Review:
"Operation: Titanic" is a mess. The book appears to have originally been a Nancy Drew File, but then the Nancy Drew Files were cancelled and somebody was hired to add some scenes with the Hardy Boys to the book so that the book could become a Supermystery and they could make some money of the Titanic craze that was going on at that time due to the release of the movie "Titanic".
From what I remember, Frank and Joe spend most of the book hanging out at some friend's place and being chased around and getting guns waved in their faces by the Network. Judging by the amazon reviews, there appears to be some sort of mystery in those chapters, but I don't remember it at all. The scenes with Nancy were ok. All I really remember was that some billionaire was in love with Nancy, and that Nancy was investigating a murder. The last few chapters of the book are better, but that isn't saying much. The book was still a waste of my time. When I read a Supermystery, I want to see Frank, Joe, and Nancy work together. I don't want to be bored to death waiting for the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to meet up. Also, the events on the back cover only happen in the last few chapters.
This is the worst Supermystery ever, don't bother reading it unless you like being bored.
Rating
2 out of 10
Yeah, it wasn't the greatest SuperMystery'88 ever released. And everytime that I've read the book I've always found that it could've easily been two seperate Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys stories, with maybe the conclusion being the same in both books.
And really, the Titanic part, didn't really get to me, since it turned out that the billionaire was actually working for the US government to recover some nuclear missiles that were lying on the ocean floor, and they were top-secret nuclear missiles, so the government needed the guy to publicly say that he was going to raise the Titanic in order to get the missiles.
But even though it's one of the worst books, it still has probably the best entrance scene when Frank and Joe come onto the boat by helicopter.
QuoteBut even though it's one of the worst books, it still has probably the best entrance scene when Frank and Joe come onto the boat by helicopter.
Yeah- That's definitely a pretty cool scene. I do remember being a bit stymied when I first read this book as Frank and Joe and Nancy are not physically together for the majority of
Operation: Titanic - I did think it was kinda interesting though as a lot of their communication was through their cell phones- that's one of the first Hardy Boys and/or Nancy Drew books I remember really making heavy use of cell phones. (Although I'm pretty sure there were instances in earlier books too of course- just that that particular book had a pretty heavy usage.) And The Network was involved in this book and The Gray Man makes a brief appearance.
And you have to admit it's a different book- Frank and Joe don't even meet up with Nancy until almost right at the end of the book. I imagine that had to be hard for the writers to come up with a plausible reason for them to be meeting up all the time and maybe someone decided to experiment with the model some here- or maybe as Dan suggested, it was cobbled together from previous manuscripts. I remember reading this when it was first released some years ago, so I don't recall a ton- but I liked it okay. Yeah, it could have been better, but there are still a lot worse things I could be reading.
Quote from: Dinosaur Dan on January 08, 2012, 02:34:10 PM
Review:
"Operation: Titanic" is a mess. The book appears to have originally been a Nancy Drew File, but then the Nancy Drew Files were cancelled and somebody was hired to add some scenes with the Hardy Boys to the book so that the book could become a Supermystery and they could make some money of the Titanic craze that was going on at that time due to the release of the movie "Titanic".
From what I remember, Frank and Joe spend most of the book hanging out at some friend's place and being chased around and getting guns waved in their faces by the Network. Judging by the amazon reviews, there appears to be some sort of mystery in those chapters, but I don't remember it at all. The scenes with Nancy were ok. All I really remember was that some billionaire was in love with Nancy, and that Nancy was investigating a murder. The last few chapters of the book are better, but that isn't saying much. The book was still a waste of my time. When I read a Supermystery, I want to see Frank, Joe, and Nancy work together. I don't want to be bored to death waiting for the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to meet up. Also, the events on the back cover only happen in the last few chapters.
This is the worst Supermystery ever, don't bother reading it unless you like being bored.
Rating
2 out of 10
I hated this book as well. So boring! ::)
Quote from: MacGyver on January 08, 2012, 03:17:11 PM
And you have to admit it's a different book- Frank and Joe don't even meet up with Nancy until almost right at the end of the book. I imagine that had to be hard for the writers to come up with a plausible reason for them to be meeting up all the time and maybe someone decided to experiment with the model some here- or maybe as Dan suggested, it was cobbled together from previous manuscripts. I remember reading this when it was first released some years ago, so I don't recall a ton- but I liked it okay. Yeah, it could have been better, but there are still a lot worse things I could be reading.
I wouldn't have minded Frank and Joe not meeting up with Nancy until the end if the book hadn't been so bad. It was an original idea, one that could have been done well. The problem was that until the last few chapters both the parts with the Hardy Boys and the parts with Nancy Drew were not very good, and were just plan boring.
As I said earlier, it is obvious that either:
A) A terrible "Hardy Boys Casefiles" story and a mediocre "Nancy Drew Files" story were sloppily combined together.
B) The book was originally planned to be a "Nancy Drew Files" book and the Hardy Boys sections were later written in by a different ghostwriter.
Quote from: Dinosaur Dan on January 08, 2012, 04:39:29 PM
As I said earlier, it is obvious that either:
A) A terrible "Hardy Boys Casefiles" story and a mediocre "Nancy Drew Files" story were sloppily combined together.
B) The book was originally planned to be a "Nancy Drew Files" book and the Hardy Boys sections were later written in by a different ghostwriter.
