“The Blackgaard Chronicles – Opening moves” is the first entry in a series of books adapting –and expanding on – the classic and wonderfully exciting Blackgaard Saga that aired during the early 1990s on Adventures in Odyssey. At the time, these episodes were considered groundbreaking storytelling for Christian audio drama, filled with an array of complex and memorable villains, (Dr. Blackgaard, Richard Maxwell), thrilling scenes (Jack being blow up in the tunnel), heartwarming storylines (Eugene’s conversion), confusing motivations (wait, how long did Blackgaard know that the mineral under Whit’s End could cure him from Rooku?). Although fans have come to appreciate Novacom (slightly) more, The Blackgaard Saga, in my view, remains the highpoint of the series.
The first thing I noticed upon receiving “The Blackgaard Chronicles – Opening Moves” was how small it was. For one thing, it is not quite, as Amazon states, 160 pages. It is 150 pages. But that small discrepancy wasn’t what surprised me — it was the fact that these were quite small pages with large spacing. Amazon also suggests that the book’s age range is 7-10, while the back of the book states that it is for ages 10 and up. In terms of the reading level, Amazon seems to be more accurate, though the subject matter would probably interest older readers. Because I noticed the 10 and up label before ordering the book, I expected a story that resembles more closely the detail and style of a Passages Novel – but the writing, I would say, resembles the style of the earlier classic novels: simple, easily digestible chapters. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s simply different from what I expected.
My expectations, however, do not deter me from my enjoyment of the book. This book successfully fills in some gaps, or loose ends, within Adventures in Odyssey, while adding richness to the world and to existing characters. I particularly enjoyed the way the book provided us with a motivation for the character of Philip Glossman – making me realize that the show never really gave us a reason why he was involved in this whole mess. While large portions of the chapters appear to have been taken line for line from the audio drama – to the likely annoyance of some overly well-versed listeners – it refrains from feeling like you’re reading the show’s script, using enough description and internal dialogue to beef up its scenes and render it more literary. Overall, the book blends the show’s content quite organically with the newer content and the end result feels like part of the show’s cannon rather than fan-fiction or apocryphal.
Admittedly, the book has made a miniscule number of changes that may be seen as contradictory to the events in the show. For instance, Phil Lollar overlaps the events of “An Encounter with Mrs. Hooper” with the events of “A Bite of Applesauce”, which I accepted and found quite ingenious. But he also has given Connie an additional line of a dialogue when she first finds Whit’s secret computer room, “Eugene isn’t the only brainy one, Councilman Glossman”, which I did not buy – why add a line of dialogue that obviously did not occur within a scene? Additionally, there’s a questionable moment in the book when it is alluded that Richard Maxwell knew Jellyfish before the events of “A Bite of Applesauce”, while the show gives us the impression that Maxwell met Jellyfish after these events while he was locked up in the Campbell County Detention Center.
Overall, “The Blackgaard Chronicles – Opening Moves” will certainly appeal to anyone craving a bit of nostalgia for the good old days of Odyssey, or for those who have been waiting for some answers to long unanswered Blackgaard questions for the past 30 years (wait no longer!), or to anyone just needing a light and breezy read. If anything, further entries in this series should provide newer content and more pages, while continuing, as this largely did, to remain faithful to the original source material. That said, as a longtime fan, I certainly found this book to be a worthwhile purchase.
Buy on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Blackgaard-Chronicles-Opening-Moves/dp/1589979265
Buy through Focus on the Family store:
https://store.focusonthefamily.com/blackgaard-chronicles-1
The first thing I noticed upon receiving “The Blackgaard Chronicles – Opening Moves” was how small it was. For one thing, it is not quite, as Amazon states, 160 pages. It is 150 pages. But that small discrepancy wasn’t what surprised me — it was the fact that these were quite small pages with large spacing. Amazon also suggests that the book’s age range is 7-10, while the back of the book states that it is for ages 10 and up. In terms of the reading level, Amazon seems to be more accurate, though the subject matter would probably interest older readers. Because I noticed the 10 and up label before ordering the book, I expected a story that resembles more closely the detail and style of a Passages Novel – but the writing, I would say, resembles the style of the earlier classic novels: simple, easily digestible chapters. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s simply different from what I expected.
My expectations, however, do not deter me from my enjoyment of the book. This book successfully fills in some gaps, or loose ends, within Adventures in Odyssey, while adding richness to the world and to existing characters. I particularly enjoyed the way the book provided us with a motivation for the character of Philip Glossman – making me realize that the show never really gave us a reason why he was involved in this whole mess. While large portions of the chapters appear to have been taken line for line from the audio drama – to the likely annoyance of some overly well-versed listeners – it refrains from feeling like you’re reading the show’s script, using enough description and internal dialogue to beef up its scenes and render it more literary. Overall, the book blends the show’s content quite organically with the newer content and the end result feels like part of the show’s cannon rather than fan-fiction or apocryphal.
Admittedly, the book has made a miniscule number of changes that may be seen as contradictory to the events in the show. For instance, Phil Lollar overlaps the events of “An Encounter with Mrs. Hooper” with the events of “A Bite of Applesauce”, which I accepted and found quite ingenious. But he also has given Connie an additional line of a dialogue when she first finds Whit’s secret computer room, “Eugene isn’t the only brainy one, Councilman Glossman”, which I did not buy – why add a line of dialogue that obviously did not occur within a scene? Additionally, there’s a questionable moment in the book when it is alluded that Richard Maxwell knew Jellyfish before the events of “A Bite of Applesauce”, while the show gives us the impression that Maxwell met Jellyfish after these events while he was locked up in the Campbell County Detention Center.
Overall, “The Blackgaard Chronicles – Opening Moves” will certainly appeal to anyone craving a bit of nostalgia for the good old days of Odyssey, or for those who have been waiting for some answers to long unanswered Blackgaard questions for the past 30 years (wait no longer!), or to anyone just needing a light and breezy read. If anything, further entries in this series should provide newer content and more pages, while continuing, as this largely did, to remain faithful to the original source material. That said, as a longtime fan, I certainly found this book to be a worthwhile purchase.
Buy on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Blackgaard-Chronicles-Opening-Moves/dp/1589979265
Buy through Focus on the Family store:
https://store.focusonthefamily.com/blackgaard-chronicles-1