When chubby, geeky Wylder Wallace spills lunch on cool and aloof Addy
Crowe at Toronto's Comicon, she dashes to the bathroom, leaving behind
the latest issue of her uncle's steampunk comic hit: FLYNN GOSTER in
GOLD RUSH TRAIN. Wylder, a fan of the Flynn comics, opens this new one
eagerly, astounded to see the girl who was just yelling at him inside
the comic. Fascinated, he follows Addy into the bathroom, and the
adventure begins...
Is there a personality conflict? Oh, yes. Addy wants to go home; Wylder
wants to stay and explore the world of Viminy Crowe's comic book. Do
things go wrong? You bet they do, from the very start, when Addy loses
her pet rat, Catnip, and almost gets shot by a Red Rider. All the while
the actual comic book story is going on around them. The train carries a
fortune from the Yukon goldfields, and both dashing Flynn Goster (hero
of a thousand disguises and thief extraordinaire) and villainous
Professor Aldous Lickpenny (criminal genius, aided by malevolent robots
but somewhat hampered by doltish nephew Nevins) have plans to steal the
gold. There's romance too -- Flynn's old flame, the brilliant aviatrix,
Isadora Fortuna, is traveling across Canada with her balloon, and her
strangely familiar protégée Nelly Day. Addy and Wylder navigate the
story with the aid of the comic book itself. Every page turn sends them
to a different setting, from the Banff Springs Hotel to an
alligator-wrestling arena in Florida. But when they finally find a
portal back to the real world, catastrophe follows ... A hilarious
thrill-ride of a story that will have kids laughing and on the edge of
their seats with every turn of the page.
