After all, the former Tulsan wouldn't want his readers to strain their backs if they should, perchance, happen upon an opportunity to heft 125 pounds of sci-fi wonderment onto their backs and then blast off like James Bond escaping a wicked mob of baddies.

Once that 25-second joy ride ends with a safe landing, the 29-year-old, who is very mindful of his reader's safety, recommends bending one's knees. Oh, and, as he said, "Don't be embarrassed if you fall on your back -- it happens to even the best pilots."

Practical advice -- no. Hilarious and yet insightful information -- yes.

From there, the Washington High School and University of Tulsa graduate shimmies through an array of wish-list technologies -- ray gun, anyone? -- updating the populace on the status of Jetson-tastic gizmos, ranging from robot servants to flying cars; teleportation to moon colonies.

And he does it all with the know-how expected from a bloke who earned a doctorate from the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, but in easy-to-understand terms.

For instance, he uses ice-cream-loving quantum particles to explain quantum teleportation. He also writes in a relaxed, often humorous tone as if he were explaining hover boards over a pint at Arnie's: "Some crazy-(arse) mad science will have to go down before you can cruise around on Marty McFly's pink party board."

Although the book is about futuristic wonders and blunders, Wilson, who lives in Portland, Ore., wrote a good chunk of it on a laptop in the antithesis of a self-contained skyscraper city: the late Alexander Hogue's farm north of Collinsville.

Hogue's granddaughter, Amalia Marino, inherited the farm and she invited her longtime friend for an extended stay. Cell-phone reception was lousy and he couldn't connect to the Internet but at least he had electricity.

"Where's My Jetpack?" is the followup to his debut, tongue-in-cheek instructional guide, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising," which won a Rave Award from Wired magazine.

Inside its shimmery, red-tipped pages, readers learned how to, for instance, survive hand-to-hand combat with a robot.

By the way, as Wilson wrote, "it is hard for a robot to wipe mud from its eyes when it has whirring buzz saws for hands."

Be sure to stash that nugget of wisdom away with how to pilot a rocketbelt.

If you think Wilson deals in frivolous, throwaway knowledge, the U.S. Naval Academy begs to differ. Wilson said "Uprising," which contains a wealth of factual information, is used as an introductory textbook in the academy's robotics class.

Among the other fans of the book is Mike Myers, of "Austin Powers" fame, who has agreed to star in the film adaptation. The screenplays was penned by Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant -- the guys behind the wacky "Reno 911!" television series.

When he read the script, Wilson said he was "literally laughing out loud every other page."

In the fall, expect the book's sequel, "How to Build a Robot Army."

"It's basically how to team up with robots against all the other pop culture threats," Wilson explained. "Are you in the woods surrounded by werewolves? How do you use robots to get out of that? Or are you in a mummy's tomb? Are you on the high seas with a super-intelligent great white shark?

". . . It's how to defend planet Earth against aliens and zombies, pirates and ninjas and whatever else I could think of."

Yet another robot-related book, "Robonomicon," is a forthcoming children's book full of "hidden knowledge about robots -- really fantastical things," he said.

Then there's another children's book, but this one will veer away from high-tech robots in favor of no-tech ways to survive an intense sibling rivalry.

Wilson, who has a little brother, calls it "Bro-Jitsu."

"If you've got a sibling, and you grow up together, you develop this mode of combat and everybody does -- you can't help it," he said. "Maybe you thought you invented it, but you didn't. It's actually a martial art, you know, so you have all your noogies and wet willies and punching and things like that -- dead arms, charley horses -- that are all part of this martial art that has its own code of conduct.

"I've written some sacred vows," he said, laughing, "like, 'I will never hit my brother in the face.' "

Wilson divided the book into offensive and defensive maneuvers and included psychological warfare tactics like "the pre-emptive cry of pain."

"Before someone hits you, start screaming bloody murder," Wilson explained. "That's tricky. You just don't do that one day -- you have to learn it."

Nickelodeon Movies representatives loved the idea, and Wilson will pen the screenplay for the forthcoming film adaptation of "Bro-Jitsu."

In other news, Wilson is a contributing editor for Popular Mechanics magazine. He's its robotics guru.

Beyond that, Wilson joins the likes of Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote "2001: A Space Odyssey," in deciding what robot deserves entry into the Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh.

Wilson voted for 2007 nominee Data, an android from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," because he wasn't your typical robot.

"I just like him because he wasn't trying to kill people," Wilson said. "He was constantly trying to kind of figure people out, but he didn't really want to be a human . . . I get a little annoyed when robots want to be people or kill people. They're always obsessed with people. It's like, 'You're a robot. You're pretty good on your own. Don't worry about people.' "

Wilson said not to worry: Data will not be a part of the robot uprising.

Matt Gleason 581-8473
matt.gleason@tulsaworld.com