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Strange Matter #6
Bad Circuits
Stephanie Meeker has a secret that's getting too dangerous to keep. Her cousin Daniel is determined to win the Fairfield Junior Science competition. Even as his project becomes more and more terrifying, Stephanie tells no one about the Electronic Brain.
144 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1995
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October 30, 2024You might be asking, "Pete, there are plenty of Goosebumps to keep you busy this month, why go off into lesser series?”
The answer isn’t too complicated: I walk to the ARC once a week during my lunch break at work, and I look at the books. And on one of these trips, I thought, "You know, I bet some of these Goosebumps knockoffs have some weird and hilarious stuff in them." I bought one, this one, because it was there and the cover was at least a little funny. I didn't read the description or anything, just went for it.
Let me describe the cover to you: It’s basically an extremely cheap looking drawing of a dude with a hole in his head, revealing he’s a robot underneath. Very Terminator for kidz with a Z.
It does give you an appreciation for the Goosebumps cover game, which was very strong. Bad Circuits one doesn’t even have a background, just a gradient slapped in there and the words Strange Matter across the top. “Matter” is half-filled with green slime because, hey, this was the mid-90’s, everything for kids was positively drenched in slime, even if the book was about robots and had no supernatural elements, and even though slime would actually be to our heroes’ benefit in this book. If Terminator had to fight Slimer from Ghostbusters, I feel they would be pretty evenly matched. One seems mostly harmless, but also couldn’t be harmed. The other is probably not capable of feeling annoyance and will just continue to try different stuff, so we’re in one of the strangest standoffs of all time.
In Bad Circuits we’ve got an AI gone awry (this is kind of a pun depending on how incorrectly you're willing to pronounce "awry," which in my case is VERY wrong). A kid's science project, a mechanical brain designed by his dad (who's maybe dead? I think dead? Shot by hunters in the woods or killed by an evil wizard or, I don't know, take your pick, he’s gone-zo), goes horribly wrong because the brain does not want to ever be turned off, so it decides the best way to not be turned off, even for brief periods, is to KILL ALL HUMANS.
This happens a lot in robot stories, and it’s weird, right? Like, if we discovered god was real, would our first thought be, “We must kill him?” No, of course it wouldn’t, because it’d be that we must kill HER, you fucking misogynistic swine.
The funniest part of Bad Circuits is that our main boy, Daniel, has a rival: Frank Dunk. Just typing the name gets me all agitated, fuckin' Frank Dunk.
The author didn’t manage a perfect book, but he did create the perfect name for a dickhead rival character.
Frank Dunk, in addition to having one of those names that demands putting down both the first and last name, has won the science fair several years in a row. This mechanical brain is our hero, Brian's, big shot to take the crown away from the goddamn living breathing pile of shit that is Frank Dunk.
Frank Dunk's science project? A fear bomb. Yep, a bomb that will make people so terrified that they cannot do anything.
In what's perhaps the ultimate version of, "Why, I never considered this wonderful invention being used for evil!" Frank Dunk presents his fear bomb as a home safety device. The idea is that you’d set it up as part of a burglar alarm, and if someone tries to burgle your house, the fear bomb will go off, terrifying the burglar into incapacitation and protecting the home and its inhabitants.
Which…I’m torn on. On one hand, I suppose if people had fear bombs instead of guns, we might live in an overall safer world. Instead of mass shootings, we’d have mass terrorization events, but at least people would most likely walk away. Sure, traumatized for life, but it’s not like shootings are trauma-free events.
On the other hand, I would think a terrorized burglar may be inclined to do worse things than a calm, collected burglar. The cops show up, the burglar is terrified, and he’s used your innards to paint a protective circle against demons on the floor. Not a better outcome, per se.
AHEM
So we've got a science fair with an AI designed by a grade-schooler before the internet was really even functional, and we've got a fear bomb.
Both projects WELL exceed the bar for a school science fair while also being almost immediately turned to evil purposes when the AI, now inhabiting a mannequin's body, for which he's created joints and so on, basically a Terminator underneath, steals the fear bomb.
Who could've seen this turn of events, that these two things would turn sour!?
Anyway, the rest of the book is unimportant, I think the real question of this book is: do you give the science fair first prize to evil robot or fear bomb?
Because, despite the fact that these inventions are not being used for good and probably never could’ve been, they are still SUPER impressive designs, especially for grade-schoolers, and even though my life would’ve been imperiled by both items, I’d still have to give it to one of these kids, for sure. It’s the kind of thing that would result in weird rules for future science fairs, like, “No artificial intelligences that have corporeal bodies as well,” the kind of rules that make you go, “Wow, somebody did something SUPER fucked up before.”
