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Sunday 19 May 2019

Short wave.

The Short Wave mystery is book 24 or book 52 of the original Hardy boys canon depending on your region.

It involves audacious thefts and stuffed animals and an eventual showdown in Canada, with the ring leader.  It also deviates harshly depending on the version you got.  The original actually explains the outcome much better than the rewrite does.  Essentially giving the Hardys a reason to go to Canada rather than the boys going after the crook in the last chapter.  Also as the boys never graduate in the rewrites, they have to find ways to be excused from school. Rather than work for their dad, Fenton in the original.

There are some main cross over points common to both stories, though. A mansion, an auction, a "deerly" departed deer, that Chet Morton stuffs and mounts and is then stiffed out of $10 by a crook, and a raid on an electrical factory complete with a code over the wireless.

There's a nice parallel with gaming culture in the original text, with Aunt Gertrude moaning about short wave vs regular radio, and that the boys are spending too much time up in their room on their short wave sets.  Essentially pulling an all nighter, but 1940's style instead of gaming to the early hours.

Another thing not commented on in the rewrite,and this maybe exclusive to the UK version, is the sheer amount of typos in the text. I think they gave the proof reader, a day off, as they are quite extensive.

This includes, at the most nit picky, stray quote marks attributed to non quotable text and spaces before full stops, to really major stuff, including Chet Morton being called chest at one point, and Jimmy Gordon's mum being misgendered at one point (himself rather than herself.) The original PDF text I had also misses out two pages from the end of chapter 21. Glad that I bought the original as I've added the missing text, whilst reformatting.

A few things in the original are gladly gone. Joe doesn't kill a lynx in the rewrite, nor does Jimmy's dad beat the living bejesus out of him either. Uncle Elly is very much dead in the rewrite rather than just a dead beat, but apart from that the original text is very much the one you want.

Edit both are done now so download here and here.

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