An Afterword for BANNEKER BONES AND THE CYBORG CONSPIRACY

Esteemed Reader, if you haven't read the Banneker Bones books yet, that's cool. This is mostly going to be a post about writing that anyone could read as I'll avoid any major spoilers.

But seriously, when you get time, read those books:) I'll give you the first one free.

This afterword will probably mean more to those of you who have read the books and if I'm honest, you Esteemed Readers mean mean a little more to me:) I love every book I've published (written is a different story), but I love the Banneker Bones books the most.

For all that love, these have been my hardest books to write, and this third and final(ish) Banneker Bones story was the most difficult book I've ever written. That's not entirely its fault. When I started working on this book, neither the book nor I knew we'd be working together during 2020.

And that is how I think of my relationship with my books. It's never just me and my input in a story. You wouldn't want to read it if it was. Each story has its own demands that must be met and its own tone with which it must be told. 

Because Banneker Bones and the Alligator People ended on a major cliffhanger, a lot of the early chapters in this third book had to devote their time not only to resolving the events of the previous books, but exploring their ramifications. Even in a mostly fun adventure story, I have to treat grief seriously. To do less would be to cheat Esteemed Reader. Though I tried not to dwell on it.

Is Banneker Bones and the Cyborg Conspiracy the end of The And Then Story? Not a chance. Banneker Bones and Ellicott Skullworth have plenty of adventures ahead of them.

Am I actually going to write them? That remains to be seen. I'd like to and on a long-enough time line, I probably will. But after a long break. Again, for all the fun I've had with our heroes and their villains, these books are super challenging to write.

Whatever Banneker book ends up being the last one I write, it will end on a cliffhanger. This is The And Then Story, as in, And Then something else happened. Always. 

But this wouldn't be a bad last book. A trilogy is perfectly respectable for a series and I like where everybody ends up at its conclusion. If I never write Banneker Bones 4, I'd still feel like I'd done right by my characters and told enough of their story to imply the rest.

On the other hand, there certainly is room for more story. And the nice thing about being this far along in a series is I feel I have a little more liberty than usual--not much, but some. For instance, this third book is the longest yet, and the second book was already getting a little long for middle grade. But I figure returning readers might like a little more book and a series has a way of getting more complicated and requiring more story as it goes.

This book also features chapters written from an adult's perspective. There's not many of them (8 out of 77), and they're mostly very short, but I wouldn't pull that sort of move in a standalone middle grade book. One chapter (27), not one of the short ones, is backstory we arguably don't need to understand the present story. It's indulgent in an already long book, but it fully realizes my character, compliments my theme, and deepens the story. I figure if Esteemed Reader is back for thirds, they also want a deeper story, so I'm giving them my Snyder Cut.

Banneker Bones and the Cyborg Conspiracy was always meant to read like a waking nightmare for our heroes. The fact that its author happened to be living through the actual nightmare of 2020 enhanced this. But the inherent darker aspects of the story were in early drafts planned as far back as 2009 (there was always going to be a chapter titled "virtual school" even before I lived it).

Banneker Bones and the Alligator People was a pretty dark story, especially toward the end, but I believe the third act is where our heroes should be MOST tested. I've got an inkling for a fourth adventure, but I didn't hold anything back for it. I wanted to throw everything there was at the boys to see if they could be broken.

Unlike the first two adventures where the boys discovered new "monsters" and spent many a delightful chapter being chased by and doing battle with them, this third story is different. I wanted Banneker and Ellicott to face an enemy so powerful, they couldn't beat it. And I wanted this enemy to go after them specifically in a very personal way. And I wanted it to hurt them worse than they've been hurt before (and I've already spent two books hurting them). I wanted to see how'd they'd do when pushed to their point of breaking.

The first draft was too mean and played too rough. There was a lot of blood in that draft and far more violence than in the final version. This is where I thank God for my critique partners Shannon Alexander, Laura Martin, August Mugele, and Ed Cho, who reminded me that although this is a series intended for everyone, a lot of children read it:)

Without spoiling, I let this new(ish) monster really, really hurt the boys. I'm not writing Hunger Games here, but after two books, I wanted to raise the stakes. I made the boys' injuries so central to the plot that I couldn't chicken out and remove them later. I get messages from children who've read the first two books, some as young as eight (a bit younger than I would've imagined) and I know they're looking forward to this third installment. I read these books to my son, who's seven. 

I'm aware I'm pushing a boundary in this third book that will make some ADULT readers uncomfortable.

There's nothing so dark in this story that I think it will be harmful for a young reader or I wouldn't have published it. I think a lot of my younger (but every bit as esteemed) readers will love this book more because of the particular scene in question. The violence is implied rather than shown and is actually less violent than something that happens at the end of the previous book, which all of the readers in question will have presumably finished.

I've frequently reminisced about my joy in reading The Witches by Roald Dahl as a child. Much of my joy in that book came from the fact that the witches were actually scary, not just pretend, play-it-safe-for-baby scary, as evidenced by the way they actually harmed their victims rather than merely scaring them. Also, the story's blatant sexism and other problematic elements didn't bother me as a child since I didn't pick up on them until my adult years (you try growing up white and male in a small Indiana town in the 1980s surrounded by that culture, on a diet of that media, and then determine true north your first at-bat).

Anyway, we were discussing a book I wrote:) For a third book in a series, I feel it's important to raise the stakes. For this reason alone, Esteemed Reader should hope I don't write a fourth book. Who knows what I might do to our heroes next?

I want Esteemed Reader as nervous for our heroes as I was for the boy in the back of the hotel's grand hall surrounded by all those witches. Dahl didn't hurt that boy, the witches did. I didn't hurt our heroes. the (spoiler) did. However, Dahl showed me he meant business. He wasn't going to patronize me just because I was reading "a kid's book." He took his story, and more importantly, his reader, seriously. And I so appreciated it, I was a loyal reader then and I defend him now (read around the sexism and racism, or use them as a point of discussion).

