Customer Reviews

Tom Swift and his Dyna-4 capsule (His The new Tom Swift, Jr., adventures, 31)

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In this story, Tom has created a submarine that can explore the depths of the ocean. His adversary is the evil agents of Brungaria, who are searching for a sample of a new and more powerful explosive. They stole it from the U. S. military and when it appeared that they would be discovered, they placed the sample in a whaling harpoon and shot it into a sperm whale. The Brungarian sub and Tom in his Dyna-4 are in a race to find the harpoon and obtain the formula.

A secondary plot involves creatures that Tom encounters in the ocean. Spherical in nature, they are extra-terrestrial creatures who are intelligent and it is possible to communicate with them. The language is the same one that Tom uses to communicate with the space creatures that were introduced very early in the series. The spherical creatures help Tom, but their primary purpose is to obtain manganese and titanium. Once they get as much as they need, they simply float to the surface of the ocean and then rise up and away into space.

This was a very unsatisfying ending to the involvement of the creatures from other planets. Tom should have taken more of an opportunity to learn about them, their origins and to learn more about what they know about the universe. The battle with the Brungarians is very formulaic, with setbacks, danger, accomplishments and eventual victory. I was very interested in the Insta-Rock gun, a device that precipitates the minerals in seawater into rock. Tom uses it to seal the Brungarian submarine into an area inside an island.

I was disappointed with this episode because the presence of the aliens was so poorly handled. Once Tom learned that they were not of Earth, the explosive and battle with the Brungarians should have been relegated to second place. The knowledge possessed by the space travelers would have been of far greater value than anything else.