Mummys case

 Getting down to the last 3 book released in the UK, here. FYI only Track of the Zombie and The Blackwing Puzzle to go. 

The boys are tasked with escorting a mummy back, via ship to Cairo, where it'll be unwrapped for the museum* but of course attract trouble along the way. One of those being, putting down a coup in the made up Mediterranean island of Rubassa, as part of a case their dad is investigating.

They also take in the sights of Egypt, getting a glimpse of the boy king, Tutankhamun's mask. Karnak and Luxor and later fly over Amarna, the heretic kingdom of the pharaoh Akhenaton or rather Ikhnaton as the book has him.   

Rubassa is an odd case that along with it's sister island Milbin, the book bills it as an ex British commonwealth possession in the Med. It seems to be a stand in for Malta and by dint Gozo, which are British territories in the Med. It's capital city is Loma and is on the cusp of a revolution. Probably when this  book was written it was referencing Cyprus, which the boys also visit as part of their guard duty. 

Sadly for them, Nicosia remains resolutely landlocked, which means their sailing up to dock is rather moot at this point.

There is only one change between UK and US editions, a line that says save your breath is now, don't hold your breath. You can read them here and here. 

Crimson Flames

 A quick update as we'll be continuing our top 50 countdown on Sunday, but you have a new book to get through.

The Crimson Flame is quite the ride, the boys head to Arizona to work on a ranch after saving a rancher called McVay from having his priceless ruby stolen from him. They also head to Thailand, after his jewel was stolen and spend a time trekking through the jungle after the crooks, before the case leads back to Arizona.

The most strangest thing though now is that it starts off in New York with the boys planning to look over the city from the top of the World Trade Centre!

Also there is a very minor difference between the two versions where it all the cattle brands become four cattle brands.

You can read the original here and the UK version here. 

House and cabin.

 We have a few up coming announcements, someone did one of those best house tracks of all time and of course they are ignorant Americans so. I'm going to be doing my own, 50 of the best with a (Carl) bias towards the classics and such. Probably starting next week 10 per entry with a round up for each. 

Also Twatter has given us a daily dose of Hardy boys this time its the Sting of the Scorpion which I learned that it was (unverified) meant to be called the Stomp of the Elephant. Don't know how true this is but someone also posted that Brazil got a translation and gave us a link to his blog post. 

If you can read Portuguese you can read it here, or just let your browser auto translate. 

How to dismantle an atomic bomb

 With apologies to U2, this is of course Trapped at Sea, the seventy third book in the series. It may also be called keep on trucking as well, as the boys get jobs driving big lorries around in order to smoke out some truck hijackers.  Oh and be aware that yes they do get to dismantle an atomic bomb in this as their dealings leads them to Pirates Cove, an island somewhere in the Caribbean, where the freighter they are trapped on docks (well Atlantic island), and they find that the Uranium the trucks held! is being used to make bombs for a rogue nation.

Sorry for the big wall of text there, you did read that right, they get to dismantle an atomic bomb with the help of an evil professor.  There is, for once one difference between the two texts as the final sentence altered to omit the next book in the UK version. 

The text credits a Doctor William W. Ennis for help with the atomic research and radioactive side of things. A search brings up a William P Ennis, a war hero and a name Beavis and Butthead would chuckle over, but nothing for the former. I wonder if he was a friend of the author or someone he knew?

You can read them here and here. 

Roaring Rivers

 So, we are mostly on the home straight now, for the series published in the UK. I have 6 books left to transcribe and upload. Not sure what I'll do when they're done. I have a few non UK mainline series books in physical and a few files up to 100 of the mainline Hardy Boys books. But apart from that maybe I should start by collating together all the info I had on this and make a proper book of it all. 

This edition is number 78 The Roaring River mystery. The boys rescue a man from being drowned by two other guys, and end up on a rafting trip up to Maine to ride the rapids of the Roaring river. There is also the subplot of a bank robbery in Washington that ties in with their trip (of course it does) and a lifejacket owned by the expedition leader is of course key to it all. 