Speaking of sexism, I got an email from a woman who was reading Banneker 2 each night with her son telling me how excited she was to encounter "the queen of the alligator people." I adore all messages from readers, but I particularly enjoyed this one as introducing strong female characters is something I've been consciously doing since the first book, and not just heroes.

The first book is very boy centric. I started with two boys forming a friendship because that's the sort of friendship I had and remember fondly from my own youth. I always wanted the villain to be a rich white man ala Lex Luthor and Kingpin because those sorts of villains actually exist. Reggie was nearly a girl, but Reggie's main plot function for two books is to be in need of rescuing, and I didn't think it was fair to saddle the lone girl character with that. 

So I settled for working in strong female characters in everywhere I could. Both the boys' mothers are admirable in different ways, Grandma Juanita's my favorite, and Ling always makes me smile. In Book 2, I added in more strong female characters and continued that through Book 3. If there is a book 4, I expect Padma Perkins to play a much larger role and I think Marianna Morales will continue to rise in status as Latimer City's number one reporter as Chip Lieberman fades into obscurity. 

One regret, however, is that I should've made the President in Book 1 a woman. The reason I didn't is because he started out as an actual President and then got revised to a fictional one (definitely the right call, thanks Uwe Stender for the suggestion). Still, it's been bugging me since that book was published, enough so that there's a tiny subplot around the election of a new President in this third book. Not to descend into politics, but I feel Elizabeth Warren was the best candidate for President we've ever had (if you feel differently, I don't care, it's fine, my Indiana vote didn't count in any primaries anyway). I hate the way the media treated her and the manner in which I frequently heard so brilliant a leader unfairly disparaged. 

My main motivation is always to tell a good story I think Esteemed Reader will enjoy, but fiction is political even if it tries not to be. I've made no secret of the fact that one of my secondary motivations for writing Banneker was to normalize adventures about an interracial family without directly addressing issues of race--who has time to worry about that stuff when giant robot bugs keep attacking:) But while I'm at it, I also wanted to normalize women in positions of power and neurodiversity and, perhaps most urgently, alligator people (among other concerns).

One other reason for me to consider stepping away from this series permanently is that technology moves almost faster than I can imagine and write. When I wrote the very first draft of Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees, Ellicott's beloved Jukebook was a tablet that could hold any book. Thassit. That was the miraculous device I yearned to own in a futuristic world... and then a Kindle released in November of that year and I had to think of more advanced things for the Jukebook to do.

Between virtual reality and augmented reality, I suspect the lovely videogames my characters play on their holocoputer will seem quant within my lifetime (fine with me, gimme them games). Robots are advancing in ways I did not foresee, and I suspect I'm wrong about a whole lot of other stuff. That's okay, we had fun. 

So, it's at least possible the ending of this third book is my stop, where I'll get off and you'll continue on without me. This most recent cliffhanger ending opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities, doesn't it? If I come back for more, I'll not lack for opportunities for new adventures.

But maybe it's better if you do it, Esteemed Reader. Why not? You've been half the team all along.

That's how this works. Me writing things down doesn't do any good unless you imagine them with me and create Banneker's world in your mind. All the pieces of that world we created together are still there. What do you think happens next, Esteemed Reader? I bet that story is at least as interesting as anything I could come up with and probably more so.

Here, I'll start you off: And then...

Reviews, Interviews, and Guest Posts for BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES

If you have a blog or a site and you'd like to interview me or have me over for a guest post, I'd be thrilled. Just ask.

If you've written a review of the book, let me know and I'll link to it here.

Reviews

"It's a good one for readers who like smart kids using really cool technology to save the day!  Banneker is a borderline sociopath and an utter snot, but the utterness of his snot-ness is so great as to be amusing.   Ellicott, on the other hand, is a nice kid, easy to relate too.  And the technology (jet packs and holographic games, as well as the giant robot bees) will delight the young technophile."
Charlotte's Library

Five Out Of Five Bookworms! "This is a really cool book. Mr. Kent has written a unique story where the government’s fear is that robots will be taking over everyone’s jobs. And Banneker’s family are the ones making the robots. I like the fact that Banneker Bones isn’t the main character, and that he’s a jerk. It provided a lot of humor in the story. Ellicott is a great kid that you really feel for."

This Kid Reviews Books

"Mr. Kent has created a work that reads a bit like Sherlock Holmes meets Sci Fi pulp  meets Richie Rich in this near future middle grade science fiction adventure... a highly entertaining and interesting story that  dives into its subject matter with passion and enthusiasm."
View From The Tesseract

"This wonderful story made me laugh, cry, and all other emotions in between! It's a terrific read for all ages to enjoy! I loved it!"

Amazon Reviews

"If my nine-year-old son could review this, and believe me, he wants to, he'd give it ten stars. Five just isn't enough. He was instantly drawn into the story. He laughed throughout."

Goodreads Reviews

Interviews

A discussion about writing middle grade versus young adult and adult with Jessica Lawson at Falling Leaflets

Guest Posts

Rambling About Voltaire and Indie Publishing While Parenting at Literary Rambles

An Afterword for BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES Part Three: Let's Talk About Bees (and economics)

This is the final part of a three-part afterword for Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees. If you read the first two parts, surely you've read the book by now, but if you haven't (why not? It's so much better than these blog posts), beware of casual spoilers ahead. In the first part of this post, I discussed race and my inspiration for the novel. In the second part, I told you my wacky beliefs about writing being magical rather than a rational artistic process involving the subconscious, which it probably is, but man it sure feels magic. So that just leaves us with a discussion of Richard Adams, robot bees, and economics (naturally).

So, as I explained in agonizing detail last part, Banneker took over my story and made me change the whole thing, bumping my planned plot involving alligator people to book two. Probably, that's just as well. Alligator people are an involved antagonist and Banneker had declared himself an antagonist for much of this first story. When Banneker did what he did, he changed the whole genre I was writing in. This was no longer primarily a science fiction adventure/mystery, though it's still all of those things as well. It was (spoiler and don't let young boys read this lest it kill sales) a love story.

