Ladybird Books, £0.60, ISBN 0-7214-0727-7
Sci-fi, 1982
Before anyone asks, no, The Giants of Universal Park has nothing to do with those theme parks by Universal Studios. It’s even better.
This latest installment in the Professor Gamma series by Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle is a little less dark and scary than the previous installment, although the stakes are no less great: our Sun has been stolen, oh my goodness.
Martin Aitchison is back to do the illustrations, but the spread that greets me when I open the book is a bit disappointing compared to the previous ones that he had done.
Still, it’s nice enough, it’s just that this illustration doesn’t immediately give me a feel of the story.
Okay, it begins with an eclipse about to happen on one fine day. William’s school is taking half day off for students and teachers to go witness the eclipse, but he is skipping all that nonsense as he has better things to do: sneaking into the grounds of the neighborhood grand house and fish in the nearby stream. He reasons that, when the eclipse happens, it will be too dark for the gamekeeper to catch him in the act. Oh, isn’t he sneaky?
He is soon joined by Professor Gamma, who for some reason seems to enjoy the company of prepubescent boys. When the eclipse occurs, however, it just goes on and on and on and on… wait, what happened to the Sun?
Kiryl soon runs in to tell her father that something must have gone wrong. After all, she needs an excuse to be in the story too. She shoves a pair of binoculars to her father, pointing out that there is just a dark void where the Sun should have been.
Professor Gamma, whose power of deductions is as astounding as his power of monologuing exposition dumps, immediately realizes that his archenemy Lighto must have ordered his sons to steal the Sun.
What happens next is insane. They dematerialize—the authors’ way of saying that they take these shiny-energy pathway routes that allow one to zip across the universe very quickly—and catch two of Lighto’s sons in the act of stealing the Sun. They then speed up, pursuing those giants that can shift forms into giant boots and…
See? I’m not kidding.
Anyway, somehow William and Kiryl end up in this stadium in Universal Park, separated from Professor Gamma. They realize that the Sun is used to illuminate the stadium. These two kids are just in time too to watch the match between human-sized dwarfs that can shift forms into black holes and those giant creatures that can shift forms into boots. The “ball” is a beam of light, so the giants become boots to kick the beam while the dwarfs become black holes to “kick” the beam of light by scattering it.
Seriously, the whole thing is insane, the product of pure madcap lads, and I’m living for it.
The downside to this story is that William and Kiryl are relegated to observers in the entire story. They tag along with Professor Gamma, then they watch the match, and then they run around as Professor Gamma shows up in the last few pages to demand the Sun back.
Still, this story is just wacky and fun. It doesn’t have much real science in it as much as it is just a fun story designed to appeal to the football fans in readers. Sure, the story and the illustrations can feel tad reductive compared to the previous books in this series, but it’s still able to deliver enough fun to be a pleasant diversion.
