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Christopher Mahoney's The Incredible Origins of the Onyx Sun is the story of a 10-year-old boy named Zack Goodspeed whose mysterious grandfather, Fyodor Confucius Goodspeed, is an eccentric genius who invents unthinkably advanced technology as easily as the average person ties their shoes (think Nikola Tesla with the volume turned up to 11). With the help of one of his classmates, Angelina "Max" Maximillian, Zack stows aboard the enormous spaceship his grandfather has secretly built. Together with thousands of people from all over the world, they set off to establish a colony on the moon.

This seems like a good book for readers aged 9-12, especially those who are getting interested in sci-fi. Coming to it as an adult reader, however, I didn't find a lot to engage me. I enjoyed the setup, and was delighted by a logic problem in chapter 10 involving three light bulbs whose solution was simple but elegant. After the point in the book where Zack and Max board the spaceship, however, I couldn't help but ask a lot of questions. First of all, how did so many people from all over the globe get involved with Grandfather Goodspeed's mission without a single person on earth who was not involved with the mission catching on? Certainly the media would be interested in a group of people who planned to establish a colony on the moon, wouldn't they? And how did the evil Dr. Machvel secretly turn half of Grandfather Goodspeed's crew against Goodspeed without any of the "good guys" getting wise to what was going on? These are probably not things children will worry about once they get caught up in all the intergalactic derring-do of the narrative, but as an adult, the situations and conflicts just didn't ring true to me. And the names of some of the characters are just silly. (Machvel's first name is Ian. Get it? Machvel, Ian? Machiavellian?) Also, the lack of many narrative surprises was something of a detriment for me. As soon as Dr. Machvel is introduced to the reader, he is described as "olive-skinned" with "a pointed black beard" and a "low, steady voice that was almost a hiss." Grandfather Goodspeed's right-hand man, Commander Chase, on the other hand, is described as "broad-shouldered" with a "cleft chin jutting from his face." The fact that Machvel is evil and scheming and that Chase is stalwart and true should come as a surprise to absolutely no one who learned to tell the good guys from the bad guys by watching Republic serials from the 1930s. (So much for teaching children that you can't tell a person’s character from their appearance. Oh well. At least Machvel isn't an opium-smoking Chinese man with really long fingernails.) The characters in this book are generally two-dimensional, but Machvel is probably the most egregious example. (His physical loathsomeness isn't even consistent; when he reappears toward the end of the book, he is hunched over and using a cane to walk. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't remember that detail from earlier in the book.)

The pacing was sometimes a problem for me. It only seemed as if the protagonists were in danger when Mahoney wanted them to be. For instance, Zack, Max, and their friend Sanjay had plenty of time to play around with enormous construction/combat machines called “Mechs� in a simulation room, and the danger Machvel poses only rears its head again when Zack and his friends realize that maybe they should start trying to ferret out traitors onboard. On a positive note, however, the Mechs are some of Mahoney’s coolest creations, and I had fun reading about them.

Grandfather Goodspeed is potentially the most interesting character, but most of the time he seems more like a writer’s creation than an actual character. For instance, his "bumbling" provides most of the book's humor, but his unerring genius provides the book with its basic plot. How are these two sides of his personality reconciled? They're not. And maybe they're not supposed to be, but for the most part I thought it made him a more unbelievable creation than a nuanced character. For instance, down on earth he consistently blows up his laboratory in classic goofy mad scientist fashion, but is still able to supervise construction of an enormous spaceship that can take thousands of people from the earth to the moon, and that seems technologically a century or two ahead of its time, and that features so many unnecessary bells and whistles I was surprised that it was ever able to actually take off. Grandfather Goodspeed's private quarters feature such byzantine accoutrements as sheer black tiles, two curved stairways, black leather couches that levitate above the floor, and a solid gold statue.

The ostentation of the spaceship really hits its apex in the "great hall," which is described in a way that seems more like hagiography than it does sci-fi:

The wall at this end was decorated like an altar. A series of wide stairs led from the floor, covered in blue and purple rags edged with gold. Towering, stone statues of the titan Atlas rose up on either side of the back wall, his muscles straining from the vast globe he carried on his back. In between these statues was a stained glass window that stretched from the floor to the ceiling and glowed with golden light. Unlike other stained glass windows Zack had seen on Earth, this one was composed entirely of frosted white glass and edged in a golden frame. The glass formed the figure of a mostly bald man in spectacles holding a cube in one hand which radiated brilliant light. Zack realized in shock that the man was his grandfather.

Hubris, anyone? If this were a Greek myth (especially one about the dangers of flying too close to the sun), those gigantic stone statues might make the spacecraft too heavy to take off in the first place, but instead, it's just a bit of Ayn Rand-style glorification of the individual without any regard for reality. I know that the Onyx Sun supposedly provides nearly limitless power with zero emissions or byproducts, but honestly, this is more "magic" than it is "science."

Maybe I'm being too hard on The Incredible Origins of the Onyx Sun. Like I said, readers aged 9-12 will probably enjoy it. But it always seems like a bit of a cop-out to say this. After all, the very best literature for children and young adults can really be enjoyed by anyone of any age. When reading young-adult fiction I want to be reminded of the wonder of being a kid, not have my pedantic adult personality constantly needled and find myself saying on every page, "What? That's ridiculous. That goes against all science and logic."