German Three Investigators Vampire City, Arctic Adventure, and Bite of the Beast

In Vampire City, Justus, Peter, and Bob go on a camping trip.  They end up in Yonderwood, a town in which most of the houses are locked and empty.  The boys visit the drug store, where they meet Josy, who tells them that most of the residents of the town have moved away.  One by one, people woke up in the morning with bite marks on their necks, their pillows drenched in blood.  The residents fled, believing the town to be inhabited by vampires.  Intrigued, the boys decide to solve the mystery.

The book contains mild expletives.

The plot is creative, and I greatly enjoyed this book.  It is very good.

In Arctic Adventure, the Three Investigators are asked to find out who is sabotaging the Canadian sled race.  Several mushers have dropped out of the competition due to illness and accidents.

Peter asks what "mushers" and "dehydrated" mean.  He must have lost some brain cells.  The questions are apparently asked for the benefit of the German students who are reading the book to learn English, but they make Peter seem like an idiot.

This book introduces too many characters too fast.  I couldn't keep them straight, and to be honest, I didn't try.  This caused me not to enjoy the book very much.

In Bite of the Beast, the Three Investigators look into strange events at a museum.

This book didn't grab me, and I think it was because the mystery was too vague.

In this book, we learn that the Jonas salvage yard has a rival.  Imagine that:  rival junkyards.  The Jonas salvage yard is known as T. Jonas' Secondhand Center.  The rival junkyard is named T. Madsen's Secondhand Center.

The boys have to babysit, which results in this amusing scene from page 77.

"You've used almost half a tube of toothpaste!" Peter looks down at the white ring in the washbasin and the foam over Sammy's mouth.

"We're playing rabies!" says Jamie by way of defence.

"That was Bob's toothpaste, you know: he'll punish you when he finds out.

I was not aware that children play "rabies."  How funny!

This book contains mild expletives.

I enjoyed the part about the rival junkyards, but otherwise, I did not find this book very interesting.

Rick Brant #12 Electronic Mind Reader and #13 Scarlet Lake Mystery

In Rick Brant #12, The Electronic Mind Reader, Steve Ames asks for Spindrift's help with a top secret government project.  Two scientists who were working on the project have been hospitalized with broken minds, and no one knows what happened.  Rick feels that someone has infiltrated the project, even though no evidence of infiltration can be found.  The Brants worry that the scientists on Spindrift Island will be the next victims.

This book grabbed me from the beginning.  The plot advances nicely without any boring parts.  Even the scientific descriptions were brief enough not to be annoying.

It was nice having Barby and her new friend, Jan, take a role in the plot, even though their role was secondary.

I greatly enjoyed this book.

In Rick Brant #13, The Scarlet Lake Mystery, Rick and Scotty go undercover at Scarlet Lake, a top-secret rocket launch site.  A saboteur, known as "The Earthman," has caused several projects to fail at a great loss of money.  Meanwhile, expensive electronic parts disappeared around the time of each accident. 

The boys visit several casinos, although they do not gamble since they are not old enough.  I thought it was interesting to have scenes in casinos.

Some parts of the plot are a bit hard to believe, especially the climax.  The entire time I was reading the climax, I kept asking myself how likely it was that the events would transpire as they did.  I decided that some aspects were narrowly believable, while others were not. 

This is a very good book.  As with many other Rick Brant books, I found the early part of the book to be somewhat less interesting, although I still enjoyed it.  The later part of the book is outstanding.

Readers with Strong Opinions

Some readers and collectors make extremely strong statements about how good or bad certain books are.  Sometimes their statements have a different impact than what they might have expected. 

Recently, someone made an extremely strong statement about a book.  Person A said that they were reading the book.  Person B said that it was awful.  Person A seemed surprised and stated that they were enjoying the book.  Person B said that Person A wouldn't enjoy it for much longer and that they wouldn't be able to finish the book.

Huh?  Why assume that someone will hate a book?  They might end up liking the entire book.  Just because some people do not like a book does not mean that others will not like it.  It's a shame to discourage others from reading a book.

This has also happened to me.  I recall one time when I mentioned I was going to read a series, and someone told me that I wouldn't enjoy the books.  They can't know.  I have to decide.

I try to tread lightly when others ask whether a series is good, since opinions are subjective.  Recently on Facebook, someone asked whether the Penny Nichols books are any good.  I don't like the Penny Nichols books very much, but I didn't want to discourage someone from reading Penny Nichols since all books by Mildred Wirt are worth reading.  I cautiously replied, "The Penny Nichols series is similar to the Penny Parker series. I believe most people like the books about as much as Penny Parker. I didn't like them as much as Penny Parker, but I may be in the minority in that opinion."  I was surprised when a few others agreed with me.