Its not a bad book the boys are of course experts in white-water rafting and this just so happens to be Chet Morton's new hobby. I'm not sure if the Roaring River is a real place but the Allagash Waterway is and is a wilderness area in Maine noted for canoeing and kayaking. 

As this is a later Hardy boys mystery, there are no differences save the number, between the two editions. So you can either pick the US or UK version. 

Apemen

 The Apeman's secret is basically the boys take on comic book culture and super hero shows. I guess the Apeman is a stand in for the Incredible Hulk as both TV and book series are released at the end of the 1970's. 

The basic plot of this is some thefts have been occurring around Bayport along with the appearance of the Apeman, a TV show based on a super hero caveman type. There is also totally not a Scientology style cult that has been recruiting teenagers to commit crimes and pass on information to the main leader. 

A few things I've noticed following the culture war stuff on Youtube, watching Ya Boi Zack on the comics  industry and finding nothing really changes. Here its not woke or diversity but out and out crookery that is the driving force. Chet submits a character he's drawn as part of one of his hobbies and finds that his character has been changed to a comic relief one. Also it seems that the Apeman thing was stolen outright from another creator.

Also is this the first ever mention of cosplay? as the Apeman interrupts the boys disco where they dress up as comic book characters. I know fancy dress was a thing back then, but the boys and their pals all go dressed as various comic book characters rather than other famous characters or professions. 

Anyway as its a newish Hardy boys book there are no changes here in the script between the two editions. You can read both books here and here. 

There will be no Beaufort analysis this week as my room has been in sore need of sorting out so everything is up in the air at the moment. 

Pentagon Spies

Rather appropriate seeing as the heavily redacted Epstein files have been released we get a story all about shenanigans at the Pentagon in Washington.  

Or is it about someone stealing weathervanes in Amish country in Pennsylvania. Because this is what this story is mainly about. The boys are tasked with trying to protect a weathervane out in the Pennsylvania Deutsch country from a gang of thieves. They of course fail and follow it all the way to Chesapeake Crossing out in the bay. Of course there is an intelligence option their dad is following, someone stealing Pentagon secrets and a missing man who is supposedly the spy.  Could the two cases be linked.

As this is a later edition there are no changes to the script between the US and UK editions, even though for some places this would actually be welcome (tag sale = garage sale for one), and I'm not sure if this was in a hardback rather than a paperback which most of the books were. 

You can pick what edition you want here or here. 

Four headed dragons

 Another book transcribed. This time its the intriguingly titled Four Headed Dragon

The boys have to deal with a mysterious mansion next door to Chet Morton's farmstead, where Chet himself, found a dazed and injured Sam Radley wandering. The mansion seems to be the hideout for a gang of crooks and an incoming hurricane forces the boys to shelter there when they rescue a girl out on the bay. There is also a subplot involving Fenton Hardy looking for a wanted criminal who attempted to sabotage the Alaskan oil pipeline. Gee, I wonder if they are connected in any way.

The mansion itself was owned by the Sayer family and is a riff on the Winchester mystery house with its many rooms dedicated to housing the souls of the restless dead. It comprises of a ruined west wing along with an extensive attic and clock tower. It is presided over by a caretaker called Emile Grubb. 

You can read the US version here and the UK version here.

Program(me) for Destruction

 85th book in the series and I have some serious questions to put to whoever wrote this. 

For those unaware, this mystery revolves around the boys taking a case from an Arthur Stockard, owner of the CompuCar company (a sort of proto Tesla) which has a futuristic Voice activated car which is the target of sabotage. They are gifted a car to test and it eventually turns out that it, and the CompuCar factory is the target of a computer virus attack rendering everything a mess

Maybe I've seen too many Danooct1 videos on classic viruses but I'm pretty sure that the main criminal live coding a virus in his own self contained area of CompuCars car factory, in order to infect some master disks linked to (I'm guessing) the net or more likely a series of bulletin boards is not so efficient.  You would have a virus riddled disk and then infect a PC in order to then infect those disks. Oh and did I say he's keeping both Hardy boys and Arthur under control with a revolver.

