Summary

Imagine you had access to countless items of technology which have been classified as potentially too dangerous for the world to have access to!

Dev’s Uncle is the caretaker of The Inventory, the World’s strongest vault.

However, on the day that Lot, a girl from school, and bully Mason happen to visit, thieves try to break in to steal Iron Fist, and the three kids find themselves in a deadly battle with the intruders, and The Inventory.

My thoughts

I really enjoyed this middle grade action adventure and particularly warmed to Dev. Isolated from making friends because he can never invite them home he doesn’t have the best relationship with his uncle so is pretty lonely with a somewhat sarcastic robot his only company. Dev is clearly intelligent and has paid attention to workings of The Inventory but can he beat the thieves? Well, that would be classed as a spoiler so I’m not going to tell you. What I can say is that readers will enjoy the array of technology, be thrilled by the chase and surprised by certain revelations. I’m certainly looking forward to reading future adventures.

Interview with Author Andy Briggs

How much fun did you have making up whacky inventions and which do you wish were real?

Making things up for a living is, in a word, awesome. Making up wild inventions for The Inventory was, therefore terrific fun. However, I had one vague rule at the back of my mind: make them feel real, even if it means pushing the barriers of fringe science, they have to at least sound plausible. That’s what set Star Trek aside from plenty of other science fiction shows, it was more science than fiction.

Straight away I would waltz into the Inventory, strap on a pair of Hover-Boots and fly around at breakneck speeds. If the internal security was to prevent me from pilfering the boots, then I would try and sneak off with the Onmi-Board, which is a next generation skateboard that puts Segways and hover-boards to shame.

Who is your favourite inventor and why?

That is so easy: Nikola Tesla. The Croatian genius who invented so many things – such as radio control, the Tesla coil (which used to be a vital component of old TVs), and – radio. Of course I can hear many history teacher correcting me there, but they’re wrong. There was a bitter legal battle with Marconi… go and read about it. Fascinating stuff. Many of Tesla’s inventions are only just being explored today.

Despite his amazing inventions, Tesla died penniless, had a pigeon as his best friend and believed that aliens transmitted ideas straight to his brain…

Writing is inventing. What is your process: Inspired by a Eureka moment or a carefully planned trial? 

If you had asked me this for any other book then I would have answered that it’s all carefully planned. I structure the chapters and key plot points and have my Eureka moments away from the page, then carefully integrate them into the story. This comes from the screenwriter side of me, scripts have to be very carefully structured and timed.

However, this time I threw caution to the wind and ploughed into the story. It wasn’t a moment of madness, it was an experiment. The Inventory itself is supposed to be a place of unexpected twists and turns, so I wanted to be surprised just as much as the reader. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of those old James Bond movies in which 007 gets exactly the gadget he needs later in the story. I wanted my heroes to find seemingly useless items then be forced to make them work to escape a dastardly situation later. The result is that I, at least, was surprised by what lurks in the World Best Kept Secret…

Were you a science geek in school? If not what was your best/favourite subject?

Um. Yes. When it came to choosing GCSEs I took Technology Design, Chemistry and Physics. Then for A-levels I took Maths and Physics – and Media Studies too, of course. The problem was, I wanted to know about quantum physics, black holes and travelling at the speed of light and, sadly, that didn’t crop up in my lessons so I quickly became bored and went off to write stories instead. These days I’m always watching documentaries, reading New Scientist and Wired Magazines and pretend I know exactly what they’re all talking about…

What have sheep ever done to you? (Reference to making them invisible and blowing one’s head off) 

Before the RSPCA descend upon me, they are fake sheep! Sheep are menacing. They have weird horizontal pupils and quietly judge you when you walk past their field. Sure, they act dumb, but the moment you’re out of earshot they’re baa-ing away in their cryptic alien language. Them (and cows) are contributing to massive global warming as they fart in order to terraform our planet for their own nefarious purposes. You mark my words, the cute fluffy image is merely creative marketing…

Which of the characters in the book would you Repeat, Rewrite, Remove and why? And yes you have to answer ;0

Ooh, now I know I don’t like you! What a cruel question… I would repeat Lot, because, as the daughter of an Air Force test pilot, she is a gung-ho thrill seeker.

I would rewrite Dev because you can never have a perfect hero (and by perfect, I still include all the flaws that make them interesting) as you keep coming up with new and intriguing issues and problems to inflict upon them. That said, the joy of writing a series is that I can now put him under so much more pressure and really pull him apart…

Finally, I would remove Mason (if I had to) because bullies should be erased (or thrown into the prison colonies of our future masters, the sheep (see above).

Huge thanks to Andy for some brilliant responses. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did.

The Giveaway

Comment below with which everyday invention you’d confine to The Inventory and tell me why (is it dangerous or just plain annoying) and then head over to the Rafflecopter to register your chances to win. Closes Wednesday 11th at midnight. UK and IRL residents only.

The Rest of the Tour

You can find the links to all the blogs on tour organiser Faye’s website here.