Been a bit of a shit week so far. Both my parents have had their SARS2 Jab and I got busted by the litter fascists and have to pay a fine. Which sucks. But I've managed to cobble together two more books for you.
The Mystery of the Flying Express is the absolute poster child for a great original story and a terrible rewrite.
The remake concerns a hydrofoil trip that is being sabotaged by unknown nefarious actors and has Chet Morton take up Astrology as his hobby of the week.
The original is about a spy ring operating via the Flying Express, a coast to coast crack* train, and the disappearance of a Professor Morse, a linguist professor from the Bixby university. There is no Astrology here, though Chet does make an appearance.
The remake has Chet in drag and a few other goofy stunts, this shouldn't be the reason to drag it down, but the overall, astrology bit, does. Its integral to the plot, in fact its integral to the main villain, which is dumb. The only plus side is that Iola and Callie get a fair bit of space dedicated to them in this. If no actual sleuthing done.
The original though is pretty good, the train theme works well, as does the spies speaking in strange, clipped English. There are a fair few accents in this, which range from western style English complete with the obligatory hoss mention, to the old African American porter speaking in obs and dems. Definitely not allowed nowadays.
There are a few more outdated stuffs here, Frank has a watch with a Radium dial. There is also a plane trip that is scheduled more like a bus ride, hopping from small airfields to small airfields out west, near the Rockies.
Anyway you can read both the original and remake here and here.
* This comes from Steve Reich of all things. The Different Trains album which explained that, back in the forties, an express was known as a crack train. Thought it too good to pass by in this context.
No comments:
Post a Comment