I think a lot of us would pick the evil robot as winner on first blush, but I encourage you to dig deeper.
Okay, an evil robot is badass, but is there anything about it we don't really understand at this point? In other words, a group of unscrupulous scientists with a lot of money could probably present us an evil robot in like a week. Boston Dynamics just needs to add red glowing eyes and a chrome skull to have me shitting myself on the regular.
It’s still pretty impressive from a grade schooler, but it doesn’t represent a whole new perspective on the human mind.
But fear bomb? Does anyone even know how to make that? That’s serious neuroscience mixed with the engineering of a delivery vector–It’s downright incredible. It’s comic book science. Literally. Because once we have fear bomb, we're only one very small step away from having a The Scarecrow tormenting the city.
And once we have Scarecrow, we're one step away from Batman, AND from answering the question of whether Batman is stopping crime or accidentally encouraging it just by existing (if the chicken comes before the egg, or maybe the Penguin before the egg, the Scarecrow before the Batman, boom, problem solved, and we never again have to read another comic about whether Batman is causing supervillains, which some asshole thinks is a very novel idea every ten years or so).
For demolishing a Batman storyline that I’ve read many times and never need to read again, I award Frank Dunk first prize in the science fair, even though I kind of hate him and his stupid name.
The answer isn’t too complicated: I walk to the ARC once a week during my lunch break at work, and I look at the books. And on one of these trips, I thought, "You know, I bet some of these Goosebumps knockoffs have some weird and hilarious stuff in them." I bought one, this one, because it was there and the cover was at least a little funny. I didn't read the description or anything, just went for it.
Let me describe the cover to you: It’s basically an extremely cheap looking drawing of a dude with a hole in his head, revealing he’s a robot underneath. Very Terminator for kidz with a Z.
It does give you an appreciation for the Goosebumps cover game, which was very strong. Bad Circuits one doesn’t even have a background, just a gradient slapped in there and the words Strange Matter across the top. “Matter” is half-filled with green slime because, hey, this was the mid-90’s, everything for kids was positively drenched in slime, even if the book was about robots and had no supernatural elements, and even though slime would actually be to our heroes’ benefit in this book. If Terminator had to fight Slimer from Ghostbusters, I feel they would be pretty evenly matched. One seems mostly harmless, but also couldn’t be harmed. The other is probably not capable of feeling annoyance and will just continue to try different stuff, so we’re in one of the strangest standoffs of all time.
In Bad Circuits we’ve got an AI gone awry (this is kind of a pun depending on how incorrectly you're willing to pronounce "awry," which in my case is VERY wrong). A kid's science project, a mechanical brain designed by his dad (who's maybe dead? I think dead? Shot by hunters in the woods or killed by an evil wizard or, I don't know, take your pick, he’s gone-zo), goes horribly wrong because the brain does not want to ever be turned off, so it decides the best way to not be turned off, even for brief periods, is to KILL ALL HUMANS.
This happens a lot in robot stories, and it’s weird, right? Like, if we discovered god was real, would our first thought be, “We must kill him?” No, of course it wouldn’t, because it’d be that we must kill HER, you fucking misogynistic swine.
The funniest part of Bad Circuits is that our main boy, Daniel, has a rival: Frank Dunk. Just typing the name gets me all agitated, fuckin' Frank Dunk.
The author didn’t manage a perfect book, but he did create the perfect name for a dickhead rival character.
Frank Dunk, in addition to having one of those names that demands putting down both the first and last name, has won the science fair several years in a row. This mechanical brain is our hero, Brian's, big shot to take the crown away from the goddamn living breathing pile of shit that is Frank Dunk.
Frank Dunk's science project? A fear bomb. Yep, a bomb that will make people so terrified that they cannot do anything.
In what's perhaps the ultimate version of, "Why, I never considered this wonderful invention being used for evil!" Frank Dunk presents his fear bomb as a home safety device. The idea is that you’d set it up as part of a burglar alarm, and if someone tries to burgle your house, the fear bomb will go off, terrifying the burglar into incapacitation and protecting the home and its inhabitants.
Which…I’m torn on. On one hand, I suppose if people had fear bombs instead of guns, we might live in an overall safer world. Instead of mass shootings, we’d have mass terrorization events, but at least people would most likely walk away. Sure, traumatized for life, but it’s not like shootings are trauma-free events.
