Showing results by author "Victor Appleton" in All Categories

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 '80s, they quickly start speculating that the academy custodian is one of them.

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.

With his new shadow in tow, Tom expects the night to be uneventful. 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. It’s up to them to not only escape, but also find out what - or who - is behind the lockdown.

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.

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.

Tom Swift and His Air Glider by Victor Appleton, volume 12 of the Tom Swift series, takes our hero to Siberia in search of a long lost platinum mine. In order to accomplish this, the young inventor invents an "air glider" that (don't try this at home) operates best in a hurricane. In this episode instead of his arch rival Andy Foger, the Czarists provide the intrigue as they attempt to capture Tom and his friends.

High-spirited young Tom Swift is off on another of his many exciting adventures. This time he's in search of gold in an underground lost city. Tom finds the lost city in a remote area of Mexico, and he finds the gold. Getting into the city was difficult for the adventurers, but when they try to get out, then their real adventure begins. Tom and his companions find themselves trapped in an underground city which contains as many traps and mazes as an Egyptian pyramid.

Tom Swift and His Aerial Warship, volume 18 in the Tom Swift series, finds our hero building an airship - but not just any airship: this is a battleship of the air, complete with cannons, bombs, and able to stay in the air for at least two weeks on a single tank of gas. It is no surprise that the Swift shops are soon infested with spies and evildoers bent on stealing Tom's ideas, and even better yet, his airship. Will the forces of evil steal Tom's airship and his ideas? Tune in and find out.

In this episode, our hero Tom Swift, perfects a noiseless aeroplane able to cross enemy lines in a silent single bound without detection. Of course spies and evil scoundrels attempt to steal Tom's secrets, even going so far as to kidnap Mr. Nestor. Stay tuned to learn how Tom overcomes the forces of evil to save his girlfriend Mary's father and of more.

Volume 19 of the Tom Swift series, Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel finds our hero in Peru, South America, along with his friends, Koku the Giant and Mr. Damon blasting his way to the Andes Mountains using a new explosive developed by the young inventor. Of course there are plenty of thrills in this volume. What would you expect with an explosive more powerful than dynamite, and dealing with a new set of villains.

As the title implies, our hero Tom Swift invents and designs a monster of the battlefield. A war tank. The United States has just entered World War I, and German spies abound. Particularly where Tom is designing and building his amazing tank. He does however, manage to get his machine off to France, and no doubt aid the allies in their war effort.

Tom Swift in Captivity is book number 13 of the Tom Swift series. In this adventure Tom, Ned, Mr. Damon and Eradicate travel to South America in search of a tribe of giants. Sam Preston, the owner of a large circus puts Tom and his friends on the trail of these huge creatures. Of course our hero and his friends passed through numerous hazards wild animals, and of course the dastardly bad guy. Travel along as John W. Michaels narrates this early piece of Americana.

Volume nine of the Tom Swift series pits our hero Tom Swift against his arch rival Andy Foger in an airplane race for a prize of $10,000. A lot of money back in 1910. Andy has developed an even nastier bag of tricks in this volume. Our hero not only builds the world’s fastest monoplane in his garage, but saves his father's life by flying a world-class surgeon in the monoplane to his father's aid. Every chapter of this book is a cliffhanger, leaving the listener in anticipation of the next exciting chapter.

Volume seven of the Tom Swift series brings our hero, Tom Swift, to Phantom Mountain, somewhere in Colorado, in search of a band of rascals who use the power generated in a flash of lightning to create diamonds. Tom Swift encounters Barcoe Jenks, an eccentric character we met in the previous volume, who enlists Tom's aid to get the secret of making perfect diamonds from the sinister gang of Diamond Makers. Once again our hero, Tom Swift, saves his companions from many a disaster.

This is volume 6 of the Tom Swift series, Tom Swift and his Wireless Message where our hero, the young inventor, Tom Swift helps a fellow inventor get his airship the Whizzer off the ground. So far off the ground in fact that he and his fellow travelers are caught in a storm stranding them on an uninhabited tropical island fraught with earthquakes.

In Book 3 of the Tom Swift series, Tom Swift and His Airship, our hero, Tom Swift, with the help of his new friend, balloonist John Sharp, builds an amazing airship. It's part dirigible, part airplane, and totally amazing, with a 20-cylinder motor and the ability to land on tall buildings in a single bound. Once again, the redhaired bully Andy Foger plots against Tom, but once again, he is foiled by our hero. Every chapter is a cliffhanger loaded with excitement.

Tom Swift and His Motorcycle is Volume 2 of the original Tom Swift series. In this book, first published in 1910, our hero, the young inventor Tom Swift, buys a motorboat at auction that he "soups up", making it one of the fastest boats on Lake Charlupa. Meanwhile, the Happy Harry Gang has some sort of interest in the motorboat, with shady characters lurking about the Swift laboratories and the boat.

Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders volume 20 in the Tom Swift series by Victor Appleton. In this volume Tom and his friends are in the Honduran jungle in search of a Golden Idol. Our hero thwarts the bad guys, find the idol, and he gets the girl. A fun escape for the listener to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when "electric" rifles in the near future were a distinct possibility.

Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout takes us back to gentler times when the bad guys weren't really that bad, didn't carry Uzis, and being an inventor like Thomas Edison was the dream of many young boys. In this book our hero creates an electric automobile with a top speed of over 100 mi./h, saves the bank, gives the bully two black eyes, wins the prize for the fastest automobile in a 500 mile race, only stopping once to recharge his batteries. Without a NASCAR pit crew, it only took Tom 25 min.

Book number 15 of the Tom Swift series finds our hero pursuing smugglers across the Canadian border. In his friends and a custom agent had to Canada in Tom's mighty airship equipped with the world's greatest Searchlight in search of smugglers were using Shopton as a destination. Of course along the way, Tom and his friends have several hair-raising experiences. This book was originally published in 1912, and attitudes and expressions were different from today, and some may find the language in this material offensive.