Customer Reviews

Tom Swift and his cosmotron express (His The new Tom Swift, Jr., adventures, 32)

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One of the best things about the Tom Swift Jr. books written in the sixties is the cool names given to Tom's inventions. In this book, there is the "Cosmotron", "Atomeron gun", the "X-raser" and the rather simple sounding "the Crab" and "the Orb." The Cosmotron is a repelatron driven spaceship that Tom is going to use to conduct a grand tour of all the planets in the solar system. However, Tom and his group must battle the group "Very Important Party of Extra-terrestrial Rulers" (VIPER), demonstrating that all of the creative energy for cool names was used up in naming the inventions. VIPER steals Tom's first Cosmotron so he is forced to build another in a very short time. After Tom and his crew go on the grand tour of the planets, the VIPER controlled craft attempts to battle Tom in his new Cosmotron, but they are easily defeated. Let by Tom and Bud swinging their fists to great effect, government agents storm the main VIPER hideout and free their captive.

Despite the formidable name given to the opposition, VIPER is in the end a rather weak organization, giving up after doing little more than uttering a few phrases straight out of the book of villainous clichés. While the trip to all the planets is interesting in retrospective, the remainder that consists of fairly simple danger and escape stories does not do a great deal to warm your SF imagination.