No, really. Although there's a kidnapping and a great deal of action involving jet packs and robot bees, the plot of Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees is that of a romance novel. It's a Bro-mance. I can show you my original outline and notes (maybe someday I'll stick them in a special edition release), but the giant robot bees don't make their first appearance until Chapter 37, nearly halfway through the book, and I barely even mention them before then. If this were simply a mystery plot involving a ransom, halfway through the book is way too late in the game to introduce the villains. I'd never get away with it if the primary plot wasn't about something else, and it is.

The primary plot is introduced in Chapter 1, as it should be. Ellicott Skullworth is a lonely boy setting out on an adventure, the shy heroine of any first romance. When he arrives at Latimer City, he meets a dashing rogue in Banneker (also lonely) and naturally they hate each other, but the reader just knows by the last chapter they're going to be friends. Obviously, there's no kissing or stirring of passions, but there is a culminating bro-hug complete with back patting. Not all love is romantic love and a best friend is something every eleven-year-old boy, too young yet for actual romance, longs for. Mrs. Ninja is the love of my life, but Adam Smith, who illustrated the novel, has been my best friend since the third grade. There's never been any romance between us (I could do better), but our relationship means a great deal to me and he knows things about me Mrs. Ninja doesn't by virtue of having been around longer.

Before I wrote books, I wrote screenplays and I started my writing journey in film school. I wrote 8 screenplays before I realized I liked writing more than movie making (less compromise) and became a barely employable English major. My favorite of all my screenplays was one called Giant Robot Bees From Outer Space (best title evah!). I liked it so much I've promised myself I'll still make the movie one day even though I know I won't. It was a tale of beekeeping brothers in love with the same woman who discover the honey of the giant robot bees from space who've recently arrived is delicious and the brothers attack their hive for one big score. Man, it would've made a good movie if I had the budget to pull it off (never got close), but it wouldn't work as a horror novel for adults. Movies can be funny and scary at the same time, but I think books (outside of Stephen King's hilarious satire Needful Things) have a harder time of it.

But the giant robot bees seem perfectly at home in middle grade and the nice thing about writing books is I don't have to worry about a production budget. Should someone ever be crazy enough to make a live-action Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees movie, they have my sympathy trying to afford all the robot special effects in this story. I don't have to worry about how much it costs to bring the bees back in sequels, so I probably will. The lesson here for writers is never throw anything out. Always keep a copy of your previous work because you never know when you might find a good idea or two worth transporting to a fresh story.

I've said Banneker Bones is a lot like me, and he really is. I feel connected to Ellicott also, but unfortunately for my parents, I was much closer to Banneker at age eleven. One way in which we are exactly the same is in our aversion to bees. I've written horror for older readers, but nothing in those stories scares me as much as bees.

Back when I was making movies on no budget, I devised an overhead shot by sitting on the edge of a five-story parking garage and filming the actors below. All went well until a bee flew into my face, causing me to panic and topple over the edge. I didn't fall because Adam Smith caught me (and swatted the bee away), which is one of many reasons it's nice to have a best friend. If I could explain my irrational fear of tiny insects to which I'm not allergic (I think, though I've always run screaming before I could be stung), it wouldn't be an irrational fear. To this day, when a bee flies close, it requires every ounce of willpower I have to remind myself I'm a grown man and running would be embarrassing.

Another quality of Banneker Bones is that he's very wealthy, which comes in handy as I'll need him to have all sorts of gadgets and resources. As he's modeled after Batman (though nowhere near as glum as Banneker's parents are very much alive), I haven't deviated from the formula that he has no superpower apart from cold hard cash. I've always thought of the Bruce Wayne archetype as extremely optimistic. Wouldn't it be nice if the super-rich and affluent devoted their time and considerable resources to improving society and benefiting the least of us the way most of us like to think we would do in the same position?

If I were a different writer, I might be able to ignore the fact that Banneker is a member of the richest 1%, but economics are a passion of mine. On top of the wealth of the Bones family there are robots in Banneker's world, displacing human workers the way automation has been steadily displacing them in the real world. If I currently made my living driving a truck, a cab, or a bus, the emergence of self-driving vehicles would make me very nervous indeed. Younger readers are growing up in a time of complete social revolution, so the issues of Banneker's world are the issues of their world.

I myself am extremely wealthy by world-wide standards (so are you, probably, if you're reading this in North America) and by historical standards, there are kings who haven't lived as extravagantly as I do (I have a PS4, after all). I'm writing this from an air-conditioned home office after breakfast and before lunch. Mrs. Ninja and I have two cars, smart phones, and we've lived into our thirties without contracting a terrible disease. In the lottery of birth, we landed in the United States where we were taught to read and write (no need for this afterword without that), so in the grand scheme of things, we're doing pretty well for ourselves. Like most Americans, we don't appreciate this nearly enough.

For a decade, I've been working various financial consultant positions, so I can also appreciate how many people have a whole lot more money than us and I was working as a stockbroker in 2008 when economics jumped to the forefront of everyone's mind. I read Wall Street news each and every day and during 2008 I became utterly fascinated by how our financial system actually works (not the way we're told in school). It's no coincidence that at this same time I became interested in conspiracy theories, given the vast and sickening conspiracies the actual news was reporting. And when I read these smug banking CEOs explain why it was okay they'd stolen from America and betrayed the country, they frequently referenced the work of an important author and philosopher: Ayn Rand.

So I read some of her books and my blood ran cold. Actually, at first I laughed because surely no one could've taken this poor insane woman seriously. But, of course, many important people had, including such key folks as former Chairman of the Treasury Alan Greenspan. And as I looked at the world around me, suddenly it made sense. Atlas Shrugged is like a decoder ring for understanding the way our present society has formed.

The bottom line for most every major problem in America is someone thinking it's okay to put profit above the well being of others. Sure, soda and processed food companies are poisoning children and weakening the entire country, but they're making a lot of money; sure, trickster bankers destroyed lives and communities, but they made a lot of money; sure, for-profit American prisons have the largest incarceration numbers in the world, but they're making a lot of money, etcetera, ecetera forever. Not every issue boils down to greed, but most do, and so it makes sense that many Americans would champion the work of the philosopher who framed selfishness as a virtue.

