Rick Brant

Rick Brant is the central character in a series of 24 adventure and mystery novels by John Blaine, a pseudonym for authors Harold L. Goodwin (all titles) and Peter J. Harkins (co-author of the first three). The series was published by Grosset & Dunlap between 1947 and 1968, with the previously unpublished title, The Magic Talisman printed in 1990 in a limited edition as the concluding #24.

In the series, teenaged Rick Brant and his ex-Marine pal, Don Scott live on Spindrift Island off the coast of New Jersey, where Rick's father, Hartson Brant, heads the Spindrift Foundation, a group of scientists. Rick and Scotty are involved in various adventures at home and abroad. Besides Hartson Brant, the recurring supporting characters in the series include:

• Barbara Brant (Barby), Rick's younger sister
• Chahda, a resourceful youth from India
• Janice Miller (Jan), daughter of Dr. Walter Miller, a Spindrift scientist, and Rick's girlfriend
• Dismal, the Brant family dog
• Steve Ames, an agent of "JANIG", the fictional Joint Army-Navy Intelligence Group

Various Spindrift scientists also appear several times:

• Physicist Hobart Zircon
• Mathematician Julius Weiss
• Cyberneticist Parnell Winston
• Archaeologist Tony Briotti
• Rocket designer John Gordon

The Rick Brant series had a scientific tone (being bylined as "Electronic Adventures" or "Science-Adventure Stories" and finally "SCIENCE Adventures"). The science in the stories was realistic science, unlike the fantastic science of Tom Swift, Jr.

Hal Goodwin was a popular science writer with a strong technical background and a sense of style unusual in the juvenile adventure-series field. The books are suspenseful, well-plotted, atmospheric, and enriched by humor and acute characterization as well as personal experience. Exotic locales such as tropical islands, the Philippine jungles, and the Himalayas were given vivid and well-researched depictions, as were a variety of specialized hobbies and professions, such as scuba diving, infrared photography, home rocketry, and the inevitable espionage work. Like the Ken Holt mystery series, the tales appealed to a slightly older audience than did the typical Grosset & Dunlap titles. (Ken Holt had a crossover cameo in The Flying Stingaree, and Rick lent some of his gadgets to Ken in one of the books in that series, by agreement of the respective authors.)

The publishers were averse to any suggestion of the supernatural in the series. An ambiguous end to "The Blue Ghost Mystery" was dropped, and an entire book (The Magic Talisman) was rejected due to its inclusion of ESP elements. This lost tale was eventually published in an independent edition in 1990.

Beginning in the 1980s, Grosset & Dunlap began transferring the copyrights to Hal Goodwin. The rights are now held by the John Blaine/Rick Brant Trust. The Goodwin family has been working to bring the works back in print, starting with the rarer final four books.

Rick Brant never graduated to any other medium of entertainment, although there are notable similarities to be found in the Jonny Quest franchise.