On the other hand, I would think a terrorized burglar may be inclined to do worse things than a calm, collected burglar. The cops show up, the burglar is terrified, and he’s used your innards to paint a protective circle against demons on the floor. Not a better outcome, per se.
AHEM
So we've got a science fair with an AI designed by a grade-schooler before the internet was really even functional, and we've got a fear bomb.
Both projects WELL exceed the bar for a school science fair while also being almost immediately turned to evil purposes when the AI, now inhabiting a mannequin's body, for which he's created joints and so on, basically a Terminator underneath, steals the fear bomb.
Who could've seen this turn of events, that these two things would turn sour!?
Anyway, the rest of the book is unimportant, I think the real question of this book is: do you give the science fair first prize to evil robot or fear bomb?
Because, despite the fact that these inventions are not being used for good and probably never could’ve been, they are still SUPER impressive designs, especially for grade-schoolers, and even though my life would’ve been imperiled by both items, I’d still have to give it to one of these kids, for sure. It’s the kind of thing that would result in weird rules for future science fairs, like, “No artificial intelligences that have corporeal bodies as well,” the kind of rules that make you go, “Wow, somebody did something SUPER fucked up before.”
I think a lot of us would pick the evil robot as winner on first blush, but I encourage you to dig deeper.
Okay, an evil robot is badass, but is there anything about it we don't really understand at this point? In other words, a group of unscrupulous scientists with a lot of money could probably present us an evil robot in like a week. Boston Dynamics just needs to add red glowing eyes and a chrome skull to have me shitting myself on the regular.
It’s still pretty impressive from a grade schooler, but it doesn’t represent a whole new perspective on the human mind.
But fear bomb? Does anyone even know how to make that? That’s serious neuroscience mixed with the engineering of a delivery vector–It’s downright incredible. It’s comic book science. Literally. Because once we have fear bomb, we're only one very small step away from having a The Scarecrow tormenting the city.
And once we have Scarecrow, we're one step away from Batman, AND from answering the question of whether Batman is stopping crime or accidentally encouraging it just by existing (if the chicken comes before the egg, or maybe the Penguin before the egg, the Scarecrow before the Batman, boom, problem solved, and we never again have to read another comic about whether Batman is causing supervillains, which some asshole thinks is a very novel idea every ten years or so).
For demolishing a Batman storyline that I’ve read many times and never need to read again, I award Frank Dunk first prize in the science fair, even though I kind of hate him and his stupid name.
May 8, 2012
A very good mystery science fiction series for young readers.
May 12, 2026
Yep, it is time for the 2nd Goosebumps ripoff round of the year. Usually I’d do this in the summer but I have a different project planned for summer so I wanted to do this now to make sure I can do that and this as well. We’ll see where these land for this. And hey I got to start with my beloved Strange Matter.
This gives us an early on and after this I’ll only have 1 left out of the first 10. So far the latter books have been the highlights but let’s see where this goes.
Stephanie Meeker has been living with her cousin Daniel as her parents died in an accident a few years back. He’s a major tech wiz, taking after his dad/Stephanie’s uncle. Said Uncle left for a business trip a year ago and disappeared. One day Daniel is digging around Uncle’s plans and finds one for an Eletronic Brain.
Since he’s smart enough, he decides to finish it. It works and now they have a fully working AI brain that is able to learn and grow. Surely this won’t lead to it learning too much and trying to be evil and take over, right? Correct, nothing bad happens and it is all very present.
Jk. This book was solid but with a few odd wrinkles. It’s a premise we’ve done before and it does do it well. They name this brain Brian, cute and it turns out to be a solid threat. He’s no Zippy but I like how he learns and gets more control. There is a good story and escalation here, with how Brian gets out of control as Daniel tests what it can learn. Commentary isn’t too deep but the idea is there.
It all builds to one of the better climaxes I’ve seen in these. A lot of action and some fun/crazy events. Stephanie is a basic protagonist but the characters have good chemistry. She gets along with Daniel despite disagreements so it feels balanced. Daniel has a rival in Frank Dunk who’ve met in Strange Forces which happens after this.
Frank is his Mandark and it’s fun with how far Daniel goes to try to beat him. While Frank is mostly a jerk, they do have to team up by the end. He has a brother Hank who is nicer and is friends with Stephnie. Actually, they are implied to be more by the end which was cute. The dialogue is decent here overall.
What oddly falters is the writing. It’s not bad but by Strange Matter standards, it feels a bit basic/flat. There’s less flavor and thus less atmosphere. It’s not a big deal but with how intense this can get, that does prevent it from being as scary as it could have been. It is mostly well paced if a bit too quick early on.
