TOM SWIFT AND HIS

ELECTRONIC WEB

Since 1910 young readers, and those who are young at heart, have thrilled to the adventures of Tom Swift, his friends and relatives as they invented neat-O-riffic gadgets, fought bad guys, and explored the Earth and the far reaches of outer space.

Called Tom Swift, Young Inventor, the first two books in the series will be released in June of 2006.

Tom Swift, Young Inventor: Into The Abyss

Tom Swift, Young Inventor: The Robot Olympics

Bob Finnan has created a Tom Swift mailing list at Yahoo Groups.

Click Here to go to the sign-up page, view messages, etc.

or

I've compiled a listing of Tom Swift research documents available at various institutions. It's in PDF format and can be downloaded Here

I love reading these books and if you have any extra ones you wish to trade or sell at a reasonable price, let me know. Condition isn't real important as I only need reading copies. Of course, if they are in nice shape, so much the better.

Click Here to view my trade list of Tom Swift and other books.

The Stratemeyer Syndicate was created by Edward Stratemeyer as a way to produce the hundreds of story ideas he had without having to write them all himself. He would create outlines of stories and have ghost writers turn the outlines into books. The Tom Swift books, owned by The Syndicate, were ghost written in this fashion. An outline was supplied by The Syndicate and a ghost writer would use it to churn out the next exciting adventure of Tom Swift. Victor Appleton and Victor Appleton II did not actua lly exist.

The Stratemeyer Syndicate would have the books written and then have them published by another company. Grosset & Dunlap, Whitman, Wanderer Books, among many others, all had agreements with The Stratemeyer Syndicate to publish Tom Swift books at one time or another until the Syndicate was bought out by Simon & Schuster in 1984. Simon & Schuster continued the tradition of having the Tom Swift series ghost written when they released the fourth Tom Swift series in 1992 under their Archway label.

The first series of Tom Swift books appeared in 1910 with the release of Tom Swift and His Motorcycle. Published by Grossett & Dunlap, who also published the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, the books sat on store shelves along with their famous brethern and proved reasonably popular in their own right. Between 1910 and 1941 a total of forty books were released under the pseudonym Victor Appleton before the series wound to an end.

Click Here to view the list of Tom Swift books from the first series.

In 1954 a new series of Tom Swift books appeared. These chronicled the adventures of Tom Swift's son. His name was, oddly enough, Tom Swift Jr. Him, along with his friend Bud Barclay, would go on to create rocket ships and space stations. They also explored the moon, tapped the earth's core for liquid metal, searched the ocean floor and many other exciting and dangerous adventures. Proving to be quite popular, the series lasted for thirty-three books and eventually came to an end in 1971.

Click Here to view the list of Tom Swift Jr. books.

In 1981, the third series of Tom Swift books appeared with the release of "Tom Swift: The City in the Stars". This series seems to loosely follow in the first two series footsteps and the new Tom Swift, while never directly stated as such, could be the original's grandson, great-grandson, or possibly his great-great-grandson. The new Swift seems prepared to spend most of his time off Earth in spaceships, space stations and on other planets and such. This series lasted only three short years and, sadly, ended in 1984.

Click Here to view the list of the Series III Tom Swift books.

A fourth Tom Swift series appeared in 1991. These seem to break completely away from their predecessors. Set on Earth in roughly modern day, the books totally ignore any of the earlier Tom Swift books. Produced by the same company that produces the new Hardy boys series of paperbacks, the new books are of similar quality. In other words, they are not as good as the previous Tom Swift series and frequently have GLARING scientific problems. Previous books had scientific problems too, but they had a strange way of making you believe that whatever they were doing was plausible. In these, I seemed to get the feeling that I was reading the script for a bad sci-fi television program. Lasting only two years, the series came to an end in 1993.

Click Here to view the list of the Series IV Tom Swift books.

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