A second situation involves superlatives used to describe a series.  By describing a series in extremely glowing terms, readers might inadvertently set up others for disappointment.  I have had such high expectations for some series that I ended feeling letdown after I read the books.

The third situation involves fans who proclaim their love for their favorite series and in the same breath proclaim that they hate another series.  I have noticed that fans of some series do this more often than others and that they pick on a series that is more popular than their favorite series.  It's how it's mentioned and when it's mentioned that bothers me, not the fact that they don't like another series.

If you've ever noticed this, you'll know what I mean.  It's hurtful to some of us who like both series that are mentioned.  I've always wondered if I was being too sensitive, and perhaps I have been.  Someone contacted me privately and expressed frustration about some of the statements.  I guess I'm not the only one.

German Three Investigators Ghost Village and Soccer Trap

In Ghost Village, a boy named Darren asks the boys to come to Oregon to solve a mystery.  Darren is staying in Ridgelake, Oregon, and he keeps seeing a bright light shine out from the lake at night.  The Three Investigators have problems beginning their investigation, since Darren is quite excitable and has forgotten to give them key details, like how an old town lays flooded underneath the waters of the lake.

The book opens with the boys driving through Oregon wondering when they will reach Ridgelake.  Justus is using an old map from 1956 that is no longer accurate, and the other two are annoyed with him.

This book was written in 2007, and I find it interesting how the boys are not using GPS.  They use a paper map, and even worse, one that is 50 years old.

In these German books, the boys have cell phones, but they tend not to use them.  It's like the authors wanted the books to hearken back to an earlier time.

The search underwater through the submerged village is quite thrilling and harrowing.  That part of the story is quite memorable.

The first half of the book is very good, and the second half is outstanding.

In Soccer Trap, Peter has been hired as an assistant to the U.S. national soccer team.  Soon it becomes apparent that someone is sabotaging the team, after several of the players become injured.  Meanwhile, Justus suspects that their old enemy, Hugenay, may be responsible for a series of art thefts.

Here is yet another soccer story, and once again, it involves sabotage.  One of the acts of sabotage involves a large wasp nest that was placed in a player's closet in the hotel.  I tried to figure out exactly how the saboteur would manage to get the wasp nest in the closet without being stung.  It would be tricky.

This book contains mild expletives.

This book has events that remind me of several of the original Three Investigators books.  The book has a mummy.  Hugenay is mentioned.  Venice Beach is mentioned.  A jackal scares people, and this reminds me of the dancing devil.  Bob once again works for Sax Sendler, when he hasn't in most of the other German books I have read.  The Jonas family has an unwanted house guest who hears voices, which makes me think of Singing Serpent.

I have grown tired of all of the soccer stories, but this one pleasantly surprised me.  Most of the book has little to do with soccer.  Aside from the soccer scenes, this book is outstanding.

Posts That Unintentionally Offend

The most popular blog posts are the ones that mention eBay and various aspects of buying and selling on eBay.  Invariably, those are the posts that offend people.  There is something that happens when prices are mentioned that gets people worked up.  People get offended when anyone suggests that they have priced something too high.  A post this fall offended a seller.

I had no idea that my post had even a slight chance of offending anyone.  In fact, I usually don't even get a negative response to posts that I consider risky.  Whenever I get a negative response, it is unexpected.  I began that post as follows.

Recently, a collectible Nancy Drew item was put up for sale on eBay at an exorbitant price.  The item is probably worth around $25 to $35 and was priced at $1,500.  The seller stated that money was being raised to pay for medical bills.  Unfortunately, the item will likely not sell for an amount that will help unless the seller gets very lucky.

All I was doing was using an overpriced item to lead into what I wished to discuss, which is what books I would select to sell if I had to sell books quickly to raise funds.  I did not link to the eBay listing, since the point of the post had nothing to do with the listing.

Nevertheless, the seller of the listing became deeply offended and let me know how she felt on Facebook.  She thought I was judging her for listing an item high.  She took offense that I made a statement about how she would need to get lucky for the item to sell.  She chided me, telling me that I had better hope I never needed to raise funds to pay bills.  Er... I think that was the point of my post.  It could happen to me, so I was reflecting about how I would approach the situation.

