Victor Appleton II

In this hardbound edition of the 9th book in the series, Tom must suffer disappointment when a contract to build habitats for a Moon colony go to another, inferior, bidder. The result is catastrophe and Tom must mount a mission to recover the bodies of nearly a third of the colonists. When Swift Enterprises offers to build a protection system, that offer is rebuffed for no good reason. Angry, Tom decides to set his sights on an even more ambitious project: a colony on Mars! It will need to be huge and totally self-sustaining as no "quick resupply" system will be available. With a good understanding of the weak points of the lunar buildings he begins developing an inflatable habitat. He sneaks up to the Moon for a test and runs afoul of the company that built the fragile structures. He is even attacked by their rocket. Or, is it them? There are rumblings that the Brungarians are up to their old tricks and might be trying to sabotage Tom's efforts. Whoever it is, they seemed determined to stop Tom Swift!

This hardbound edition of the 6th novel in the series brings back some of Tom's old friend: his Space Friends. Since their first interaction Tom has tried to get them to provide details about themselves so he can assist them in their mission to visit the Earth. Until he makes a surprise advancement in how he "reads" their symbol messages, he has had frustration after disappointment. Now that he has an understanding he is horrified to find that their "masters" have declared their mission a failure and will be recalling them, forever, in just a few short weeks. Now he races against time trying to develop both a vehicle and an environment capable of supporting them. Just when he thinks he has succeeded, disaster strikes. Not only is his new flying environment destroyed, but now the Masters insist the Space Friends won't be the ones coming for a visit, it will be them! Tom knows that can't be allowed and so he must work overtime to complete a new environment, be a diplomat and get ready for the visit.

In this hardbound edition of the third book in the series, the President, desperate to leave some sort of legacy, has promised the nation that a great freight-hauling bullet train system will cross the country starting in just one year. The biggest problem? Nobody has started to design or build anything on a project that should take 10 years. When his advisors hatch a plan to split the work into dozens of manageable pieces, only a small handful of companies sign on. Tom Swift believes that he can figure a way to dig the massive tunnels under the various mountain ranges on the western half of the country, and may even be able to build the locomotive engines, but the other companies begin to abandon their work, making it necessary for Enterprises to take on more and more. A rival company owner has it in for Tom, and a mysterious source of governmental sabotage is somewhere in Washington DC. With time and so many other things against him, is it going to be a mission impossible for the young inventor?