Amanda Lester and the Orange Crystal Crisis by Paula Berinstein

That’s because you don’t have to be a kid to enjoy Amanda and the fanciful world she inhabits. Notice that I didn’t say kids or children, I said people. The way I see it, the Amanda stories are mysteries for people who love letting their imaginations soar. Yet there are no spaceships, dinosaur resurrections, or time travel, so how can I call my series science fiction? While some of the devices, such as Simon’s cell phone microscope, are in fact real, others, such as Lovelace Earful’s gold brain-manipulating glasses from Book 6, haven’t yet been invented, but might be. If not fantasy then, are the books mystery/science fiction? Possibly. And yet there’s no magic in the series, no witches or dragons, despite mentions of potential wizards and zombies, so maybe fantasy isn’t the right genre.

Both technologies are pretty fantastical. The same is true of Simon Binkle’s history machine, which allows him to pick up vibrations from the past and recreate the events that caused them. Are they mystery/fantasy? Well, there’s an element of fantasy in being able to deform a computer screen remotely. And there are color formations in feathers that are visible only in the ultraviolet spectrum.īecause I create fanciful technology in my books, I’ve had a bit of trouble pinpointing their genre. Odor-controlled locks like the ones in the purple book do exist. There are life forms with crystalline components like my orange crystals. Sugar dust is explosive-people have actually died in such blasts. There is a way to levitate matter using sound waves-just not quite as powerful or easy to use as I’ve made mine.

The acoustic levitator I invented for the orange book, for example, really does exist. I know because I research each and every one of them. It may surprise you to know that many of those crazy things actually have a basis in fact.

And so you get weapons based on exploding sugar dust, sentient crystals, hackers who can manipulate matter, and peacocks whose feathers contain invisible messages. The characters, the world, the props are larger than life. That’s because although Amanda’s story isn’t fantasy, it is fanciful. I will admit that much of the technology in the Amanda Lester, Detective stories is exaggerated. You can see the tour schedule hereĪmanda Lester’s wacky technology: fantasy or science fiction? The book blitz runs from 30 January till 5 February. This book blitz is organized by Lola’s Blog Tours. This is my stop during the book blitz for the Amanda Lester Series by Paula Berinstein.

Amanda Lester and the Orange Crystal Crisis by Paula Berinstein