I was glad that after a couple of hours that the seller came back and deleted her comments.  It was turning into an ugly situation, since another collector posted a comment bluntly critical of the seller after she complained about the blog post on Facebook.  This type of stuff doesn't need to be aired publicly.  I didn't need to know what she paid for the item or anything about her personal issues.  The seller also removed her item from eBay at about the time that she deleted her comments from Facebook.

It's never a good idea to respond to perceived criticism.  I learned several years back after some skirmishes in the comments of this blog that I should ignore any comments that have a critical tone.  I simply do not respond to them.  I said what I wanted in the post, and the reader made a response.  That's it.  There is a reason why many blogs do not allow comments.  I like getting comments when they are not negative, so I continue to allow them.

I do have an upcoming post that I think could offend some people.  If that happens and you are the one offended, remember that it's best not to go into a tirade to tell me off.  In fact, you should just ignore me and consider me an idiot.  It's a very effective technique.

Rick Brant #10 Golden Skull and #11 Wailing Octopus

In Rick Brant #10, The Golden Skull, Rick and Scotty journey to the Philippines with Tony Briotti in search of a golden skull.  The priceless artifact is said to be hidden in the mountains of the Philippines.  Soon after their arrival, the boys find themselves in danger, as others wish to find the golden skull.

Like with some of the other books in this series, the story was a little slow getting started.  The story became very interesting around page 80 and continued all the way to the end of the book.

This book is full of information about the Philippines, which I found interesting.  None of it comes across as a history lesson, which is important.  I do not like travelogue books that devote lots of text to education about the country being visited.  This book imparts information in an engaging fashion without coming across as a school lesson.

I greatly enjoyed this book.

In Rick Brant #11, The Wailing Octopus, Rick, Scotty, Tony, and Zircon travel to the Virgin Islands.  For once, the trip is purely for recreation, although Rick and Scotty hope to unearth a shipwreck and find a golden statue.  The boys encounter Steve Ames in Charlotte Amalie.  Steve asks for their help in getting rid of a man who is shadowing him.  That chance encounter puts the boys in grave danger, and multiple attempts are made on their lives.

This book starts fast without the usual extended expository introduction.  Very quickly, the reader realizes that Rick and Scotty are in grave danger from the villains, and that knowledge keeps the reader in constant suspense.  I felt tense with expectation the entire time I read this book.  The feeling was very similar to how I felt while reading The Phantom Shark.

The Phantom Shark was my favorite Rick Brant book up to that point.  I like this book even more than The Phantom Shark. This book is close to being a perfect book.  It engaging from start to finish.

Responding to Buyer Questions

I was asked this question about two Three Investigators books.

I know in the description it states something about hinges being cracked and spine slanted. I just want to make sure that these are not on the verge of falling apart when being read and that there are no missing pages.

I answered as follows.

I always check books for missing pages and don't place them up for sale. Books with missing pages are discarded. By "cracked," I mean that there is a slight crack in the hinge; as in, it is showing the early signs of separation. The hinges have not yet split, which is when they are completely separated. A slanted spine is when the spine is not square as it was when new; it is at a slant. This happens in books that have been improperly shelved over the years. Poor quality glue was used when the Three Investigators hardcover books were bound, so the hinges quite often crack or split. I can't guarantee that the hinges won't weaken further when the books are read.

I included the last line because I don't know what will happen when the book is read.  I haven't forgotten the softcover Nancy Drew book that was in one piece when I started reading it.  The book began falling apart as I read it and was in two or three pieces by the time I finished.  It was not good.

I also knew that by including the last line that I was guaranteeing that the buyer would not purchase the books.  I would rather the buyer purchase from someone else who is willing to guarantee what will happen when the books are read.

A couple months ago, I had a buyer take me to task for not including information that they felt should have been included.  Sometimes when I sell books, I am more interested in ridding myself of them than in trying to get top dollar.  I wish to get them off my hands with minimal effort, especially when I know that I will have trouble finding a buyer even at a low price.  For some books, going above and beyond does absolutely no good.  In those cases, I do not necessarily include all information that I might otherwise include.

In particular, when the book has a jacket, I might in some cases decide not to photograph the book without the jacket on it.  I realize that this could bother some prospective buyers.  I also realize that I didn't jump on it when the buyer mentioned the lack of a photo of a Ruth Fielding book; the listing only had a picture of the book with the jacket on it.  Instead of adding the photo, I replied that the book was most likely the final format since the dust jacket was the final format.  My mistake.  I was taken to task for not adding the photo, and it was suggested that using "probably" and "likely" along with the lack of a photo did not inspire confidence.  I added the photo after receiving the response, and I should have added the photo when it was first requested.

