In volume two, more is seen of the eccentric Alcantara, his wondrous inventions and his crew, and see how Ashika endures his captivity.

Two years of ship-hopping see them arrive home, rich with presents from the Empress and knowledge of the wondrous inventions they encountered: paper-manufacturing, gunpowder, the telescope, and the compass.

It was a wondrous invention, but it sounded like a cement mixer.

Next came the much tougher Enviromesh - a wondrous invention particularly for those growing brassicas as it keeps out all the flying pests that plague them while allowing water and light to filter through.

Out of that rubble a hallucination of Davee Rogo had emerged, the crippled genius who had befriended the twins and shown them his wondrous inventions.

Not children alone, but adults rolling on their tongues such wondrous inventions as discombobulate and goloptious and humongous --fun-words for special occasions, word play.

I recall as it were but yesterday the night of that momentous occasion upon which we were to test the practicality of that wondrous invention.

A wondrous invention called the arthroscope now allows orthopedists to conduct many of these surgeries through incisions no wider than a chopstick, the field of action magnified onto a video monitor above the operating table.

His "great pictures" and "wondrous inventions," as some of his Technicolor extravaganzas of the 1860's and 70's were called, gave Easterners exactly the image they wanted of the grand and bountiful West.

If there's something oddly nostalgic in his hope that Edison's wondrous invention still holds the potential for fresh perception, at such moments that faith is not hard to share.