Astute Readers may notice there is a character in Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees named Mr. Rand. I assure you, this is a complete coincidence. Although she didn't make the final cut for this first book, in the coming books we'll meet Mr. Rand's dog, Ayn. This name is also a complete coincidence and in no way relevant to the promised economic parables to come in this series--because younger readers love economic parables:)

But not to worry. The thing I love most about The And Then Story is that there's always another adventure ahead. Fun and excitement will always be my first, second, third, fourth, and fifth concern. But I do feel that so long as I have an audience, particularly a young audience, I should make sure that whatever I say to them is worth saying. As they're inheriting this mess America finds itself in, one message I want to proclaim is selfishness is not a virtue and its not okay. We need to rethink our national idea of wealth as it relates to an individual's value and though I don't have any answers, I intend to continue asking the questions in this series.

And that's it, except to talk about Richard Adams. Regular Esteemed Readers know that I interviewed Richard Adams for this blog in 2011 and that I was able to tell him what his book, Watership Down, meant to me. After the interview, I told him Watership Down was actually referenced multiple times in the book I had on submission to publishers and offered to send him a copy. He was so amused by this he offered me the blurb on Banneker's cover (and every other place I could paste it).

I remember the day I got a response from him featuring his blurb as one of the proudest, happiest moments of my writing life. I sent his words to my agent and my wife and then I cried just a little. Only another writer can really understand the pain of spending hours upon hours alone crafting manuscript after manuscript, hoping and praying that someone, somewhere will think you're not crazy, only to be rejected by editors and agents for reasons that don't seem to make any sense. Future writers may not be able to relate ("Wait, you mean writers once had to beg publishing conglomerates to take total control of their lifetime rights in exchange for a pittance and minimal marketing? Really? And writers put up with that!?!"), given that anyone, anywhere can now publish their work.

But the day I got Richard Adams' kind words about my writing, I knew this story would find readers, somehow, someway. There were a lot of protracted discussions with publishers that followed, so many "yes's" followed by "no's" that I prefer not to relive them all here. Through it all, I had Richard Adams' words and the words of the students who read early copies to convince me I wasn't crazy, and one day this story would find readers.

Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees is the fourth book I'm publishing, but it's the reason I published the other ones at all. As much as I love my scary stories, I only published them first so that I could make any newbie mistakes with them. All Together Now was a sacrificial lamb to clear the way for this story, which is the story I've always wanted to tell. As of now, it's available around the world to readers of all ages and it will find them, somehow, someway.

Richard Adams gave me the gift of hope. If it hadn't been for his endorsement, I might've put Banneker back on the shelf and tried traditional publishing again with some other book (possibly with an all-white cast). And I would've always regretted it. Instead, with the confidence that the author of Watership Down thought my book worthy of reading, I did something different.

The version of Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees now available with a brilliant cover by Steven Novak and wonderful illustrations by Adam Smith is the book I dreamed it would be. It's the reason I spent all those years rewriting and reworking it. It's my heart, made print. It's a book I placed on my son's shelf and when he gets old enough to read it, it will be waiting for him.

An Afterword for BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES Part Two: Let's Talk About Magic (and, of course, Batman)

This is a continuation of the three-part afterword for Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees. If you're reading this after reading part one and you haven't read the book, you're obviously interested. I promise the actual book is better than this afterword for it, so why not go read it, then come back so you don't have to worry about the spoilers ahead. You can try out the first five chapters for free here.

From this sentence forward, I'm assuming any Esteemed Readers still with me have read the book, so I'm not going to worry about casually dropping spoilers.

I've talked elsewhere about how writing involves an element of magic. Whether it actually does or whether my subconscious simply plays wacky tricks on me, I prefer to believe in magic. Encountering that magic is one of my chief reasons for writing. When I try to explain this to non-writers I get met with blank stares and people nodding while slowly backing away. Fair enough.

Writing is tedious and hard and takes a whole lot of time and effort, frequently without paying back a fraction of what it costs in labor. Believing in magic enables me to do my job. And besides, magic is the only way I know to explain Banneker Bones. If you can think of a more rational explanation, keep it to yourself please, as I still have to write the rest of Banneker Bones 2 and I'll need confidence in magic to get me through:)

I had a plan. I had an outline and I even had a title: Banneker Bones and the Case of the Alligator People. I knew this story was the first in a series I would call The And Then Story, named after the way I used to tell stories as a child, excited and out of breath, unable to speak the words fast enough, and never getting to the end, because and then something else happened. When I was three, I amused my relatives and a waitress by telling a story about Snoopy that lasted a nice dinner because every time I approached an ending, I'd say "and then."

And so it's to be with Banneker Bones. I don't know what's going to happen in this series. I wish I were J.K. Rowling (who doesn't?) with a master plan for seven intricately entwined novels adding up to a cohesive whole. I'm sure my readers also wish I were J.K. Rowling, but I'm not, and beyond the second story in this series, I don't have a plan. I can see as far ahead as what I'm writing now and that's it. But at the end of Banneker 2, I'll write "and then" and eventually Banneker 3 will present itself.

And after all, Batman, on whom Banneker is based, and who himself is a rip-off of Zorro, is an "and then story." Batman never really retires, whatever silly-third-movie-making-when-he-shoulda-stopped-at-two Christopher Nolan thinks, and Batman's story is never really over. There's always another villain to fight and another chance to save people and/or Gotham City and/or the world/universe/multiverse.

When I decided Banneker was a story without an ending, I knew I had to model him after the one story I never get tired of reading. I could lie and pretend not to follow comics (who is this Batman character you speak of?) and claim Banneker was a completely original idea (no such thing), but the entire contents of this blog, this review in particular, and the fact that every third picture that has ever been taken of me is of me wearing a Batman T-shirt would prove me a liar:)

Not to worry, I've hidden references to Batman throughout this and my other books to acknowledge my debt. When I get to writer heaven, if Bob Kane feels sore about it, we can fight it out. There's a character in this story named Frank Nolan Kane, which is hands down the nerdiest name I've ever given any character in any story. His first name was nearly Tim, but in a fight between The Dark Knight Returns and Batman (1989), Frank Miller wins. Not to worry, there's a Mayor Burton late in the story and a bright red phone kept under a glass case. My wife and son aren't the only ones this story is a love letter to:) Batman fans may note there is no character in this story named "Joel" or "Schumacher" as Batman and Robin can never be forgiven.

