Steve Ahlquist’s The Electric Elephant is based on the children’s book The Wonderful Electric Elephant by Frances T. Montgomery, published in 1903. Neither the book nor Montgomery have a wikipedia entry so it’s apparently a pretty obscure volume. Montgomery’s original is fun in a blood thirsty, old timey racist sort of way. Ahlquist’s tale follows the same basic map as Montgomery’s but the new version drops the racism while expanding on and adding complexity to the original.

The book originally had illustrations by Cassius Coolidge. A gallery of those illustrations can be found here.

Also by Ahlquist on Jukepop.com are:
Lizzie the Girl Knight
Wonder Heroes 4.0

Steve Ahlquist has been one of my favorite writers to illustrate.

Number one, I enjoy reading his stories. Even the serious ones have a sense of humor, of lightness, to them. The world is serious enough. I like stories with a bit of goofiness.

Number two, his stories surprise me. I’d say how they surprise me but I wouldn’t want to spoil those surprises.

One of those stories is The Electric Elephant. It was serialized over at Jukepop.com. Unfortunately it didn’t get a lot of votes and, therefore, wasn’t profitable enough for Steve to continue past the published eight chapters. Fortunately, while there are plenty of loose ends, the last chapter does leave the protagonists in a good place. It’s worth a read. And a vote. Maybe with enough votes Steve can start writing again!