90: A Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Ultra Thriller #1: Time Bomb Franklin W. Dixon

gellaho

Hey, he's only encountered one Iola clone at this point in time

GDC

"haha, my sister wants to bone you and all your love interests die"

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Every night he has to fight off the Tooth Fairy to keep it there.

gellaho

The second comes next year

"Oh, shit, dad. We've been wasting time"

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"Huh I had.........I really hadnt considered you two might be spies but now I'm........uhhhhh nevermind, who wants hoagies?!"

gellaho

Hey, it's a reference to the Phoenix Equation trilogy

gellaho

Fenton's wacky pranks

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Schrodinger's Fenton is neither alive nor dead until directly observed

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"Yeah just a while ago we had to watch poachers machine gun a herd of elephants to death and we thought our dad had blown up. And that one girl liked Joe and fell out of the narrative completely. So she might as well be dead."

gellaho

And now: a dweeb

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"Another time I had to fistfight a hot girls dad in Europe."

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Hahaha this dude just showed up and he's already about to cry

What a loser

gellaho

Dalton Barnes

gellaho

Very private

FancyShark

Conservatively dressed! It has to be the same writer!

Brendan

There wasn't an iola of her left.

gellaho

I wonder who couldst have put such a letter in the bank

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Dumont went into industrial chemicals, Cranston became a famous actor in a series about meth, and Clarkson launched a music career so now its just this dweeb.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

GIF

gellaho

gasp

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Ah the old "Letter held in trust" scheme.

FancyShark

The issue is a napkin drawing of a dick

GDC

Fenton Back to the future 3'd his kids

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"Oh god this magazine has some really racist fiction! Why did this note tell us to buy this?!"

gellaho

Fenton just thought they'd really like a short story

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"That's not even how you spell "show", this magazine sucks."

FancyShark

The only copy they can find has been photoshopped into an issue of Man Comics

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

This whole story is an Unlikely Tale, amirite

gellaho

Numerous specialty magazine shops? There's not only one, but multiple?

Mordred Got the 'Vid 😷

Hit up every Hudson News in the airport AND the mall.

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Hahahahah yeah right, 1992 was loaded with magazines from 1932.

gellaho

Oh, I'm fully aware

FancyShark

"Also because they came free in cartons of orange juice"

gellaho

Wakka wakka

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

And that was how 1992 kids got educated on the history of print.

Mordred Got the 'Vid 😷

"Just like this book we're in!"

"... Wait, what?"

gellaho

I feel like this book has been directed at me and I don't like it

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Joe fumbles it with his big dumb mitts and the last ever copy of Action Comics #1 is lost forever

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Hahahaha this is the book where Hardy Boys books become canon to their own universe.

FancyShark

@gellaho is self-conscious about his gladiator cosplay

gellaho

Did somebody get access to the book cage

gellaho

I have so many shirtlike garments

Or, shirts

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

The schlock is coming from inside the cage!! 😱

FancyShark

Check the tape! Is the tape secured?!

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Toms dad acting like 30s people didnt have porn.

gellaho

Shit, Fenton is Simon Hawke

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Fuck. Yes.

FancyShark

Holy Shit!

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Hell yeah it was.

WikiFeet Ramb$ne

30's porn: the idea that women have to disrobe somewhat to go to the bathroom

FancyShark

@cake boi jakesy ! New lore!

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Into the Hawke-Verse

FancyShark

@Brendan ! Fenton is Simon Hawke!

gellaho

I guess I was correct in making Con Riley Steele

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

The Multicage of Madness

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

He got paid like three whole dollars for that story.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Enough to retire on back then

FancyShark

It's all connected, maaaaaaaaaaaaaan

cake boi jakesy

Timewars: Hardy???

FancyShark

I swear to god though, if that star whale shows up, we riot

gellaho

Superaccurate clock

FancyShark

Eat shit, regular clock owners

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

It's super accurate you guys. Stop laughing

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Atomic clocks are cool but only if you call them atomic clocks.

Brendan

Fenton has way better adventures than his sons.

They dodge bullets, he fakes his death and travels back in time.

gellaho

Oh, no! They don't have enough warp detectors! What are they going to do!

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

How will they ever detect the warp?!

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Its a race against time AND fate!

gellaho

Only one choice, really

Dinosaurs.

Brendan

PARADOX ALERT

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

HELL YES IT IS!

