I’ve written about Photon (the original Arena Laser Tag game) on my blog multiple times. I talked about the culture of Photon<\/a>, my excitement when I learned that a new Photon center was opening just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma<\/a> and all about Jeff and my visit there<\/a>. I also recorded a podcast episode of You Don’t Know Flack<\/a> where I talked about Photon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One thing I’ve never talked about were the paperback series of Photon books.<\/p>\n

Despite being a huge fan of Photon, until I visited Jim Strother’s Photon arena in Tulsa I had no idea there even were Photon paperbacks. In the lobby of his arena, in a display counter under some scratched up glass, Jim had all seven books.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Upon my return to Oklahoma City I checked a few used book stores for the books and came up empty handed. I couldn’t find any copies available for sale online either, so I wrote off ever tracking them down.<\/p>\n

Last month a friend of mine (who is working on a Photon-themed project) reminded me of the books. I checked online again and this time was able to find them all for sale. Seven online purchases and a few weeks of waiting later and I am now the proud (?) owner of all seven books.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There were two different series of books, so it makes sense to talk about them separately.<\/p>\n

The first is book is titled Thieves of Light<\/i>. It was written by Michael Hudson and there’s no series name but it doesn’t much matter as this is the only book in the series. From what I’ve gathered from the back of the book the plot sounds strikingly similar to The Last Starfighter<\/i>, only in this book it is Christopher Jarvis who is plucked from earth due to his amazing laser-blasting skills and whisked away to participate in intergalactic battles for real under his new Photon name, Bhodi Li. From what I understand the book ends implying there will be more books to follow, but that wasn’t the case.<\/p>\n

The second series consists of six books, all of which have the phrase “A Photon Adventure Novel” printed on the front cover. While the other series was intended for young adults, this series appears to have been written with teens in mind. The Adventure Novel series consists of six books: For the Glory, High Stakes, In Search of Mom, This is Your Life Bhodi Li, Exile, and<\/i> Skin Deep<\/i>. All six books were written by the prolific writer Peter David under the alias David Peters.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t planning on picking these books up until I read the summary on the back of the first book. (The bold that appears below is my own for emphasis:<\/p>\n

“ON EARTH, PHOTON IS A GAME and Christopher Jarvis is one of its best players — wielding his laser gun with high-scoring precision and razor-sharp skill.<\/p>\n

“BUT IN SPACE, PHOTON IS FOR REAL and Christopher Jarvis becomes Bhodi Li — Photon Warrior – the newest recruit in the elite fighting corps. Their mission: to stop the dark Warlord of Arr in his savage conquest of the universe.<\/p>\n

“FOR THE GLORY. Crossing the barriers of time, the Warlord plans to enlist Adolf Hitler in his evil ranks. And Chrisopher, now Bhodi Li, must face the brutal treacheries of World War II to fight these two deadly does… or surrender forever to ultimate darkness!<\/b><\/p>\n

“DON’T MISS THE OTHER LASER-BLASTING PHOTON ADVENTURES!”<\/I><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In case you missed it, let me point it out again. The dark Warlord of Arr’s plan to win Photon in outer space is go TRAVEL THROUGH TIME AND BRING BACK MOTHER FLIPPIN’ HITLER.<\/p>\n

Oh yes. I HAD to own these.<\/p>\n

For the record, six of the seven books can be picked up for a penny each plus shipping on Amazon. Roughly, that equated to four bucks per book. The last book of the series, Skin Deep<\/i>… well, good look. The cheapest copy currently on Amazon is $150, and there are copies listed for $999. Apparently the series didn’t sell well and this last book may have been produced in lower numbers than the other. I didn’t pay $150 for my copy but I paid more than someone should pay for a paperback book about a bunch of laser-wielding kids battling Hitler in outer space. Fortunately by book six, Hitler is long gone (again). In Skin Deep<\/i>, Baethan (a half-man, half-machine cyborg) is captured, cloned, and “reduced to a wimp,” so his friends must rally to help him regain his courage.<\/p>\n

As I told my friend Jeff, every one of these books are bat-shit insane.<\/p>\n

And now I own them. Thanks, Visa.<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth, the cover artwork on the books also makes a great background for my phone.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now I have to get to reading. Hitler awaits!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written about Photon (the original Arena Laser Tag game) on my blog multiple times. I talked about the culture of Photon, my excitement when I learned that a new Photon center was opening just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma and all about Jeff and my visit there. I also recorded a podcast episode of You Don’t Know Flack where I talked about Photon. One thing I’ve never talked about were the paperback series of Photon books. Despite being a huge fan of Photon, until I visited Jim Strother’s Photon arena in Tulsa I had no idea there even were Photon… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}