Another nice touch is the whole car OS being run from a floppy in the boot. Frank checks it out on their PC and finds the virus which is  pretty risky, I'm guess he's going to reinstall DOS if it all goes tits up. 

Apart from that the main difference is like this post in the title and that we used to spell floppies "discs".

I like that we used to spell a computer program as programme. Its got a nice dual edge to it like a timetable for destruction, whereas the US version is just program.

Anyway you can read both here and here.  

Jungle Pyramids

Or as I like to call this, a wild gold chase. The boys have been tasked to find some gold bars, stolen from the Wakefield Mint in an audacious heist. The guards hypnotized and a trail that leads out to Switzerland and then on to Mexico before heading home to Bayport.

The Jungle Pyramid itself is a place called Palango down near Chichen Itza in the Yucatan ( and always humorously corrupted to It's a chicken, by me), which serves as a base for an American archaeology group and prey for a looter called Rumble Murphy and his pilot, who they manage to catch in the act. 

It's not a bad one and introduces some Scythian gold that was stolen too along with the Mints ingots. In fact this is what gets the boys to Switzerland and when that pans out, to Mexico, hunting a mysterious Mr Zemog.

Its an OK book and won't reveal why I call this a wild gold chase. Incidentally, copy of the text in the Weebly archive seems to be the UK edition which of course I already have, so whatever differences in text (if any) are not going to be shown for obvious reasons. 

You can read both here and here and as there's no difference between them, the choice is yours.  

Skull mountain

 I really thought I was done buying Hardy boys books from eBay, turns out I was wrong. This is the last of the originals that was incompetently scanned from an old book and as my guessing game is off ordered an original version of The Secret Of Skull Mountain. Apart from the scan being terrible it also missed out a few things such as a graphic box when the boys go to the harbourside. Its not, miss half a chapter bad, as it was in Broken Blade. But its bad enough.

As the books go this is one of those that is halfway between a small edit and a complete rewrite of the original. It's still a story about water shortages and sabotage to a reservoir, but there are a few crucial differences in the original than the remake.

For starters there is just a skeleton crew on the mountain rather than a whole team prospecting. The mineral the crooks are after was Bauxite and is now "Cesium" I guess the old version really liked their tin cans as its used to produce Aluminium. Caesium as it properly should be is an absolute nightmare around water (it explodes in contact) can remember an old Thunderf00t vid where he was exploring alkali metals such as this before he went off the deep end into full on Musk derangement syndrome.

The last final difference in the original is that Chief Collig is not a pal of there's, he's jealous of their success and along with Con Riley are an active thorn in their sides. If you're used to the new versions of them being close, then this is quite the eye opener. Oh and Callie gets a job as a clerk to help the boys out. Which was nice.

 Finally you would never get away with treating human remains like that nowadays, a full archaeological survey would  be carried out on the Indian remains up on the hill and the Hermits pranks would be seen as disrespectful. But its the 1940's so what can you do. 

Anyway you can read the original and the remake here. Seeing as I've given away so little of the plot.

A superbike and some romz.

Hello everyone I've got two topics today. Firstly a new book transcribed The Mystery of the Silver Star and the last bit of holiday road testing an R4 with a 3DS, with a few roms added.  

We'll get the book out the way first as its not that important. Number 84 one of the last Hardy boys books released here, is the Mystery of the Silver Star. A book revolving around the sabotage of a new carbon fibre wonder bike, but of course is much more involved. The guy riding, Keith Holland can be thought as a prototypical Chris Boardman or Victoria Pendleton for those who like to bang on about women in everything. But much more Chris Boardman. His rival Gregg Angelotti can be though of as a bad boy of competitive cycling. A pre smack Lance Armstrong, if you will. 