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

GIF

FancyShark

Somehow a butterfly in the Cretaceous period senses Joe's foot in its future

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Fucking

This book is a masterpiece

gellaho

And, of course, we'll find out all about that

Next week

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

What a perfect cliffhanger

Brendan

Epic.

In the most literal sense.

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Hahahah its coming true:

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

What a perfect book

What a cage! What a team! What a 2023!

FancyShark

Aw man. I'm sorry I missed so much of this tonight.

And that I'll be missing at least part of it next week because I'll be flying to Vegas

Mordred Got the 'Vid 😷

I missed most of it.

One of these Fridays I'll be home alone or something and play along the whole time.

Like when my kid is in college or something.

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

It happens sooner than you'd like.

Brendan

In a harrier with an urgent message!

Mordred Got the 'Vid 😷

Yeah I'm not in a rush.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

On the bright side there's an entire half of book we haven't gotten to yet!

gellaho

Only got ninety pages left, possibly need to throw in a weird Hardy Manga at the end

Until then, this has been the 90th Edition of the Book Cage

GDC

Thanks everyone. This book was better than it had any right to be.

FancyShark

Thank you, @gellaho !

Great work, everyone!

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

This one ruled pretty hard, thanks @gellaho

gellaho

May all of your time machines be bidirectional

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

This book fucking ruled. Thanks again @gellaho !

FancyShark

Have a good night, everybody!

gellaho

The Book Cage Episode 90.5 - A Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Ultra Thriller ™️: Time Bomb

It's a time travelling adventure with Frank, Joe, and Tom. Fenton Hardy has travelled back to the past and become a shlock sci-fi writer in Unlikely Tales in order to communicate with his sons. Is this book itself someone in my life attempting to communicate with me? Seems like it. So join me for part 2, where the boys will travel 65 million years in the past to find elements for time machine detectors. Which I guess means they've left their father to die? Anyway Friday, 5pm eastern, as always.

gellaho

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Eh, Fenton's been around the block, he'll be fine

gellaho

A little under an hour until A Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Ultra Thriller ™️ Time Bomb. If you forgot what happened last time, well

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Time scams!

FancyShark

Not since Mass Effect has there been such a dire need for iridium

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Have they tried probing Uranus

FancyShark

Many times. It's tapped out

gellaho

Time to resume the process

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

TIIIIIME WARRRR

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Sick electric guitar riffs

gellaho

"Don't look at me like I'm crazy for saying the best way to get iridium is 65 million years ago"

gellaho

"How dare you question me!"

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

The dinosaur layer! Of course!

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

This is just a really convoluted plan on Toms part to get a pet raptor.

Just a feathery little murder chicken to be his best friend.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

He could build his own and it'd probably be safer

gellaho

Ah, so now the plan is to go right before the extinction event

gellaho

What a brilliant boy

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

"It's okay, we'll pull our shirts over our mouths to block out the poison cloud"

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

uhhhhhh.........Tom? If you dont go right AFTER the event......is there going to be any iridium? I see some flaws with this idea aside from the obvious threats to the nature of causality.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Dude really wants to save that raptor

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Also since its just sitting there as dust how are you gonna collect it?

gellaho

Well, I guess eventually I was going to come across the worst plan of all time

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"GAWD DAD, YOU NEVER GIVE ME ENOUGH CREDIT FOR MY MAD SCIENCE IDEAS!"

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Risking certain death on the off chance that he can find a chunk of superheated irradiated shit before all of planet earth gets wiped off the map by history is a very comic book plan

gellaho

This killed most of the dinosaurs, but we'll be fine

We'll only be close enough for debris

If only they had some way to get more time

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Everybody put on your sunblock and your power armor!

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Its only giant burning space rocks falling from the sky, what could go wrong?

gellaho

Like some kind of machine

For time

A chronogizmo

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

The stuff of science fantasy, i tells ya

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

One of the robots heard "crash production" and started printing thousands of copies of Crash Bandicoot.

gellaho

"Sounds impressive," said Frank of the nuclear jet monster truck

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

To be fair if the crazy man told me his nuke car could fly I would smile and say placating things while I looked for an exit too

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Frank himself is a miracle of technology so its hard to get him excited.

gellaho

I rarely agree with Joe about anything

gellaho

But this is the correct response

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

He found his truffle, finally.

gellaho

I would call this personality more of a downgrade

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Frank is smitten.

gellaho

You know, science stuff

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Just sitting inside it gives you six kinds of cancer because Tom didnt think to install or mention the unshielded reactor.

gellaho

They say the asteroid hit the Gulf of Mexico, so where are they planning to go?

