Back in Grade 3 I found this book in my school library and picked it up to read, now unfortunately the school year ended before I could finish the book and I never found it again.
But when I found it online again I just had to pick it up and I don’t regret it.
Taking place in the near future hover cars have taken over the world utilising magnetic technology to sit roughly a foot of the ground. Now hover car racing is the premier sport of the world and that’s when our protagonist, 14 year old Jason Chaser enters the fray with his 12 year old borderline autistic Brother, The Bug (his actual name and he is described as borderline autistic).
The two are a power duo with Jason being the daredevil who can expertly fly the car and the Bug being a mathematical whizz making him perfect as the navigator.
As a racing nerd I was able to give it some leeway but also some criticisms.
For one, all safety regulations are thrown out the window with the only safety coming from the racing circuits end being ‘dead zones’ which catch the cars if they go too far of track. But aren’t present everywhere. The hover cars are fitted with reinforced cockpits and assumably a roll cage with an ejection seat on the side. However the tracks seems to make the sport *more* dangerous by adding things like ‘demag strips’ which remove power from the mag drives (the things that make the cars float and move, essentially the tyres of the new era) which make the cars crash out most of the time past the speed of sound. Then there are occasionally extra hazards such as a ‘meat grinder’ which is a tunnel that closes in on the driver until only the cockpit can fit. Now as a racing nerd, the governing body of most Motorsports, the FIA would NEVER allow this at 300 KM/H, let alone 800!
What I did love about the book was the use of racing terms, being Motorsport is underrepresented in fictional media I loved seeing terms like hairpin and apex being thrown into the fray and it was great! Another thing I loved was the characters, the good guys were well thought out and had some great character development. Now the bad guys are comically evil, and this isn’t a bad thing given the demographic, spoiler >!i.e a race fixing bookkeeper or a Frenchman named Fabian who uses dirty tactics<! But within the comical evilness there are things that happen in real life and some mature themes such as fighting against misogyny or bending the rules to your advantage, an all to common thing in racing (the bending rules part, and admittedly misogyny at a much lower level)
Now being the book was made for younger kids it was way below my reading level and I saw all the twists coming, this isn’t a complaint per-se because I was reading the book to tie up a loose end more than anything but it was still an enjoyable read and I do recommend it to you if you want to turn off most of your brain and enjoy the vroom vroom of hover cars! It’s also a great book for younger kids if you ignore the swearing (shit being the worst word) as it gives some good life lessons!
by J360222