The story itself isn't bad, its not awful by any stretch and its localization is hit and miss. Words like neighbours get their u's but other words like tires are not properly localized. 

You can of course read both books here and here.

Two ROM talks.

We took the R4 from the bootsale on holiday, we reinstalled CFW on it after the original SD card got borked, and we have to say it performed OK. Playing a fan translation of SaGa 3 and Golden Sun via MGBA, works well alongside playing Pokemon Picross again because the crash wiped out all your progress. 

These however are not the two rom talks, though. First up is Golden Nugget Casino. A perfectly serviceable casino sim, that is basically ruined by being clunky. It's OK for what it does but its not horrible, just dull. 

The last one however, is Rainbow Islands Revolution. A fuck awful incarnation of a beloved platformer, that seems to rely on touch screen antics for everything. You control Bub in a bubble via the touch screen and also draw on the touch screen to create rainbows to block / kill enemies. If that sounds clunky and unwieldy then you'd be absolutely correct. There is no non touch screen controls to make it any less clunky and I can't be bothered to go back and see if they have the proper Somewhere Over The Rainbow theme. 

Part of Taito's disastrous updating of its old IP for DS era. I've heard that Bubble Bobble Revolutions isn't bad apart from its Myxomatosis suffering Bub n Bob boxart. Arkanoid DS is boring as hell and I actually own that on physical (£1.49 paid and still feel cheated) much to my dismay. Can remember an old Rev Flattop review of it saying how dull it was and that only after much work does it offer a secret, much better mode.

In fact it took until Bubble Bobble Neo for Xbox 360 and Wii for it to improve and the Switch version (4 Friends) while taking a lot of directions from mobile games, is still playable, says how much the brand wasn't harmed. by the DS / PSP era games. 

EDIT.

Oh and finally, saw this today and RPG nut as I am, wonder why we don't have a golden age of sail / pirate JRPG. Can think of nothing else but upgrading your ship, treasure maps and dungeons and carving out trading routes for a stylized 16th century earth, all European powers sailing to Zipang and Cathay down to the new world and Caribbean. Now that would be worth playing.  

Infinity

 Might do two posts this week, as I have a genuine mystery as well as a new book transcribed. 

The Infinity clue is the 68th book in the series here and the boys are having to face a strange plot involving nuclear power, earthquakes and a bomb threat. Oh and an albino  terrorist thrown in for good measure.

There are no differences  as its part of that era where we got hardback versions with identical texts and that means no localization. 

The boys are visiting Biff Hooper's uncle at Bayridge nuclear powerplant, where he works,  when an earthquake goes off jepordaizing it's security. The area has no history of quakes or of being on a fault line presents the boys with a challenge. 

There are a few nice touches such as a trip to the Smithsonian museum and a mysterious geologist group. Also thrown into the mix is the theft of a cursed diamond owned by missing racehorse magnate, Arthur Rutlidge. A theft of which the Hardys and Chet Morton are accused of. 

A nice touch is Chapel Island a place where 18th century English is still spoken, which the boys visit over the course of the mystery, and could be based on this place.

Anyway you can read them here and here. 

Hissing Serpents

 Still not feeling especially lucky, mind, but finally, this is now done. 

Do you like ballooning and chess, then this is possibly for you. A Hardy boys mystery that combines both and with the bonus of going to China (Hong Kong as it was then) in the dying final 4th quarter of the book. 

Two mysteries for you here, one being a shady jewellery business scam with a side line in tailored Hong Kong suits, and a life-sized chess piece called the Ruby King, which is not only life-sized (as mentioned) but cursed to boot. 

This is currently owned by an Albert Krassner a local business tycoon along with his Chinese wife (who is never named in the entire book) and is the grand prize in a grand chess tournament. The local champ is Conrad Greene who was being bugged by unscrupulous Chinese gamblers who want to rig the contest so their preferred candidate wins.