For this first book in the series, my goals were modest: introduce my characters and their world and try not to rule out any future possibilities. Latimer City is a big place and there all sorts of interesting people and things waiting to encounter our heroes and when they arrive, I'll be just as surprised as Esteemed Reader. In Book One, I've simply tried not to preclude the possibilities of all the adventures to come.

The And Then Story has a little bit of everything. I've rarely been so happy as when I spent a morning writing a long chapter for this book (the chapters were made shorter in revisions) that opened with an attack by velociraptors and closed with an attack by sharks. There aren't any aliens in this story (unless they look like people, and they might) and no one travels through time, but I've got a lot of books to fill, so we may see both those things in future Banneker sequels. All Together Now: A Zombie Story was originally envisioned as Banneker 3 until the tone of that story ruled it out for middle grade readers (Banneker will never be that dark). This series will end when I'm no longer able to write it. The book I write before an asteroid strikes me will simply be the last one. Until then, there's always going to be another Banneker whether I write it down or not.

So, knowing going in that I was writing a book with no ending, I did my best to pick characters I like and would want to spend multiple books with. In college, I had a girlfriend who believed whole-heartedly in astrology and she quoted a never-ending stream of pseudo science at me and all I really remember from the hours of nonsense spewed (her being very attractive the whole time) is that I was born on an astrological cusp between the signs of Leo and Virgo, which is a most conflicting spot. Virgo is the shy worker, Leo is the proud dreamer, and a person such as myself born smack dab in the center exhibits both qualities in almost equal measure. I don't know that anything else in astrology is reliable, but that internal conflict of personality explained to me much of my behavior throughout my life.

And so in picking characters that would always be interesting to me, I centered them in this very conflict (I never get tired of writing about myself!). Ellicott is too shy for his own good and Banneker is too proud for his own good. From experience, I know that both humility and confidence serve a person well and so my boy-genius detectives balance each other. As a writer, it does me no good to believe my book is the best thing ever written as I need to revise, rewrite, and make it better. On the other hand, if I weren't an egomaniac believing everything I write is probably going to be the best thing ever written, I wouldn't write anything. Poor Mrs. Ninja is good enough to put up with me on the days I'm convinced I'm a literary lion and on the days when I despair I'm a no-talent hack.

Getting back to the plan, my outline called for Ellicott to be summoned to the Archimedes Program in Latimer City where he would meet his cousin Banneker Bones and the two would set off on an adventure involving alligator people (I thought it was funny to introduce robots to the story, then ignore them in favor of a plot about biological monsters). It was a simple plan. The first five chapters would introduce Ellicott and tell the story of his leaving Brownsborough, Indiana for Latimer City, all of which would be ordinary and plain like the black-and-white scenes of The Wizard of Oz (big thanks to literary agent Amy Tipton for the suggestion). Once in Latimer City, I would introduce robots and other fantastic elements, colorizing the world. At chapter six, Ellicott would meet Banneker, the two would become friends, and the rest of the book would revolve around alligator people.

And so, I was minding my business, writing my story, and when I got to the part where Ellicott reaches Latimer City, he and his mother are attacked by a security robot, which is quite dramatic and fun. Not to worry, the security robot is stopped and no one gets hurt (I warned you there'd be spoilers). And then in Chapter Six, this happened:

     From the end of the hall, Ellicott heard a sound like someone choking on a peanut butter sandwich. When he looked, he saw a boy about his age with dark skin standing in the far doorway, his hand cupped to his mouth to hold in his wild laughter.

     All Ellicott could see of the boy’s face was his hand, the trilby hat he was wearing, and his huge, square glasses. But that was enough.

     So, this was the world-famous Banneker Bones.

What the heck is that!?! I didn't write Chapter Seven until a month later. I had a perfectly good outline and Banneker Bones made me throw the whole thing out. In the story, he's laughing at Ellicott, but I assure you, he's also laughing at me. Because Banneker decided to sick the security robot on Ellicott all on his own. I didn't decide it, nor was I consulted. He just did it and I couldn't make him not do it, even though there was no room in the outline for such shenanigans.

It turned out Banneker Bones was kind of a jerk. He didn't want to share his room with Ellicott and he was determined to get his cousin sent home. And this is why I say writing is magic. Banneker Bones exists as a character in another reality I've had the good fortune to meet. If he were solely my creation or under my control, he would've saved me a whole lot of time and played his role the way the outline called for. But noooo, he had to do things his own way and that's when I realized I was in Banneker's world. I serve his needs, not the other way around.

So for chapter after chapter, Banneker tortured Ellicott and in Chapter Twenty-Four he decided to moon all of Latimer City while flying a jet pack. By the time Banneker was done doing exactly what he wanted, he'd completely altered the plot of the book and there was no longer enough space left for the alligator people, who got bumped to book two (as long as Banneker's okay with it, so we'll see). For this reason, I haven't bothered outlining the coming stories. It wouldn't matter if I did.

Banneker does what he wants the way he wants. I just write it down. He doesn't care that Ellicott is technically the protagonist of this book. It's his name in the title much bigger on the cover than the other words because that's the way he wants it.

But not to worry, I got my revenge on Banneker. While I was passing on many of my own attributes to him (embarrassing as some of them may be), I gave him my greatest fear: bees. Then I set some giant robot bees after him and every time they attacked him I'd laugh the way he laughed at me and I'd think that's what you get for screwing up my story! But of course, without Banneker, there wouldn't be any story in the first place.

Join me in part three for further discussion of bees, a shout-out to Richard Adams, and as usual, a session of making fun of Ayn Rand (something else I never get tired of).