That's right, Mexico

gellaho

I'm beginning to think this is just a very elaborate suicide

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Tom believes in the funeral customs of Egypt so he's decided to take Frank and Joe along with him as lackeys in the afterlife.

When they arrive the TANC will unfold into an elaborate tech ziggurat.

gellaho

Actually, he's just going with his robot

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Which is a pyramid but with style.

gellaho

Which is complete horseshit

Gimme them boys fighting dinosaurs

In fact, leave Tom behind

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

WHAT THE FUCK GHOSTWRITER! You are passing on Hardy Boys vs the Tyrant Lizard?!

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

This is so transparently Back to the Future I'm expecting Doc Brown to show up

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

I THOUGHT YOU WERE COOL!

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Never meet your heroes

gellaho

"It was as if a clown was making a balloon animal with the universe"

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

BOOOOOO Frank and Joe need to be here!

Whats even the point if they cant accidentally swap teeth during chronorematerialization?!

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

A TOM SWIFT ADVENTURE and the hardy boys are there too I guess

gellaho

This time machine sucks

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Hope you went to the bathroom before you got in, fucker!

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Fucking..........what? It takes subjective time to time travel?! The fuck kind of relativistic bullshit is this?!

gellaho

Don't worry, space-travel mode comes with a toilet

gellaho

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

So Tom is just gonna play checkers with his fuckin robot for two days while we read about it.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Tom and Rob were thoroughly compacted within the grinding machine parts of the TANC as it reshuffled its shape

gellaho

How big does this ghostwriter think pickups are

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Toms dad sure has balls contradicting his son when his son has created a TRANSFORMING NUCLEAR VAN that is capable of space travel and time travel.

LyraV

Did I miss much?

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Nope, Tom is going back in time and has left Frank and Joe in the present.

Because we cant have nice things.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

His nuclear transformer van is bigger on the inside

gellaho

Thanks for this vital information, ghostwriter

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

I think the old ghostwriter might have bust in and murdered the cool new one

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Im already too out of it to even fact check the ghost writers science bullshit.

gellaho

Earlier, Tom Swift said that any time travel is possibly detrimental to the universe

gellaho

GDC

I'm not going to be around for this, and I am regretting it.

LyraV

Tom well known for his knowledge of plants?

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Like I feel so betrayed by Frank and Joe not getting to ride an ankylosaurus.

gellaho

So, what's the first thing Tom Swift does when he lands in the past?

LyraV

talks down to someone

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Starts irradiating the burrows of small mammals.

gellaho

Sends out twenty robots to randomly time travel

gellaho

"Time travel is dangerous"

"Let me just shotgun blast out twenty time travelers"

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Its........kind of funny how they are doing something that may unravel the universe just to keep whats his name from being Shadow President.

gellaho

And then, three more times

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Or timeploding a city, just like...... i dunno, risk\reward calculus seems off.

gellaho

"Better be careful about time travelling"

Brendan

It's very simple. They can only move one foot per mile and one second per eight million days.

gellaho

100 TIME TRAVELS LATER

LyraV

That's...that's a bad plan Tom

Like I would have maybe preferred you just talk down to people

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Jesus Christ, Tom. You're going to be the reason the Nazis win the war.

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Yeah uh Tom? I think chronoporting into the blast zone of a planet killer asteroid is dumb.

gellaho

This magic science vehicle still needs a runway though

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Is this where Tom meets the Angel of Death come to harvest the souls of the dinosaurs for their sinful ways?

gellaho

The future town of Chicxulub

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Tom's in for a big surprise when he finds out the meteor which killed the dinosaurs was the Black Marker.

gellaho

Are you sure no course deviation required, Rob?

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

We should be getting this and we arent and fuck this.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Hahaha this dipshit is playing chicken with an Armageddon asteroid.

FancyShark

Same

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Man earlier I thought "Hey maybe he will do a time Armageddon and go mine the asteroid as it comes down. Nah thats kind of too awesome." and I wish it was happening.

LyraV

He's something...hmm what's that word? Starts with an N and ryhmes with 'larp statistic'

narcissistic that's it

gellaho

And one more time warp for good measure

Brendan

Frank buries a pistol in a sandwich bag right under the spot where he'll park his car in 65 million years, in case anyone comes for him.