Chet not only suffers in this (breaks his arm in a stake out) but also has the unlikely hobby of hot air ballooning as well as learning Cantonese to help with the case. 

Differences are pretty thin here, but do exist, Tony Prito doesn't say mama Mia or cross himself when Joe takes him on a disastrous flight, and there is the usual UK English spellings from the American equivalents. Also my copy has both Joe and Tony on the front cover one of the only times I've seen Tony Prito drawn.

What you see of Hong Kong isn't bad, there are a few Armchair Graves and bone jars (Gam Ta) containing the remains of long dead Chinese ancestors, and Tai Pak floating restaurant (now closed) off Aberdeen harbour gets a look in as the mystery comes to a climax.   

You can read the UK and US versions here. 

Werewolf

Night of the Werewolf, was the first of the new era of Hardy Boys digest stories continuing on from the classic 56 stories in the UK (58 in the states as they include Hidden Harbour mystery and House on the Cliff). 

Mostly we got these as an Angus & Robertson hard back edition with the unrevised US text rather than a fully localized UK English version as before.  Which is exactly the edition I have.

The story is about a glowing werewolf appearing at a diner where the boys are dining and evolves from there as it involves a young man called John Tabor and his father, Karel. Karel is an architect, working on a skyscraper project in New York but also has a home in the Adirondacks and a project there called the Eagles Nest.

His son John is the focus, after spending time in a sanitarium out at Pine Creek for a while and the wolf attacks escalate when he came out. He is a distant descendant of a noted European werewolf of legend and this is what the boys have to deal with. 

Chet Morton's hobby this time is building a birch bark canoe and has a love interest in John's chubby sister Alena. He seems to be paired up with larger ladies maybe due to his size, but secretly I'm sure that's his fetish. 

Anyway as the first Angus & Robertson hardback edition both UK and US editions are identical.

You can read them here UK and here US.  

A Den of Demons

 So we're up to book 79 and The Demon's Den is quite a nice little read for you. And yes its going to get a little strange, as it covers an Apocalypse cult (red herring this) Paul Bunyan and Genetic Engineering. 

Or as someone who's clearly not read past the first few chapters in this says, 

"Pretty weird. Over the top. You know who doesn't need to be in a Hardy Boys book? Satan."

The doomsday cult in this gets the blame for the kidnapping of an athlete's son, the boys travel to Canada on the advice of their dad to see if someone was carrying a genetically modified virus from a secret group and find that its actually a programme to breed a race of super-athletes instead. 

This came out in 1984 and 40 years on with all the advances in genetics made,  (cough CRISPR and Genetic Engineering) we're still no nearer of doing what the guys are supposed to do in this. It's not completely whacked out (the Original Disappearing Floor is still the one to beat for this) but it's still not the best for science. Oh and there is no Satan in this, its actually Paul Bunyan's camp in Canada, named by the cult, instead. 

Anyway its a late era book, so no changes in between versions.  Choose either UK or US original.

Outlaws Silver

I'm seriously going to look into a Wordpress incarnation of this site, as blogger has become unusable over the past few months. Stuff that has proper paragraphs just get lumped into one and there is the ever present Google censorship to contend with. Doing a feminish got ratioed before they found out it wasn't that bad. Anyway. The Outlaws Silver. The 65th Hardy boys book here and its basically a trip out to the pine woods of New Jersey for the brothers, but also Chet Morton, Biff Hooper and Tony Prito. The official reason they're out there is that Frank manages to get reverse pickpocketed a little Jersey Devil figure that leads them out looking for redcoat pirate treasure. 

The other reason is that a man, convicted of a crime he didn't commit comes into his inheritance along with a pardon for what he didn't do. Of course our boys track him down and the treasure but not without some trouble. It seems that he's a doctor in those parts now, and the people round there are fond of him and protect him. Wiki has a good resume of what a Piney is here,  but for the ignorant its a local name for a Pine Barrens resident.

