"Three very successful series of stories aimed at children and teens were created by a man who had a book packaging house and didn’t want to cause confusion. So, none of the stories ever had his name on them. Instead, Edward Stratemeyer hired several writers and provided them with story ideas that were then published under the pseudonym Victor Appleton. They were tales of the adventures of a teenager named Tom Swift. He was portrayed as a youngster who didn’t have a lot of formal education but was inventive and science minded. This led to more than one hundred volumes with a variety of broad-ranging adventures and creative ideas placing emphasis on invention, science and technology.
Stratemeyer later came up with successful stories about The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. It is said the fertile Stratemeyer imagination often found him jotting down a short page of notes involving plots and assigning a stable of about a half-dozen writers to fill in the blanks. The Hardy Boys were amateur detectives often able to solve various cases when solutions eluded grownup professionals. First appearance of the female counterpart Nancy Drew series first appeared in 1930 and ran for nearly three-quarters of a century. We listen now to Tom Swift with one of his top inventions."
"Tom and his friends get to the bottom of a practical joke gone wrong in this fifth novel in Tom Swift Inventors' Academy-perfect for fans of The Hardy Boys or Alex Rider.
It's another day at the Swift Academy when Tom starts finding little troll-like figures around campus. And he's not the only one. Much to the amusement and curiosity of students, these dolls are appearing all over the school. But even after they're collected by faculty, a second wave mysteriously appears-except these replacements record audio and play it back for surrounding listeners. Before everyone knows it, secrets and gossip are revealed across campus, and suddenly the figures aren't nearly as fun as they used to be.
What seemed to start as a practical joke quickly turns into something more serious when yet another wave of more advanced robots infiltrates the school. And these record and project video footage. It seems that no one is safe from the spybots as the academy spirals into mayhem, and it's up to Tom and his friends to track down the culprit behind the invasion."
"Tom and his friends attend a science camp in this fourth novel in Tom Swift Inventors' Academy-perfect for fans of The Hardy Boys or Alex Rider.
Every year, Swift Academy students go to a nearby summer camp to field-test their inventions. Tom and his friends have been working hard on all their projects, but they're most thrilled about Noah's new virtual reality simulation. They can't wait for it to go live, and everyone is looking forward to running tests at the camp. Nothing dulls their excitement, not even when a mysterious prankster starts messing with people's inventions.
But things take a nosedive when the pranks turn into vandalism. To make matters worse, clues point to Tom's friend, Sam, as the one responsible. With Sam's reputation and student projects on the line, it's up to Tom and his friends to unmask the true vandal. And when Noah's simulation enters the arena, they quickly discover they're not the only ones meeting in virtual reality…"
"Tom has always tried to play down his pseudo celebrity status at the academy. So, the last thing he wants is for a reporter's son to follow him around for an article on the school. When this extends to one of the biggest field trips of the year-an overnight lock-in at Swift Enterprises-Tom couldn't be less pleased.
With his new shadow in tow, Tom expects the night to be uneventful at best. But when the facility suddenly goes into quarantine mode, the overnight lock-in turns into a building-wide lockdown. Tom and his friends are left trapped in their respective rooms, with no way to communicate the outside world. As they make their way through the facility using methods that are a little more…creative…than normal, Tom and his friends start realizing that there is more to this quarantine than meets the eye. But with no way to call for help, it's up to them to not only escape, but also find out what-or who-is behind the lockdown."
"When your dad funds the Swift Academy of Science and Technology, you're bound to have a bunch of tech at your disposal. So no one bats an eye when Tom and his best friend, Noah, test their new virtual reality drone before class. At the academy, once class starts and the drone is parked, their brainiac friends then launch into farfetched discussions about the curriculum. And when they watch a documentary about the FBI's most wanted hackers from the eighties, they quickly start speculating that the academy custodian is one of them.
At first, Tom dismisses the idea as another one of his friends' conspiracy theories. But using their new drone, he spies the custodian acting suspiciously around school. As Tom and his friends search for evidence that the custodian is the missing hacker, the signs become impossible to ignore when Tom gets threatening messages that warn him away from investigating. And when someone releases a virus in the school servers, all bets are off as the adjoining servers at tech giant Swift Enterprises come under fire. Can Tom and his friends uncover the true culprit before it's too late?"
"Tom gets to take all sorts of cool classes at the Swift Academy of Science and Technology, but robotics may be the one he is most excited for. Their teacher is holding a battling robot tournament, and Tom has to build a machine that will come out on top.
With the final battle coming up, Tom and his friends need as much time as possible to refine their masterpiece. But the rest of their teachers have been giving so many pop quizzes that they can barely focus in class, never mind concentrate on the tournament. Naturally, everyone is frustrated with the trend…until a mysterious new phone app appears. If students get pop quizzes during first period, they can warn everyone else about it by getting their phones to emit a high-pitched sound-a mosquito alarm-that adults can't hear.
Tom is unsure about the whole thing, but it technically isn't cheating, right? But when someone changes the app to break all the rules, the ethics aren't debatable anymore. The longer the perpetrator remains unknown, the more harshly teachers treat all the students, and the pressure won't stop until Tom and his friends track down the person behind the app takeover."