Brendan

Ah dammit I need to reread Atomic Robo now.

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Tom Swift is responsible for the chrono-impoverishment of Appalachia.

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Yeah you do!

gellaho

Cut to: Frank watching the asteroid hit. Is this footage from one of the robots?

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

He was responsible for the regular impoverishment of Appalachia too, lest we forget

Live Frank Reaction

Brendan

Tom Swift: Backards Booger Men sympathizer

gellaho

No, it's a simulation

FancyShark

So it's not, in fact, "just a jump to the left"

Brendan

Tom had 52 hours to kill so he mocked up what he was a day away from recording.

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Oh cool, for a second I thought Tom had casually invented a TV set that could get signals from the past or future and the book might be weird.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Oh good, Tom left them a screensaver to watch in his absence

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Its really just the 3D pipe one from Windows 2

gellaho

Apparently the Hardy Boys solved some kind of federal library crime without knowing it

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

That one ruled

FancyShark

"Weird how much of this plan appears to involve Tom being praised by historical figures."

"I think he took some liberties with the sim"

Brendan

He has probes! It was right there for chronobroadcasting

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

"Look, we catch alot of thieves, library and otherwise. You have to be more specific."

gellaho

Old magazines!?!? That bastard!

FancyShark

Tom steps on a bug and Iola is caught in a looped explosion

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

It turns out its just old copies of Dragon Magazine, because Howard is a legacy D&D fan.

The rare books? The Deities and Demigods handbook with the Cthulhu mythos material, and the Monster Manual with the original cover.

LyraV

Zemen knows THE Mace Windu?! dope.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Arrested for Oriental Adventures crimes

gellaho

Just say he reminds him of The Gray Man, what are you being coy about

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

A..........dangerous operative? He steals fucking magazines.

FancyShark

You can't infringe on the copyright of the series you have the rights to!

gellaho

That's only something I, a thirty year old thirty years in the future, will know or care about

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Cmon Frank, I know you're bored because you didnt get to fight a terror bird, but you need to stop fantasizing right now.

gellaho

He's talking about The Gray Man being an operative for The Network. Being needlessly vague like this causes these kinds of misunderstandings

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Frank really thinks he could take Gray Man in a fight when the reality is G man would just plug him with a 45 before he even knew he was in the room

gellaho

Oh, good, this book came out in August

If it came out in June I'd swear someone was after me

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

I think Frank and Joe have causal armor, like guns just stop working properly when they are used against them.

gellaho

Can't have me and this book being the same age

LyraV

Garrotes break unexpectedly

FancyShark

Marksmen suddenly miss

gellaho

YOU'LL GO TO PRISON FOR YOUR TEN DOLLAR WORDS

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Oh yeah thats how they get you. You cant buy a book that is the exact age you are, you'll die of mysterious causes and your soul will be trapped in the pages and eaten slowly by silverfish.

FancyShark

That's why I buy a book the same age as each new friend I meet.

gellaho

Look, there was a book in here called "War Through Time" I am not taking any chances

Brendan

Funny that you would know the word for the thing we found hundreds of in your house. MIGHTY suspicious, even...

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Taking chances with time books is how your children blink out of existence.

FancyShark

Or get cool eye patches

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

So maybe do take a chance on time books?

FancyShark

But eye patches!

gellaho

ONLY I TRULY UNDERSTAND BOOKS

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Look at it this way, either your kids get way cooler or they're no longer your problem. Win-win either way

FancyShark

Hoo boy. That's what gellaho's going to scream when they finally drag him away from his book cage

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

When a person takes "bibliophile" too literally you get a Howard Zeman.

FancyShark

hahaha, hell yes on the new title @gellaho

gellaho

Seems like a thing someone obsessed with old books would do. Just throw em in the mail

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Charitable that you think there will be much left to drag away from the twisted conglomeration of metal, paper, and meat.

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

"The address was an address. He recited the address. I as the author can't be assed to come up with a fake address."

gellaho

This is tatterdemalion all over again

Paws of a Goose Flippant Sausage

Ghost writer didnt pay ten dollars for that dictionary\thesaurus for nothing.

FancyShark

If you like incunabula

And getting caught in the rain

LyraV

Yeah but it's not nearly as exciting to say 'baseball cards' over and over to sound cool

gellaho

YES

gellaho

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Badger Fell Down the Cop Stairs

Fenton chooses a method of communication that he knew his boys would pick up on immediately.