The Set-Up: As we reach what would eventually be the final third of the Get Smart novels, William Johnston appears to have gone from knowing the characters and playing with the formula to straight up formula work.  There are a few cases of what I call “history - as irony - repeats (HAIR)” an issue you have when you see an actor sleepwalk through the 1000th performance in a role, or a singer play the same song for the 1000th time.  The words get overstated, what was once freshly stated was now over-inflected as if to provide the surprise when the surprise has long left any reading.  

We get in on the plot quickly with a little three page deferment: Max and 99 are on a beach, on vacation enjoying non-secret agent time when Max’s phone calls and before the third page is done, he’s back at headquarters meeting his mission.  Vacation becomes a recurring theme; everyone is on one at Control, and soon the Chief too, so that’s why Max and 99 were called in from theirs. Their mission is to get a scientific professor from Control Headquarters to a secret space laboratory at the North Pole without KAOS getting to him first.  The professor is Wormster Von BOOM (yell out the BOOM when pronouncing it, which causes several “don’t yell” gags throughout), and he is developing a very lightweight formula for rocket fuel, and the lab is at the North Pole and the advantage of the technology would give us a decided advantage in the space race, and it’s 1968, so let’s roll with it.  So, that’s the assignment and then we pull a few cards from the “things that will get in the way” deck.  And that’s where the HAIR is first raised: In explaining the professor the Chief says “like all professors….(he is) a bit absent-minded.”  Which describes every scientist/professor they engage with in these books, and for Von BOOM (when first introduced he says “call me Wormy” but after a couple pages no one ever does) his professor-level absent-mindedness is that there are a few words which produce suggestion in his mind and trigger him to go somewhere.  Use the word “tip” in any form and he associates it with a waiter, and going to a restaurant to eat.  “Line” makes him think he’s going to the Post Office and waiting in line, “risk” tells him he needs to go out and get more life insurance. The professor committed this list to memory in order to abate his absent-mindedness but unfortunately he lost the list, so Max and 99 need to watch what they say without knowing what could trigger a departure. The upshoot is that an innocent word will get him into a hypnotized state and he’s off to a post office or restaurant.  If there were more trigger words, Johnston did not bother with them, and stuck to those two to cause enough havoc through the book.  The other gimmick of the book is Max’s desire to do the old crow-disguised-as-a-wild-goose trick.  You make the pursuer think you are going on a ‘wild goose chase’ but in reality you are heading straight as a crow towards the destination.So he set up a planes-trains-boats plan direct to the North Pole but via submarines, ocean liners, Trans Siberian Railway, and camels through the Sahara, well, it’s a convoluted plan but all in straight line.  In full it is truly aligned to the TV series, in a decent idea shrouded in absurdity. HAIR reappears as Max re-visits the underground Control escape tunnel, I’m not sure the elevator button was consistent with the earlier book reference, but Willoughby is still underground asking for an update this time on Lucky Lindy. They’ve also visited ocean liners before and that is their first mode of transportation on their journey.  A menacing run-in with a KAOS helicopter (“when a bunch of garbage makes sense, that’s Sidney!”) 

The rest of the journey is engaging and imaginative, all hallmarks of the Johnston series.  It’s absurd and the jokes recycle, but the scenes remain unpredictable.  A boat on wheels riding through the desert filming a low budget Moby Dick?  Sure, why not.  Symphony from Peoria on a train in Russia with a German conductor?  Check.  A 1968-vintage teenager smuggling bootleg rock records into the USSR?  We have that too.  As we have seen with prior books, like the first one with the “similar looking man in a hat…” shorthand used to be able to tell the reader what may be oblivious to Max, we get the “dumpy man who looks like he needs a keeper” used dozens of times throughout the book, mostly for von BOOM but also for Max.

99 is loyal and ahead of Max at times, especially when he doesn’t let her talk and does the wrong thing, but 99 is not perfect either, and both bumble their way through the book.  KAOS stops being a threat at some point, and though maybe they were the river pirates or somehow associated with the British guys who thought Max and 99 were well preserved mummies, you don’t see them, though Max is always suspecting them.  I still was unsure if Abdul, their travel guide, turned talent agent in the desert, but it seems he, like the teen record bootlegger, was exactly what he seemed to be.  As is usual, this wraps up at the 150-ish page mark with a wrap-up that doesn’t occur until three pages out.

Chief and the phone is used but perhaps sparingly to other books, the operator calls him Maxie and is protective of their equipment but does not add any side story.  Chief also went on vacation but late in the book was called back in by HIM due to an emergency.  We find out at the very end whe Max lost von BOOM, again, that it was not that big of a deal, why KAOS wasn’t around was explained: He lost von BOOM earlier in the book and was replaced by a KAOS agent so they were not trailing him for awhile.  But as it turns out von BOOM created the formula for KAOS who then sold it to….Control.  So, the job on the last page was to not allow Max and 99 their two week vacation and to head back to Control and get the real von BOOM and his formula and do the old crow-disguised-as-a-wild-goose  play back to the North Pole lab.  Cue the sad trombone and Mr. Johnston has successfully completed another assignment.

Overall: There were a couple of standouts with this book; the title was the first spy joke from outside of the Get Smart universe, and thematically followed with max in a heavy coat and the book itself ending up in the far reaches of the Northern Hemisphere. Some of the books are contained to characters who influence the plot even if that is not apparent at their introduction, The gun in act 1 going off in act 2.  But this one has a lot of just plain eccentrics who only assist with the journey and provide on other plot aide. From a boardgamer standpoint, it once again feels like the plot and encounters are turned from a deck of Get Smart plot and encounter cards.  And then Johnston fills it in for continuity.  Johnston’s HAIR is afire (or afoot, to keep with the theme) on page 109 in an exchange between Max and 99, when for the second time they needed to tuck and jump from a moving train:  

99: “Max we’re miles from the station.”

Max: “I can’t even see the Professor.”

99: “Didn’t we get those lines mixed up?”

Max: “I believe so.  Let’s try it again.  You first.”
99: “Max, I can’t even see the Professor.”

Max: “We’re miles from the station, 99.”

It was a flip on the exact encounter that occurred the first time they jumped from the train, and Johnston throws this little silly wordplay into the mix, but it’s a fourth-wall exposure, and makes you think that maybe at this point, the seventh book in the series, Johnston at the very least was testing to see if anyone at his publisher or the TV production company was still looking closely at the books.  But maybe that’s projection from me.

By the Numbers:

Pages: 7-152

Chapters: 10

Control Agents: Agent 99

Non-Control Side Kick:KAOS Agent V. T. Brattleboro, except when he’s a baddie

Non-Control Absent-minded Side-Kick:Professor Wormser (Wormy) von BOOM

Baddies: KAOS 

R&D Gadgets: 

Operator Gag: Calls him Maxie, reminds him not to damage the shoe

Review by Brian DiMarco

© 2020 Brian DiMarco