Me having seen plenty of these evil AI stories (even this series kinda did it with Tune in to Terror) means some of it did feel standard as well but it’s able to do its own thing with the scale of it. Then there’s a twist ending which is cool and even decently foreshadowed. …But it leaves me with more questions about the situation at the start.
Like, you can’t just casually mention that the Uncle’s plane went off the radar and then not bring that up again. Kind of spoiler but yeah, I fully expected that to lead into this big conspiracy but nah. Frank/Hank show up again but Stephanie does not from what I hear so that’s just a weird dangling thread. Fly the Unfriendly Skies had the same problems so early on they had some kinks to work out story wise.
So overall, another that can land in the bottom half but is still solid. There’s enough tension and solid pacing to make up for the more basic writing/plot at times. Not my favorite Strange Matter but a fun one. It's a Johnny Barnes one which is neat, I think Engle has done most of the ones I read lately.
Next time, we have Spinetinglers with an early one. See ya then.
This gives us an early on and after this I’ll only have 1 left out of the first 10. So far the latter books have been the highlights but let’s see where this goes.
Stephanie Meeker has been living with her cousin Daniel as her parents died in an accident a few years back. He’s a major tech wiz, taking after his dad/Stephanie’s uncle. Said Uncle left for a business trip a year ago and disappeared. One day Daniel is digging around Uncle’s plans and finds one for an Eletronic Brain.
Since he’s smart enough, he decides to finish it. It works and now they have a fully working AI brain that is able to learn and grow. Surely this won’t lead to it learning too much and trying to be evil and take over, right? Correct, nothing bad happens and it is all very present.
Jk. This book was solid but with a few odd wrinkles. It’s a premise we’ve done before and it does do it well. They name this brain Brian, cute and it turns out to be a solid threat. He’s no Zippy but I like how he learns and gets more control. There is a good story and escalation here, with how Brian gets out of control as Daniel tests what it can learn. Commentary isn’t too deep but the idea is there.
It all builds to one of the better climaxes I’ve seen in these. A lot of action and some fun/crazy events. Stephanie is a basic protagonist but the characters have good chemistry. She gets along with Daniel despite disagreements so it feels balanced. Daniel has a rival in Frank Dunk who’ve met in Strange Forces which happens after this.
Frank is his Mandark and it’s fun with how far Daniel goes to try to beat him. While Frank is mostly a jerk, they do have to team up by the end. He has a brother Hank who is nicer and is friends with Stephnie. Actually, they are implied to be more by the end which was cute. The dialogue is decent here overall.
What oddly falters is the writing. It’s not bad but by Strange Matter standards, it feels a bit basic/flat. There’s less flavor and thus less atmosphere. It’s not a big deal but with how intense this can get, that does prevent it from being as scary as it could have been. It is mostly well paced if a bit too quick early on.
Me having seen plenty of these evil AI stories (even this series kinda did it with Tune in to Terror) means some of it did feel standard as well but it’s able to do its own thing with the scale of it. Then there’s a twist ending which is cool and even decently foreshadowed. …But it leaves me with more questions about the situation at the start.
Like, you can’t just casually mention that the Uncle’s plane went off the radar and then not bring that up again. Kind of spoiler but yeah, I fully expected that to lead into this big conspiracy but nah. Frank/Hank show up again but Stephanie does not from what I hear so that’s just a weird dangling thread. Fly the Unfriendly Skies had the same problems so early on they had some kinks to work out story wise.
So overall, another that can land in the bottom half but is still solid. There’s enough tension and solid pacing to make up for the more basic writing/plot at times. Not my favorite Strange Matter but a fun one. It's a Johnny Barnes one which is neat, I think Engle has done most of the ones I read lately.
Next time, we have Spinetinglers with an early one. See ya then.
April 22, 2026
This is a really strong story told in the strange matters series and appears to find its footing in telling a rather unique narrative compared to the others in the series. I think this has the strongest cast of characters in comparison to most of the other Strange Matters. The four primary characters all had unique personalities and purpose behind the way they acted. The story of artificial intelligence was rather interesting considering how much that field has grown today. The story of AI coming alive, while used a lot, was still rather fresh in the way it was told here. I think Stephanie in particular was an strong protagonist and had some different mannerisms compared to the usual YA horror character. I liked how she grew throughout the book and even developed deeper relationships with other characters. This made the final twist even more interesting as it is revealed that Stephanie was the final version of the missing uncles designs. This makes the cliffhanger so painful as I so deeply want to know what happens to the characters next.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 9, 2019
Supper funny and cute good for a trip cuz so short
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