etc. Most of these books appeared to have been “assembled” more than written, but two of the series stood out as having a degree of literary merit. (We’re admittedly not talking Melville, but maybe Ian Fleming without the sex.) These are the “Rick Brant Science-Adventure Stories,” and the “Ken Holt Mysteries.” The first is pseudonymously attributed to one “John Blaine,” the second to “Bruce Campbell.” It’s easy to tell that they are the same person. Anybody know who the author really was? Did he or she also have an adult fiction career? Was it perhaps (based on the pseudos) editor and SF author John W. Campbell? Any info appreciated!
Check this link. It says they’re by two people called Hal Goodwin and Peter Harkins.
Alex
The name John Blaine is very familiar… was that Rick Brant thing about two boys, one an adopted drifter, living on an island of scientists? Because I only read one book by John Blaine, involving heavy water (which was astounding to an eight year old) and it was simply awesome. Am I thinking of the right book?
Yes, Anal–pretty much. Rick Brant was the son of scientist Hartson Brant who lived on a little semi-island called Spindrift just off the New Jersey coast. The “adopted drifter” was young WWII vet Don “Scotty” Scott, Rick’s perpetual bud and cohort. I think the “heavy water” story was “The Caves of Fear”–it involved running around in pitch black caves under the Himalayas using infra-red goggles, coming across the Black Buddha, and heavy water in an underground lake.
Damn, I knew it… it’s all coming back to me now. I loved those books. That’s right, books. As I think back, I remember way too many adventures with Rick and Scotty to have only read one book. Something with a barn and a lighting rod, another with a hill that figured prominently, something about a rocket, something about a dome that increased the pressure of the atmosphere. There might’ve been one about deep sea diving.
I’ve been reading a lot of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew lately, I’m going to have to go out and get these ones now. (Believe me, you get strange looks from the Librarian. I once commented that they help lure small children into my basement and got a sever warning.)
The barn and the rocket: “The Rocket’s Shadow.”
Dome and pressure: probably “Sea Gold.”
Deep sea diving: “Danger Below!” (unless you mean scuba diving…probably “The Wailing Octopus.”)
I have the entire Brant series, and am now embarking on Ken Holt–at age 50!
Thanks for the link, Alex B! I find there was one more book beyond what I had assumed was the final volume.
Can anyone give me any advice on how to find out more about Goodwin and Harkins? If they had any life beyond Rick Brant and Ken Holt, it would have been in the period 1945-1970.