The Eyes of the Killer Robot
May 13th, 2004I have only read the first Lemony Snicket book so far, but it’s obvious that John Bellairs, the author of lightweight “gothic” horror young adult novels, was an influence (though Daniel Handler is a lot more witty). Bellairs has a novel in his Johnny Dixon mystery series about a magical baseball-playing robot called The Eyes of the Killer Robot.
Lying in a heap against the wall were the pieces of the wonderful baseball-throwing robot. Its arms lay stacked on its headless body, and its legs stood against the wall. The wheeled platform was propped against a rafter, and nearby, on a little shelf, stood the robot’s head. It stared weirdly out into the room, but the stare was blank—the robot’s eyes were gone.
This is the book I would write if I wrote a young adult book. By that I mean that it’s got everything that I think makes life wonderful (robots, baseball, magic, ghosts), and it’s not very good.
May 14th, 2004 at 1:16 am
I liked the Bellairs book “The Face in the Frost” but I never got into the Johnny Dixon series…
May 14th, 2004 at 9:56 am
Maybe I should have read it when I was a kid, instead of an “adult.”
May 14th, 2004 at 11:41 am
What was the name of that Nintendo game that had battling robots playing baseball? Wasn’t it Base Wars 2020 or something like that? That was sort of fun.
May 14th, 2004 at 11:44 am
BaseWars!!!