I had another buyer ask me about a matte picture cover edition of the Nancy Drew book, The Sky Phantom, that lists to Parchment on the back cover.  The buyer wanted to know if the book has the "multi scene endpapers" and if I had pictures of the endpapers and copyright page.  I also opted not to add photos in that case, either.

First of all, I replied that the description stated that the book has "black and white multi endpapers."  I explained that "black and white multi endpapers" mean the "multi scene endpapers."  I also described the endpapers as having many small scenes of black and white cover art pictures so that the buyer would know that I knew what was meant.

Next, I stated that the copyright page means nothing.  All matte printings with black and white multi endpapers have the same copyright page.  I explained how the back cover list dates the book.  Yes, I could have added photos in slightly more time than it took to type the response, but I believe buyers need to learn how to use a description that actually contains useful information so that they can draw conclusions about what is being sold.

I guess I'm being a rebel about the pictures.

I've been under a lot of stress in recent months, and I've unfortunately been catching one virus after another since the middle of September.  For that reason, I have tried not to spend large amounts of time answering buyer questions and putting up additional photos.  I don't have the patience right now.  That's why I didn't add the photo of the Ruth Fielding book when it was first requested.  That's why I didn't add photos of the Nancy Drew book.  One time in the past year, a buyer had me photograph the names written inside all of my Nancy Drew books with jackets so that she could purchase the ones where the names were neatly written or less obvious.  She ended up buying only a couple, so my time didn't really pay off.  I now wouldn't do that, and I wouldn't be worried about losing the sale.

I am trying to answer questions as briefly as I can.  I may have been curt in a few cases, but I try to avoid that even when replying with brevity.  It does little good to spend large amounts of time answering questions in great detail only to have this happen.  So unfortunately, I may not respond as well to questions as I could since I have spent so much time on them in the past and not felt that it helped.

Right now, I'm all about keeping my stress level down, and I apologize in advance if my listings do not meet your quality expectations.  I am not being sarcastic; this is simply how it is.

German Three Investigators Hollywood Horrors, Web Phantom, and Pirate's Curse

In Hollywood Horrors, the boys witness someone falling from the Hollywood sign up in the Hollywood hills.  The boys find a talisman that contains a message.  The message was written by Casey Wye, an actress who is now deceased.  The boys feel certain that the message is important and holds a clue to an important secret.

This book did not keep my interest very well, and I was rather bored.  I think this has more to do with my reaction to the story rather than how good the story actually is.

For instance, the book opens with the boys sneaking up to the Hollywood sign, solely because Peter made a bet with another boy on whether he would write his initials on the sign.  That type of behavior is not fitting for the Three Investigators, so the book lost me on the first page.  I did not enjoy it very much.

In Web Phantom, Miss Bennett, the librarian, has disappeared!  The boys fear that she has been the victim of foul play as they search for clues to her whereabouts.

I haven't been noticing the expletives in recent books, and apparently, these later books have fewer or no expletives.

We learn that the library has 4,000 books.  This seems small to me, probably because I own more than 4,000 books.

This book grabbed my attention from the first page.  It reminds me of the original Three Investigators books written by M. V. Carey.  Unfortunately, the book began to lose me halfway through, and from that point, I found it a bit boring.  Later, the book got interesting again.

This book is overall good.

In The Pirate's Curse, the boys' rival, Althena, is in trouble and leaves them her cell phone as a clue.  The boys follow a series of clues found in the photos on the phone and discover that Althena was searching for a pirate's treasure that is reputedly hidden on an island.

This passage from page 40 pays homage to Alfred Hitchcock without ever mentioning his name.

Bob parked his vehicle directly in front of the bungalow with the sign Elivira Zuckerman.  It was up one step and then through a glass door.  The reception room was not occupied.  Justus walked up to a large door and knocked.

"Come in!"

Curious, [the Three Investigators] stepped into the office.  Elvira Zuckerman sat majestically behind a gigantic desk. She stood to greet them. "Mr. Shaw contacted you about us," said Justus. "This is Bob Andrews, here is Mr. Shaw's son, Peter, and I am Justus Jonas."

While Mrs. Zuckerman came over to them, Justus winked at Peter and Bob: a picture of a famous film director hung on the wall. Mrs. Zuckerman caught the look. "An important predecessor and an important role-model. This room was once his office." Justus nodded, smiling.

This book is very good.