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Chapter 24: Hyper32 (Noah Youkilis)
Hey, HarperCollins editors: 32 in binary is “100000” not “100,000”—comma separators from Base 10 are not used in Base 2. (Page 199, opening graf.)
And since I have the attention of the publisher’s production team (you all are reading this, right?): The text design/layout artist deserves major props for drop cap expertise. (I’m going to refer to that individual as Erin based on the copyright page’s notation of “Typography by Erin Fitsimmons.”) So far in HYPERGIFTED, we’ve had an italics drop cap (Chapter 4), an ellipsis drop cap (Chapter 12), a quote drop cap (Chapter 17), a newspaper headline opener that wisely precluded a drop cap (Chapter 23), and now in Chapter 24, a numeral drop cap (where the two-digit number is a full sentence, to boot—leaving our friend Erin to decide how to treat the period at the end). GRK threw down the drop cap gauntlet, and Erin met that challenge.
While we’re on the topic of the book’s physical presentation, I’ll note that the robot dingbats atop each chapter number are a nice continuity carryover from UNGIFTED and SUPERGIFTED—but right now they’re serving as a reminder we haven’t seen a HYPERGIFTED version of Tin Man Metallica SquarePants or Heavy Metal. Does AIDAN symbolically fill that role?
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Okay, I probably should actually consider Chapter 24 (which I keep wanting to call “Chapter 32” because of the opening text).
@Owen: Agreed! I’m a little surprised when Noah comments about Darius and Edward being in the Society of the Gavel—he really has faith in the infallibility of the dearly-departed AIDAN. And yes—Dean Kendrick’s dorm visit was a close call. Fortunately, even with a little more maturity, Donovan’s still got a devious side that can come in handy. His “Ohhhh, this toothache!” effectively fools Kendrick, and reminds me of <<“‘Oh the pain!,’ bellowed Raymond suddenly, completely drowning Sean out. ‘The a-gon-y!’”>>
@Josh, regarding “until someone breathes life into it”—I can see the Biblical implications you suggest, but it’s the next line that caught my attention and made me consider another medium that is concerned with miracles. “Would thirty-two people sign up for a non-thing?” seems very “Miracle on 34th Street” (specifically, when the defense attorney argues that a federal agency effectively recognized Kris Kingle as Santa Claus when they delivered letters to him that were addressed “To Santa Claus”).
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@Josh: Is it too late to back up to one of your previous observations? You said “When Gator shows up, my first thought was to try and compare him to previous characters.” Well, that’s been niggling at the back of my mind, and I finally went back to check on another Gator. So: Any chance that Arlene’s boyfriend Gator isn’t just comparable to a previous character, but actually is the same guy as the Gator who assembled El Capitan for Junior in FAKER?
Two thumbs up to recognizing the peanut gallery of crowd commentary as a Kormanian humor device. Since I’m bringing up Christmastime movies today, I’ll throw in this memorable “Love Actually” reference that follows the same game plan: In a scene towards the end, Aurelia’s father leads Jamie and a growing ensemble of townspeople towards Aurelia’s restaurant, with “Greek chorus” shoutouts ratcheting up until we hear:
“Apparently he is going to kill Aurelia!”
“Cool!”
@Owen: You asked whether Macdonald Hall and Harry Potter are actually similar. You know, years ago, a TV listing for a movie that was being broadcast described the flick as: <<“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”>> In case you haven’t guessed, the movie was “The Wizard of Oz.” Which goes to show you it’s possible to describe something misleadingly while making only true statements. @Josh’s list of similarities between Bruno/Boots and Harry/Ron/Hermione is a bit tongue-in-cheek—it cherry-picks coincidental similarities and purports a larger tie between the works. So are the Macdonald Hall and Harry Potter series actually alike? I’d say you won’t find the stories too similar, but if you’re a fan of a highly-engaging and long-running tale of friendships and boarding school escapades, you’ll love both.