Negative Zone (Tom Swift 2) [Mass Market Paperback]

Victor Appleton (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st edition (April 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671678248
• ISBN-13: 978-0671678241
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,223,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Scientifically and plotline horrendous, June 6, 2008

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Negative Zone (Tom Swift 2) (Mass Market Paperback)

While the plots of the Tom Swift books take greater "scientific license" than most other science fiction books, this one goes beyond what can be considered reasonable. In this one, Tom is attempting to create a small black hole when the process goes wrong. He is sucked into the black hole and is disturbed when he passes an odd-shaped object during his journey. Tom arrives at what appears to be the location of the Swift scientific complex, but things are vastly different.
The buildings are not there and a helicopter and armed foot soldiers are stalking him. He has arrived in another universe and in this universe; Thomas Swift is a super villain. To further complicate matters, the evil twin has been transported to Tom's world and was the odd-shaped object that Tom passed. Tom desperately works to somehow reverse the process so that he can return, while Thomas plots to take over the world by eliminating all rivals, including his family. After some extremely absurd actions that include breaking into a nuclear power plant and stealing radioactive material, Tom manages to reverse the process and travel back to his home world. When Tom gets back, he arrives just in time to prevent Thomas from killing Tom's family and taking over the Swift companies. After a brief battle, Thomas is sent back to his own world and Tom vows to never carry out additional black hole experiments.
There are two major problems with this story. The first is that the science is very, very wrong. Anyone with any knowledge of black holes will understand that there is not the slightest plausibility to the scenario of Tom creating and then traveling through a black hole. The second is that other than the science, the plot contains enormous holes. To think that Tom and his cohorts could somehow break into a nuclear facility and make off with nuclear material in a carrying case is ridiculous. This is a very bad book; the publishing company needs to have someone review it that can prevent the use of such outlandish scientific events.

2 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars N. Zone, June 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Negative Zone (Tom Swift 2) (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm not much for writing but I think this book was one of the best in it's series, and i'v red a lot of them.