An Afterword for BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES Part One: Let's Talk About Race (and get it over with)

The following is a three-part afterword for Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees. You don't have to have read the book to read this first post (I'm saving heavy spoilers for parts 2 and 3). I'm mostly going to talk about the book, but I'm also going to talk about race.

Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees isn't about race. In fact, the story goes out of its way to avoid the topic of race and I have no plans to address it in Banneker's future adventures (I'm well into writing part 2 now), though I have and will continue to address it in books outside of this series. The way I see it, by not addressing race in the Banneker Bones books, I'm making my biggest statement on the subject.

This book is about love. Honestly, as giant robot bees are a nightmare of mine from childhood, it's also about fear. But it's mostly about love:)

I can't tell you where most of my ideas come from--they just sort of come to me, usually when I'm thinking about something else. But I can tell you exactly where I was when I had the idea for this story: Seven years ago, I was driving on Indiana's most boring highway (it's nothing but cornfields and a creepy white church I inserted into my zombie tales) and talking with my future wife about an adult horror book I was no longer enjoying writing. I'd previously written some middle grade books and I'd very nearly had one of them published by a major house (back when there were more than five of them), which let me know I should probably write another. 

Most every middle grade book I read at that time was a knock off of Harry Potter: likable protagonist with surprising supernatural ability gets word that he/she has been invited to live someplace magical where hi-jinks ensue. Fair enough. This plot was old when J.K. Rowling got hold of it and it's likely to stay with us long after both she and I and all the other writers currently taking a shot at it are gone. Still, reading those books got me thinking. If an owl were to have brought me a letter when I was eleven, where would I most have wanted to have been invited?

I was also in my late twenties and a new candidate named Barack Obama looked like he had a shot at being President, which was good because I was a white man deeply and truly and forever in love with a black woman and looking for signs that our one day having a child in traditionally racist America wasn't a terrible idea. 

It was this line of thinking that led me to start poking around bookstores in search of books our child might one day read and I saw something that had always been true, I just hadn't ever really seen it: the section for books about black kids was sparse and depressing. There are several great books for children of all races written by authors of all races, but white kids have long had a lot more media available to them staring white kids. Growing up white in a small Indiana town, this had never struck me as unusual. I was white and so was almost everyone I knew. 

But looking at the kids bookshelves as an adult and future father of a half-black child, I didn't care for the looks of all those white kids on book covers as far as the eye could see. The one-shelf selection of books about black kids was mostly books about the civil rights movement and slavery, both of which are important, and both of which make for lousy leisure reading. Where were the books about black kids going to magic school, or riding a giant peach, or touring a chocolate factory? There were books about white kids having exciting adventures with their black friends, but that's not the same thing at all, and there were no books about biracial kids having adventures.

Obviously, there is no requirement that the character of a book be similar to the reader. I have enjoyed reading Watership Down numerous times despite not being a rabbit. One reason we read is to gain perspective from points of view unlike our own. Still, for there to be NO books whatsoever about biracial children in the largest bookstore in Indiana's largest city--it didn't sit well with me.

And so, getting back to that car ride with my future wife, I was complaining about this very thing and she told me it had always been that way for her. When she was a kid, her father read her Black History flashcards so she would know this country was not built by white people alone. And she always fantasized about one day writing a version of Encyclopedia Brown staring a black detective she'd named Banneker Jones, after the flashcard for Benjamin Banneker. 

I had two responses to that: 1. Great name, but Indiana Jones pretty well used up "Jones" for everyone, so his name should be Bones and his sidekick would be Skullworth, which struck me as a funny name. 2. Batman was the world's greatest detective:) 

And that pretty well got my wheels turning, because the answer to my previous question was: If an owl had brought me an invitation to go anywhere when I was eleven, I would've picked Gotham City. If that owl came today, I'd opt for a nice beach, but as a child I didn't know that red 'R' Robin wears on his chest may as well be a target and being Batman's sidekick has long been a fantasy of mine--not sure what it says about me that I imagined myself in that role and not the cape and cowl. 

For more than a year I sat on the story while working on something else, and little by little all the pieces fell into place. I would take the viewpoint of the sidekick, who like me, was a lonely white boy growing up in a small Indiana town trapped in a school he found less than interesting, and I'd make my dream come true for him. And the star of the show would be a biracial boy detective who in many ways is probably a more accurate version of myself at age eleven (my apologies to my poor parents).

And most important to me, the story would mention race just the once, and then drop it:

Ellicott wondered what it would be like to live in a family in which everyone was a different skin color. Most of the families in Brownsborough were all one skin color, including his. Now that he considered it, he supposed it was sort of boring that way.

I identify the race of each character, and then I tell the story of what happens to them. This isn't a book about slavery or civil rights or the racism so many have had to overcome and are still overcoming. Those books are available and should be read, but this book is for my son. So when he goes to find a book about a boy who looks like him, here's one that's just for fun. Banneker Bones rides a jet pack and has a robot butler and is too busy getting in adventures to worry about what it means to have a white father and a black mother or to care what other people might think of it. When it came time to do the book's cover, I asked artists Adam Smith and Steven Novak to make Banneker look like this guy:

I don't spend a great deal of my time worrying about what it means to be married to a black woman. It's not that "I don't see race." My wife has very nice skin and I like seeing it. Growing up black in Ronald Reagan's America has gone a long way to making her who she is, and that's the person I love most. But usually the only time the subject of our different races comes up is when some external person or situation brings it to our attention and then we remember, oh yeah, that's still a thing for some people.

Banneker Bones lives in a world that's moved past all that. He lives in the world I want for my son (but with fewer robot bees). And I'm pleased to say that the real world is slowly moving in that direction, even if it takes forever. Racism will never die, it will only multiply--it's too useful a tool of conformity and social control and we can't realistically divide all people permanently into shirts and skins. But I do think we're approaching a time of a browner, more unified America (it's all of us versus the 1%), and that angry racist buzzing you hear in the media is just old wasps who know winter is coming and their time is nearly done.

