A Gordon Korman novel following Simon Irving, the new painting student at a High School for artistically-gifted students. Simon's father runs Interflux, a company which produces "Parts" of things needed to make bigger things. Simon finds out his father's company wants to buy and develop a strip of land next to the school that the students enjoy using as their private retreat. Partially as an act of rebellion, he ends up using the student body's money to buy the land, creating the "Antiflux" association. Things spiral out of control pretty fast though, as the rest of the quirky students begin getting caught up in it.
Tropes:
- The Alleged Car: The Wreck a barely functioning car shared by Sam and Phil.
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Bill and Dino are always casually making bets on small things for hundreds of thousands of dollars, which they never intend to actually pay.
- Company Town: Half of the people in Greenbush, New York work for Interflux and the company is willing to pressure the town government into being a Rules Lawyer and targeting their enemies with various obscure ordinances, as well as officially classifying an obvious creek as a stream due to streams being allowed to have more factory pollutants in them. When Simon's father has run out of other options he simply tells the government that Interflux will pull out of Greenbush unless they expropriate the land, which they immediately do.
- Eccentric Artist: Querada, the painting teacher, is a high-strung guy always making Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon threats.
- Fake–Real Turn: Simon uses student government funds and a fake organization's name to buy the land Interflux needs for its new development, as a spontaneous act of rebellion against his father. When the student government learns he spent their money, Simon has to convince the school that he did it for environmental/anti-corporate reasons. He speaks on this so eloquently that the student body rallies around him, everyone wants to join the organization, and the whole thing takes on a life of its own.
- Insufferable Genius: Nathan Kruppman, a director/student who has been making a movie for most of his time at the school using various students as actors (although, to be fair, it does turn out to be pretty good).
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: After his You Remind Me of X speech, Querada gets embarrassed at the sentiment he's displayed and threatens to kill Simon in his sleep if he ever tells anyone.
- Parents as People: Mr. Irving is a great parent who just happens to disagree with his son about his career path. Even after he finds out what Simon is doing after an initial blow up he takes it with some humor and they look at each other in a Worthy Opponent way while continuing to chat over meals and such for the remainder of the dispute.
- Same Story, Different Names: Played less straight than in most of Korman's early novels: like all those other books, Son of Interflux features a character known for his love of the Zany Scheme (Phil) and his Only Sane Man best friend (Sam), but they're both supporting characters, while Simon, the lead, is somewhere in between.
- Second Place Is for Losers: Simon keeps a brave face but is dejected when his prized painting comes in fifth in a contest, at least until Querada tells him that this is because it's too brilliant for the judges to appreciate in in a You Remind Me of X speech.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Simon and Wendy Orr of the student council have some romantic sparks but a lot of disputes and bitter arguments over things like him spending the school's money to buy land, and her disdain for Simon's friends.
- Sore Loser: Querada does not take it well when anyone beats him or his students in a painting contest.Querada: To this very day I curse the names of those who won in my place, especially those who are still alive.
- Troll: Sam is constantly nettling Querada by sneaking camels into whatever new painting he has after seeing it annoy the teacher. This ends up improving his work and winning him an honorable mention in a competition.
- Upper-Class Twit: Mr. Montrose, the descendant of the company founders, is referred to as "The Flake" by Simon's dad and just spends his time skiing naked and being tabloid fodder, although he does show some insightfulness at the end when he arrives and is needed to mediate the dispute.
- World of Ham: The Nassau Arts Academy isn't exactly short of talented, outgoing eccentrics.
- Writer's Block: Bill McIntosh, one student, has written a novel but is having trouble writing anything else out of dejection that it has been rejected by every publisher he sent it to.
- Yoko Oh No: Simon and Phil disapprove of the effect that dating Barbara has on their Clueless Chick-Magnet friend Sam as he feels too insecure to express interest in all of the stuff that once made him so fun to hang out with. Sam agrees with them and decides he and Barbara are Better as Friends.
