Customer Reviews

Rocket Racers (Tom Swift, Young Inventor)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I began reading the Tom Swift Jr. stories back in 1960 and have collected every TS book out there starting with the original series circa 1910. Unfortunately, that includes this series - a terrible abuse of the name Tom Swift. The stories are ridiculously unimaginative and the writing (I am an author so I do know a few things about the writing game) is poor at best. Where other TS series seemed to be aimed at 12-18 year olds, this entire series, and this book, seemed aimed at 8 year olds.

In this story, Tom tests out his new speedy rocket plane. Mysteriously, other rocket planes in a competition start crashing. Sabotage?

The plot line is so thin you can read the book through it and the lack of writing skill exhibited is like having an uncomfortably large elephant not just in the room with you, but actually standing on your foot. Grinding down.

It isn't any wonder that they stopped after just 6 of this series.

There is better fan-written fiction out there than this book and series.

These books are good. The stories are quick and short and full of science and adventure. They're great for young boys and girls just getting into science fiction and if you just want something fun.

Only four short stories packaged as "novels" into this new juvenile series, and it's already feeding off itself. Here's a retread of the second "novel", ROBOT OLYMPICS, except this time the fellers are building small jets souped up with rocket boosters, instead of building fighting robots. As usual Andy Foger is the bad guy, but the REAL bad guys are, well, you know, that anti-technology terrorist group which seems to have replaced Brungaria or whatever it was. There are no surprises. I found it difficult to picture an audience (or even a target age group) for this series. And Tom-as-narrator is very hard to get used to. And Bud Barclay could really be annoying if he set his mind to it. Wonder what the sales have been so far?