No Coins, Please

One of my favourite GK works. Who doesn’t love a good road trip tale?

When this book came out, I was roughly the same age as Artie Geller, so I could relate to it quite easily. I don’t know if there’s ever been anything like a Juniortours in existence, but I think it’s an amazing idea. In reality it may be too logistically difficult and financially prohibitive to pull off, but it would be a heck of am adventure and learning experience for anyone to take part in. I love taking road trips to see new places, meet new people and experience new things whenever I have the time and money to do so.

This book feels like a slight shift upward in age. If you take Bugs out of the equation, this is the first book with a couple of older characters who are a little bit more than just a foil for the main characters or there to move the plot along. Rob and Dennis are more fleshed out than Chip and his fellow counselors in I Want To Go Home, for example.

Nice placement of the name with the Vegas Hotel Gunhold.

I’ve always loved the mystery of what Artie said to the Road Hogs. To me it’s irrelevant if GK had anything in mind for what was actually said or if it was just the ultimate author power of being able to make something happen without having to explain it in detail. I don’t even want to know if the words were thought of, I enjoy it for being the mystery it is.

Artie’s schemes are brilliant. Not just the ideas themselves, but the various psychological tricks that make people more willing to part with their money and enjoy doing so. Scores, beating a time, competition — things that video games make great use of. Gord, did Artie’s schemes come easy to you or was there some brain strain required?