T. Edward Fox

Within each Tom Swift novel there are a couple major characters who you get to know, and a lot of secondary characters who walk in, say a few lines, and walk out. You never get the chance to know who they are other that in that contextI have set about writing back stories for these people. The novels may not have the 9,000 - 15,000 words to devote to giving you a good background story about them, but these collections do. This fourth book contains stories about Ken Horton, the commander of Tom's Outpost in Space, one about the girlfriend that never was, another about Tom's sister Sandy as she turns sixteen and becomes a very determined young woman, the very first cookbook from Chow Winkler (including his Rattlesnake Soup recipe), and the tale of how the special evacuation device used at the Outpost came to be.

Within each Tom Swift novel there are a couple major characters who you get to know, and a lot of secondary characters who walk in, say a few lines, and walk out. You never get the chance to know who they are other that in that contextI have set about writing back stories for these people. The novels may not have the 9,000 - 15,000 words to devote to giving you a good background story about them, but these collections do. This third book contains stories about the two men at Enterprises who are always getting mistaken for each other (and how they finally fixed that ), the journals of Doc Simpson and his many times spent fixing Tom after he has been injured, how Tom met his girlfriend while building his giant aircraft, the Sky Queen, the story of the Swift's super-efficient secretary, Miss Trent, and the tale of Tom and Bud entering a man-powered kinetic sculpture race.

In this second adventure of the new series, young inventor Tom Swift is approached by the airline industry. They have a big problem... well, two problems. First, as people build closer and closer to airports, noise complaints continue to grow. And, rather than tell people to stop moving next to busy airports, several state governments have demanded that additional steps be taken to reduce noise. But, about every possible step has already been instituted. They need Tom's help. The other problem is the soaring price of fuel. So, is there any way Tom can also make jet engines more efficient? Again, just about everything has been done toward that. Design after design and test after test prove insufficient to meet one or the other requirement, and definitely not both of them together. Finally a chance encounter by his sister and girlfriend with a stranger brings a light to the end of Tom's tunnel, and he is off. Through all this Tom and Swift Enterprises have been the victims of industrial espionage. It all comes to a head when, one the very even of Tom's public announcement of a solution, his designs are unveiled by a rival manufacturer.