Because the texts from 57 to at least the late 70's are the same there are no differences, between the two stories regardless of region. But , for the sake of completeness, both UK and US texts can be found here, and here.  

Edit, seems I was  using HTML view for the past two months. Oh and really wanted to talk about the recent sentencing of Axel Rudakubanana, but realized that this wouldn't get me censured, and that I had forgotten all about it until looking at the post list. 

Stone Idols.

Here is The Stone Idol Hardy boys mystery, and the point where I think the whole series jumped the shark. 

Wiki says its brought about by the popularity of Indiana Jones, but it really doesn't fit in with that. No tomb raiding or mysterious artefact apart from the aforementioned stone idol. Just a wild goose chase and two different stories that don't really gel together. 

There are at this point no differences between the US and UK texts. All spellings and terms are the same. So it's a choice of if you want either Mystery number 63 or 65. 

The story starts off with a newspaper advert and a number for the boys to call. A Mr Kimberley of South American Antiques reports that a stone idol from Easter Idol has gone missing. The boys travel to Chile where South American Antiquities have their headquarters and with a cryptic clue find it hidden behind a painting in the head office. And there it all unravels as its stolen again and they chase it across the Andes, take a break to work on a case for their dad in the Antarctic before heading back to Easter Island where the Idol is recovered. 

I won't spoil the end but it's a nothing mystery and for me jumps the shark. It seems that whoever ghost wrote this read Thor Heyerdahl's Aku-aku. So you get some facts on Easter Island and a visit to see the famous Moai Heads. I know this would carry on for 120 or so books give or take. But in the UK where the series ended with the 87th, this is the equivalent of the last season of a popular show where they officially ran out of ideas. 

 Anyway both can be found for reading here US and here UK.

Vanishing thieves

Book 64 here in the UK. A nice tale about the boys going to L.A. to track down a 1913 Liberty Head nickel once owned by Chet Morton's Uncle. The Vanishing thieves part comes from a sub plot where a car theft ring is stripping cars down for parts and Chet's Cousin Vern has his car stolen. A few times they try to catch them at it but in all cases the gang disappear and set up shop elsewhere. And finally seeing as Joe Hardy is tipped overboard by the thugs and is rescued from a shark attack by a pod of dolphins, this is officially where the series jumps the shark*. 

A good tale with a good balance between numismatics and car theft and its not often you can say that. You can read the original here and the UK version here there is no difference between the two sadly. 

*The actual place where the series jumped the shark is The Stone Idol a nothing burger of a case where the boys travel to Antarctica for reasons.

Vampire Trail.

Danger on Vampire trail is the 42nd Hardy boys book released here, and it seems to be something of an anomaly. There are two stories which the boys are investigating, the first is the wholesale fraud on the Magnacard credit card (a sort of prototype American Express) and the second is the illegal mining of sapphires up in the Rockies. 

The anomaly here is as it's written in the early 70's is this the first story or detective novel solely concerned with credit card fraud? 

The main story is that Biff Hooper, friend of the Hardys has a bloodhound called Sherlock which they bring on a trip out west celebrating Chet Morton picking up a cheap trailer which turns out was bought fraudulently on a Magnacard. Several incidents take place as they head towards Denver, Colorado and there is a showdown of sorts up on Vampire Trail complete with imported Vampire bats. 

There is a few things here for pedants like myself. Chet has no hobbies in this one. Biff Hooper gets a dog for this one novel*. Though I'm pretty sure he had another called Tivoli in another book. And we learn that Mrs Hardy wants a sapphire as its her birth stone making her birthday fall in September. Anyway there isn't too many differences between the two editions. We get no next book at the end and a few terms are changed, trailer is now caravan. 

You can read both the UK and US versions here and here.

*Edit. Sherlock makes an appearance in The Clue of the Hissing Serpent where he upsets an old lady's pussy.