I've been reworking Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees for half a decade now. Of all the books I've yet written, it's my favorite and the most important to me. It's the reason I started this blog and the reason I decided to publish independently. Many individual editors at traditional publishing houses were interested and no one could've fought harder for this book than my agent, Uwe Stender, but you try getting a book about a biracial boy past an editorial board, let alone one written by a white guy from Indiana.

The story of Ellicott Skullworth finding a home in Latimer City (I totally used those flashcards for names throughout the book) is the story of me falling in love and finding my own home. It's a love story for my wife and it's a book written with love for my son.

In the 2nd and 3rd parts of this afterword, I'll talk more about the plot of this book and the choices I made because regular Esteemed Readers like it when I talk about those things. Now that we've discussed race, let's please, please, please talk about something more interesting:)

Book Review: BANNEKER BONES AND THE GIANT ROBOT BEES by Rob Kent

First Paragraph(s): IN SOME WAYS, SCHOOL IS better than prison. Not many, but some.

     Like prison, school is all about routine. At 5:30 each morning, Ellicott Skullworth’s mother woke him. At 6:30 he rode the school bus. At 7:00 the first bell rang and class began, recess was at 9:30, lunch was at 12:30, second recess was at 1:30, and the final bell rang at 3:00.

     Ellicott rode the bus home and at 5:30 the next morning it began again. Each day the same as the last, the same as the next: an infinite stretch of the same miserable day to be lived over and over again.

     The day Ellicott Skullworth’s life changed forever began just this way.

Esteemed Reader, this week's book is the greatest novel ever written by a man. All literature from Homer to Shakespere to Stephen King has served only as steps toward the creation of this sacred tome that is the absolute finest literary work humanity has ever produced. Upon reading Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees (my, even the title takes my breath), J.K. Rowling will despair and wonder how she ever thought herself a capable writer. I'm sure other authors will publish novels, but now that this book exists, you have to wonder why they'll bother.

That concludes the review portion of this post:) Not sure what the author's opinion of his own book does for you. Though I'm joking (mostly) in the paragraph above, I do love this book. Therefore, my opinion is not to be trusted and we can ignore it.

As I did with my review of humanity's second greatest novel, All Together Now: A Zombie Story, I'm mostly just going to tell you about the book and why the author made some of the choices he did, just as I do every Book of the Week post. Except this week I don't have to guess why the author did what he did because he is me, and unknowable subconscious motivations aside, I remember exactly why the author made most of the choices he did.

On Thursday we'll have Rob(ert) Kent here (as we do each and every day) to face the 7 Questions. I was available previously, of course, but I've made myself wait until I was truly a middle grade author. All Together Now is so dark it just barely qualifies as a YA novel. Pizza Delivery and All Right Now are explicitly intended for older readers, and I'm going to eventually write more horror (couldn't stop if I wanted to), but Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees is a fun and happy and gloriously middle grade story with no zombies (pity) and it's my favorite. 

It's not that I don't love my other books. They're each a piece of my heart, but Banneker Bones is the biggest piece. I often think of my stories as love affairs Mrs. Ninja is okay with my having. I get swept up in them, they occupy my every thought, and I learn and grow as a result. If All Together Now was a full-fledged relationship, and it was, then Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees, the first book in a planned series, is a marriage. This is the story I've brought home to meet my parents and that I'm committing myself to for life. 

In fact, this book is the reason my blog is the Middle Grade Ninja and not the Adult Horror Ninja. Years ago, when I started this blog, I came to a point when I was pressured to choose which type of writer I wanted to be under the traditional publishing system. It was Banneker Bones that convinced me to focus on writing family friendly stories, though later I obviously decided choosing was silly and now I write what I want. But if Esteemed Reader only ever reads one story I've written, to date I would want it to be this story.

Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees is the book I wish I'd had to read when I was eleven and it's a book I've written for my son. I talk more about this in The Afterword (link coming next week after you've had a chance to read the book), but I knew from the start Banneker Bones would be the star of multiple novels, so I've infused his world with all my favorite things (lots of robots and monsters and robot monsters) to ensure I never get tired of writing sequels. He's an archetype (always a good idea for sustainability) based heavily on my favorite character in all of literature: Batman (my best characters are based on Batman):

     Banneker walked straight to his lab. He laid his trench coat open on one of the tables, and Ellicott saw for the first time there were four rows of triple pockets on either side of the inner lining, for a total of 24 pockets. 

     Ellicott couldn’t imagine why anyone would ever need so many hidden pockets. But as he watched, Banneker rummaged the lab and found something to put in nearly every pocket.

     “Smoke bombs.” Banneker shoved seven black balls the size of marbles into a coat pocket. “One canister knockout gas, tranquilizer darts, lock pick, evidence bags…”

     “Is that a grappling gun?” Ellicott asked.

     Banneker nodded and put a thing that was part grappling hook, part gun into one of the top pockets.

     “Why would you ever need that? Where is it you think we’re going that the use of a grappling gun will be required?”

     Banneker fastened the last of the inner pockets closed and put on his trench coat. It looked remarkably smooth on the outside considering all the stuff Banneker had packed the inside with. Ellicott couldn’t see a single lump in the coat betraying the bulk beneath it.
     “When it comes to grappling guns, cousin,” Banneker said, “It’s better to have one and not need it than to need it and not have it.”

Banneker is an extremely wealthy inventor (add a dash of Tony Stark), a brilliant intellectual, a skilled fighter, and he's world famous, naturally. He's also eleven years old. Oh, and he's an egomaniacal jerk no one can stand to be around save for his parents, whom I haven't killed despite the fact it would've made plotting easier. Banneker lives at 221 Garrett Street which is absolutely an admission that I'm also borrowing heavily from Sherlock Holmes:

     Banneker sighed the way an adult might when trying to explain an extremely complex issue to a toddler.

     “I don't know exactly what we're searching for. We are simply looking for facts. It's a great mistake to theorize before we have them. We'd run the risk of twisting facts to serve theories rather than theories to serve facts."

Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees is a big budget summer movie in a book and I love that about it. The entire last act is devoted to boys flying jet packs through the night sky to chase after robot bees the size of cars. This is a good-time story and if readers should happen to learn anything by its end, I assure you it will be by accident. I'm hoping to make readers laugh or at least smile and that's it.

The trick then has been to take all the fun stuff and shape it around a simple middle grade plot. The protagonist of the story is not actually Banneker Bones, even though he's the star, but his eleven-year-old cousin, Ellicott Skullworth. After all, Sherlock Homes' tales are told to us from Watson's perspective and Banneker is in some ways too grand a character to relate to in the same way readers can relate to his sidekick.

Ellicott is also a genius. The first chapter finds him lonely and bored out of his mind in a public school in a small Indiana town (naturally). Worse, he hides his intelligence to avoid being bullied. Through a series of plot machinations, Ellicott tests into the Archimedes Program at Latimer University in Latimer City where he'll be staying with a cousin he's never met who does not want to share his room:

     Banneker paced back and forth in front of a long steel table. He lifted his black hat with the white band and ran a hand over his head. His hair was kinked so close to his scalp, it didn’t move as his hand passed over it.

     Ellicott cleared his throat. “It’s nice to meet you.”

     Banneker went on pacing as though he hadn’t heard.

     “Cool hat,” Ellicott said.

     “It’s a trilby hat.”

     Ellicott didn't know the difference between a hat and a trilby hat, but he nodded. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

     “Of course you have,” Banneker said. “I’m world-famous.”

     “Well, that’s true.”

     “You’re not, though, are you?” Banneker stopped moving and turned to Ellicott for the first time.

Ellicott Skullworth, inventor of nothing, shook his head.

     “So, the niceness in this meeting is all on your end, wouldn’t you agree?”

     Ellicott swallowed. “I guess so.”

     Banneker nodded as though this were just the answer he'd expected and went back to pacing. “In the future, I’d advise you to stay out of this room. It’s my office and I must be left alone if I’m going to get any work done. There’s a television in the guest room, so you can watch your mindless cartoons and sporting competitions in there.”

     Banneker rubbed his chin.

     “And you should stay out of my workshop as well. There’s lots of dangerous equipment, and a boy with a troglodyte’s mental capacity such as yours would probably only hurt himself. Really, you should just avoid this side of my bedroom entirely. As much for your own benefit as for mine.”

     “What’s a trogioright?” Ellicott asked.

     “It’s a caveman,” Reggie said. “And it’s troglodyte.”

     “I see,” Ellicott said. “And I’m guessing having the mental capacity of a toglio thingee is not a good thing?”

     “No, not at all.”

     Ellicott nodded and turned back to Banneker. “Well, anyway, thanks for letting me stay here.”

     “Not my idea,” Banneker said. “You have my mother to thank for that. But she’s been wrong before. She adopted a stray puppy once and put it in my room to,” he made a face to show his disgust, “keep me company. The puppy survived two days.”
     Banneker looked Ellicott up and down as though he were appraising something for purchase and deciding against it. “And now she’s adopted another stray, hasn’t she? We’ll just see how long you survive.”

Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees has taken me half a decade to polish. I've never worked harder on a book or loved a story more. In some ways, I'm sorry to be done writing and revising it, but I'm so glad it's available for readers and I hope they'll love it as much as I do. You can check out the first five chapters here. As always, I'll leave you with some of my favorite passages from Banneker Bones and the Giant Robot Bees:

      The man sounded like he recited Shakespeare to adoring crowds of English teachers on the weekends.

     There was a ladder carved into the wall of the pit. Ellicott ran for it, but by the time he reached it, the cover was more than halfway across the pit. If he climbed the ladder, he'd only get far enough out of the pit to be cut in half.

      No, not cut in half—squished in half. Ellicott wondered if the top of him would burst like a mashed ketchup packet.

          The ninjas were fast, but Banneker Bones was faster. He knocked two ninjas down with one spin kick and they stayed down. He chopped a third ninja across the neck as he landed, leaving only two ninjas standing.

     The first ninja charged him with a barrage of kicks and flying fists. Banneker ducked and weaved, dodging each blow with ease. The second ninja charged Banneker from behind.

Banneker appeared not to notice until the last possible second, then he spun and seized the ninja by his black garb. Using the ninja’s own momentum, Banneker slammed him into the other ninja, knocking them both out.

     Banneker began walking away, but just then one of the supposedly unconscious holographic ninjas began to rise. Banneker kicked him in the chest without even stopping to look at him.

     A second ninja lying nearby yelled “Hi-ya!’’ and sat up.

     Banneker leapt on him at once, letting out a guttural scream like the primal cry of an animal. The ninja was slammed back to the ground and Banneker punched him across the face once, twice, three times.

     Banneker screamed again and began striking the ninja with both fists, one after the other, again, and again, and again, the ninja crying out louder and louder and then not at all.

     “Dude,” Ellicott said, watching all from the lab. “You're one seriously messed up kid.”

   

     It was a robot.
     Ellicott knew that at a glance by the way the sun reflected off the thing’s enormous steel body so brightly that at first its shape was impossible to distinguish in the glare.

     It had six thin legs like an insect and beneath them, beneath this great robot the size of a car, a woman in a business suit was pinned to the street and screaming her head off for someone, anyone, to please help.

     Just above the woman’s screams, Ellicott heard something else that sounded like the roar of heavy machinery mixed with the whirr of a weed wacker.

     It was buzzing, Ellicott was sure of it, like the buzzing of a bug if a bug were ever as big as this robot.

     The robot had a body like an insect to match its six legs, and its face was all giant round eyes like a bug’s face. Huge steel wings extended from its back and at the rear of the robot was a sharp steel spire.

     Its metal body was striped dark steel, and lighter reflective steel, so it made sense that it had a stinger, because it was—

     “It’s a giant robot bee,” Banneker said. His breath caught.

     There was no denying it. Ellicott didn’t have any idea where the thing came from or why it was here just now, but whatever the answer to those questions, this was clearly a giant robot bee in the middle of the street attacking a woman.

     That the situation was insane was irrelevant.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: All reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.