The Great Digest Search!

[tomswift2002]

It might've been, but you have to remember that the book was published a month before Casefile #127 Dead In The Water was released.  So, when you are talking about dates, while Trial And Terror may have a Casefiles feel to it, until we can find authoratative proof that the book was intended as #133 or if it was even intended for the Casefiles series. 

But it might also be interesting to check the ISBN numbers of the Digests and Casefiles for those years, just to see which ISBN number came first and all that.  I know that a lot of people have figured that with the Tom Swift Young Inventor series, due images that were originally released by Simon & Schuster, and also the ISBN numbers on the book, we can guess that Simon & Schuster originally planned for Robot Olympic's[/i] to be #1 in the series before Into The Abyss, but then for whatever reason S&S changed the series order.

It might be intersting to see if the ISBN's for, say volumes 136-166 (Digest) and 110-127 (Casefiles), go in some sort of order, or if a series of books contains some anamoulous ISBN numbering.

[Bigfootman]

Here you go, I found something quite interesting:

Casefiles
127. 0-671-56242-8
126. 0-671-56125-1
125. 0-671-56241-X
124.  0-671-56124-3
123.  0-671-56122-7
Digests
The Mark of the Blue Tattoo: 0671000586
Trial and Terror:  0671000594
Training For Trouble: 0671047582

At least three of the possible Casefiles turned into digests have the same first four numbers as the Casefiles (0-671) , oddly, Crisscross Crime does not.
Crisscross Crime:  0606134646
Now, let?s look at one of the last digests:
The Dangerous Transmission: 0689863780
tomswift2002, what do you think this means? I?m puzzled.

[tomswift2002]

The first four numbers identify the publisher.  I've seen the 0-671 prefix on Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Nancy Drew and Star Trek (both Adult and Children's lines) for most books printed in the 1990's. 

Now then here are the ISBN's for TSYI as an example:

1. 1-4169-1518-4
2. 1-4169-1361-0
3. 1-4169-1751-9
4. 1-4169-3488-X
5. 1-4169-3643-2
6. 1-4169-3644-0

As you can see, the ISBN for #2, Robot Olympics was applied for and granted way before the ISBN for #1, Into The Abyss, most likely meaning that 'Olympics' was written as the introductory book, but was later switched.

Even in the 90's Tom Swift series we can assume, based on ISBN's, the Time Bomb was originally meant to come out in December 1992, rather than August 1992, and was to take place after Mutant Beach and Mayhem in Motion/Rigged For Revenge because TB has ISBN 0-671-75661-3, compared to MB's 0-671-75657-5.

And between the different series you can usually tell which books were applied for, since you might find a Hardy Boys that ends in67889, and a Star Trek that ends in 67890 (last digit is not important).

But here's something that will add to the confusion: in the late 80's through the mid-90's S&S would assign a new ISBN to a book whenever it went through the printers for a reprint.

[SDLagent]

That's interesting what you say about The Robot Olympics, Trevor. When I read that one, I thought it would have been better as the first book, considering it takes place in Tom's hometown, and describes the supporting cast in greater detail than Into the Abyss did.

[tomswift2002]

That's interesting what you say about The Robot Olympics, Trevor. When I read that one, I thought it would have been better as the first book, considering it takes place in Tom's hometown, and describes the supporting cast in greater detail than Into the Abyss did.

You should also realize that editors may originally think that one story may work well to introduce a new series but then realize that for beginning book the pacing is too slow, so they'll pull another one up to the top spot hoping the faster paced story will draw people to the series.

Or sometimes it may be that 2 out of 3 books take place in a foreign location (ie Germany), while the third takes place in the characters hometown.  In which case it might be easier if the first book has a mention at the end of the characters boarding a plane for a return home, to have that as the second book, while the third might say that the characters are staying a little while longer.  Then the third book might appear before or after the character's trip. 

I know that on TV shows, sometimes when they are doing 2 or 3 part episodes, the guest cast may not be available for 2 or 3 straight weeks, but may be available over 4 to 6 weeks.  So what the producers tend to do is schedule and produce the parts on the weeks the guests are available, and then do other episodes on the weeks in between.  That leads to 2-part episodes not being, say, 48 & 49, but 48 & 51, but airing one after the other.

[Bigfootman]

Here's two qoutes that some of you might find interesting:
"After the Casefiles series was canceled, leaving the remaining unbought-published books a destiny of bargain bins, several stories (in various stages of completion) were revised and made into Digests." from: http://web.archive.org/web/20060318042439/www.hardy-boys.com/bg/9/bg_9_4.html
"After the demise of the Casefiles series, some unused manuscripts from that series were recycled for use in the digest series." from: http://hardyboys.bobfinnan.com/hbpb.htm

It seems that the Criss-Cross Crime was not the only Casefile turned into a digest after all. Now if only we could find out what the other ones were, Training For Trouble certainly fits the bill, as it has:
-Several scenes with blood, including Joe getting stabbed.
-Frank and someone else being chased by a gunman.
-A cliffhanger where Joe asks "Frank, am I dieing?"
Also, Ioa has very little desciption, and could have replaced Vannesa when the book was changed from a Casefile to a digest. Don't forget the 7.5 reading level.

I now think Danger In The Extreme could have been based off a Casefile plot summery, as the plot does seem like something out of a Casefile, and it does have a high reading level. However the  writing and the some of the action is highly digest like.

[4567TME]

I've got Wreck 'N' Roll in my own personal library.  I read it when it first came out and I remember that it was a poorly written book.  The plot didn't even make any sense.  As it turned out it was the rock band's manager that was causing all the trouble to try and amp up publicity so that the band would resign with her when their contract ended.

Wreck and Roll gets:
2.4
(Weakling) from my Book Rating System.
Hope this'll help you, Dinosaur Dan!