Kind of like the 1938 text of
The Secret Warning, but
Operation Titanic faired much better. With SW you can tell that there are a couple of different writing styles in the book, with one being a very amateurish style (Dr. John Button), while another one is very professional and reads like someone who has been writing for years (whether it be writing for newspapers/magazines or writing other books) (Leslie McFarlane), while there are sections that, while being edited together, because you are trying to combine two vastly different writing styles, appear to have been sloppily edited in order for them to mesh and tell a coherent story. Titanic had none of that conflicting writing style.
[/quote]
This was one of the first Supermysteries I read when I was 9 or 10, right before the series was about to be discontinued.
I remember being confused about whether there was a story and kept waiting to see the point.
(Funny enough, I was obsessed with the Titanic at that age.)
I heard it was good, so I was super disappointed after I wasted my time reading it! :( They didn't even team up until the last like 40 pages! :P
Well it was still better than Gold Medal Murder from the 07 series, since at least I could finish the book and not give up on it only like 5 chapters in due to boredom of the Tory.
Quote from: JoeHardyRocks on January 11, 2012, 09:27:23 PM
I heard it was good, so I was super disappointed after I wasted my time reading it! :( They didn't even team up until the last like 40 pages! :P
I know. It was terrible. ::)
This is one of the few books in this series that I remember getting when it was brand new and reading right then. I wouldn't say it was the greatest in the world, but I liked it okay- cruise ship settings are always fun for mysteries and the connection with The Titanic made it interesting too (at least for me because I like history.) I wish Frank and Joe and Nancy had met up sooner- but if nothing else, with them not being physically together until towards the end of the book- it was something different anyway.
Quote from: MacGyver on January 12, 2012, 05:53:59 PM
This is one of the few books in this series that I remember getting when it was brand new and reading right then. I wouldn't say it was the greatest in the world, but I liked it okay- cruise ship settings are always fun for mysteries and the connection with The Titanic made it interesting too (at least for me because I like history.) I wish Frank and Joe and Nancy had met up sooner- but if nothing else, with them not being physically together until towards the end of the book- it was something different anyway.
The problem is that "Double Crossing" also took place on a Cruise ship, and that was a much better book.
Good point- I forgot that Double Crossing was also on a cruise ship. Of course, that's the first book in the series and Operation: Titanic is the second to last book in the series. Maybe that's part of the difference between a dynamic opening book and a book near the end of the series when it's running out of steam...
So I know this is an old topic, but I think I might know who the ghostwriter is:
So I was thinking about Process of Elimination when I realized that there were two SuperMysteries in a row where:
-The Hardys and Nancy Drew take several chapters to actually meet in person. (doesn't take till the end of the book in Process of Elimination, but it's a notable length)
-the CIA is involved in some way.
-Bess joins Nancy on her trip.
This may just be a coincidence, but I'm wondering if CJ Henderson may have written "Operation: Titanic" as well as "Process of Elimination". I'm not good at telling writing styles apart though, although taking a brief glance at both, it did look like they both could be written by the same person.
Edit: I also recall a discussion on the old Dectective Agency Forums where someone mentioned suspecting that CJ Henderson wrote more super mysteries than just " Process of Elimination", but that's going off memory so take it with a grain of salt.
Seems like the ones I liked the best were written by that person. I wish they'd reprint them in someway.
In rereading this old thread, another thought came to mind. If I recall correctly, it seems Frank and Joe and Nancy did connect a lot via cell phones throughout the book but just didn't meet in person until near the end. That seems to oddly enough be fairly current now with the way so many people tend to connect more via texting and social media than actually being together in person. And with the Covid-19 pandemic and so many things being pushed to virtual connections only, it seems even more fitting.
Quote from: MacGyver on May 15, 2021, 09:37:59 PM
In rereading this old thread, another thought came to mind. If I recall correctly, it seems Frank and Joe and Nancy did connect a lot via cell phones throughout the book but just didn't meet in person until near the end. That seems to oddly enough be fairly current now with the way so many people tend to connect more via texting and social media than actually being together in person. And with the Covid-19 pandemic and so many things being pushed to virtual connections only, it seems even more fitting.
Yeah, I noted that as well. I wonder why they didn't text, use Facebook or some other government smartphone app.
Smartphones weren't existent in 1997, and neither was Facebook and social media or texting. Making telephone calls on cell phones was the high tech thing of the day. The current day technology certainly makes a big difference in how the stories are told. In some ways, I prefer reading older books like these- and watching older TV shows for that matter- because the characters don't have the plethora of technological hacks available now. It was more challenging then, I think.
Also in 1997, cell services were still analog.
Quote from: tomswift2002 on May 16, 2021, 03:56:26 PM
Also in 1997, cell services were still analog.
I was like seven in 97, so I don't remember life without a cell phone having the ability to send and receive at least texts and pictures.
Quote from: Katie on May 16, 2021, 06:12:15 PM
I was like seven in 97, so I don't remember life without a cell phone having the ability to send and receive at least texts and pictures.
97 I was only 13, and I didn't live in a huge metropolitan area, so I didn't see them around a lot. But just looking online, it looks like digital didn't come out till around 1999.
If we're all telling our ages here, I was 15 then and I can well remember life before cell phones were so dominant. I remember using car phones and pay phones and rotary phones growing up. It was a different world for sure.
I didn't get a smartphone until after the democrats took the house during the trump administration
I got my first cell phone around 2000. It was a Motorola. You could only make calls on it.
My first cell phone was in 2004 and it was able to use both analog and digital signals (digital was the primary but if I wanted to I could force it into analog, or if I was too far from a tower for digital then it would switch to analog automatically without dropping the signal). I could read emails and do some very limited web surfing.