Have you seen me?

The Flying Lab is a giant, supersonic, nuclear-powered aircraft, three levels of high technology and virtually every type of laboratory known to science. A small South American country wants to develop a source of uranium ore, but it is on land controlled by a group of dangerous rebels who want to sell it countries equally as dangerous. Can Tom locate the ore in time, and can he keep ahead of the spies out to stop him? This book sets, among other things, the premise that the Swifts never achieve their goals with the use of force, and never carry weapons.

Being nuclear powered, this two-person submarine with its transparent nose, has a virtually unlimited range. With this as their vehicle, Tom and his pal Bud Barclay track down and defeat a group of modern, high-tech pirates who incapacitate their victims with a stun ray before plundering their ships. Tom invents a distorter to protect them against the paralyzing "pulsator", but will it work when put to the test? And what of Mr. Swift and Uncle Ned, whom the pirates have kidnapped and left imprisoned somewhere in the Caribbean?

The contest: the first rocket ship race around the world. The Swift's entry is a new rocket launched from their base on Fearing Island. Tom's secret "weapon" is the kicker, a device that uses solar energy to supercharge their liquid oxygen into ozone. Unfortunately, one of their opponents also has a secret weapon: deceit and sabotage. And what's worse, he's stolen the design for the kicker. His plan is to build a space platform and from there rule the world, a very real possibility. And unlike the Swifts, they're not averse to using more typical weapons.

The Citadel is the Swift's atomic laboratory being constructed in the remote western desert, set up as a research station for the US government. Since humans cannot work in the high radiation levels inside, Tom invents a giant robot for that purpose. However, he is suddenly beset with attacks from giant mechanical crows engineered by an insane physicist. And the band of bank robbers he is working with plan to steal one of Tom's robots to help them with their chosen career.

In a quest to tap an almost unlimited source of iron — the Earth's own core — Tom invents his atomic earth blaster to bore a deep hole by vaporizing the rock in its path. The expedition takes them to the harsh environment of Antarctica, and on its success hangs the survival of Swift Enterprises. But the Kranjovian government has plans to get to that resource first, and have stolen the plans for Tom's Earth Blaster to help them along the way. And if it's necessary to blow the Swift Expedition to smithereens, they have no compunction about doing so.

The Swifts need a location of zero gravity to assemble their solar batteries and a source of raw, unfiltered sunlight to energize them, so Tom embarks on his most ambitious project yet: an outpost in space. Unlike most of the books, where the primary antagonist is some evil foe, in this one the greatest challenges are the technical difficulties themselves. Tom overcomes them all, of course, with some solid — and realistic — science, a delight to behold.

A rocket containing samples of life from another planet, is sent to the Swifts by their space friends. Unfortunately, a group of unscrupulous scientists jams the Swifts' signal and instructs them to send it to some location in the Atlantic Ocean. Tracking it down is a perfect project for his latest invention, the Ocean Arrow, whose curious design allows it to both fly as a helicopter and to submerge deep in the sea by reversing the pitch of its blades. It becomes a race in the depths of the sea to reach it first, and the enemy is out to win that race — at any cost. Also on the agenda is a legendary sunken city of gold.

And old friend, Craig Benson, had crashed in the Congo and disappeared. Now, after 2 years, he suddenly surfaces with a bizarre tale of a gas that will disintegrate everything it touches. In truth, a theretofore unknown phenomenon exists deep in a cave: a nuclear process incompatible with normal matter. As Tom and his crew go to investigate, they are beset with wild animals, hostile natives and worse: white men who are engaging in an illegal mining operation on the very same mountain and who will stop at nothing to keep from being found out. But what about that mysterious antimatter? Can Tom's new invention, the Terrasphere protect them as they venture into this new realm to solve its puzzles?

A strange new moonlet hurls toward Earth and takes up in a distant orbit. In his new atomic-powered spaceship the Titan, Tom and his friends set out to explore the new world, learn of its resources, and claim it for the United States. They learn that the satellite was placed into orbit by the Swifts' space friends. Unfortunately, an expedition from Brungaria has also come to the satellite, headed by a madman named Mirov. They try deception, threats, kidnapping, and sabotage to get rid of the Americans. When this fails, Mirov puts into play his latest plan, one that might destroy not only the phantom satellite, but Earth along with it.

This book has more adventure than most, but that doesn't mean Tom doesn't have his thinking cap on. Returning from a business trip to New Guinea, Tom's pal Bud and Harlan Ames run into a mountainous region of perpetual storms. Worse, their instruments are affected by some electromagnetic weapon and they crash in the deep, unexplored jungle. Tom's first rescue attempts fail because the weather is too intense for any conventional aircraft. The voyage on foot proves to be painfully slow and incredibly dangerous, especially since someone is trying to keep them from their goal. Could it be because of the wealth of rare earth minerals that seems to be located in the vicinity. How fortunate, that Tom has just invented his cycloplane, which can go where no plane has gone before! But can even that invention succeed when someone is so determined to keep them from the wealth of rare minerals, and from the ancient underground city?

If you ask me, the cover on this one is unimaginative, but the story is one of my favorites. Also, herein enters one of Tom's most amazing and useful inventions, and one that would truly change the world if it really existed: the repelatron. In fact, the repelatron becomes the basis for several of Tom's later inventions.

In order to harvest a deep-sea source of helium, the Swifts need a base underwater, but no conventional technology will allow for that. Tuned to repel sea water, the repelatron sets up an empty dome beneath the sea. The operation is complicated by a mysterious whale-shaped submarine every bit as capable as Tom's advanced seacopter, the Sea Hound, which is not only pursuing the Swifts, but planting caches of nuclear warheads in undersea caves. Worse, even the Swifts' own employees are being drugged and induced to sabotage the project. Who can be behind this?

This isn't a formal race, but Tom is determined to get to moon before the Brungarians and claim the glory for the United States. Instead of using a conventional rocket, Tom creates the Challenger, a bizarre spacecraft using repelatrons mounted to a system of tracks. But this is more than a race to the moon; it is a race against time. A mysterious disease is threatening the world of the Swifts' space friends and they are unable to cure it. So they plan to send a spacecraft loaded with infected animals around the moon in hopes that the Swifts can find a cure. Unfortunately, the Brungarians have stolen one of Tom's translating computers, and intend to get to the alien craft first. They have no interest in helping the aliens; they want the glory for themselves and to use the disease in biological warfare experiments.

Now that the Swifts have reached the moon, it is time to colonize it. But the expense to transport all the air, water, and food the colonists would need would be prohibitive. So Tom creates one of his most amazing inventions yet: the space solartron, which can convert sunlight to matter. Naturally, all does not go well. An international band of crooks is out to steal his invention, and even enlist a spy within Swift Enterprises. Worse, while working on a project outside their space station, his father mysteriously disappears. Kidnapped. The search for him takes Tom and his friends on a trek across the surface of the moon, and eventually all the way to Venus. One of the more thrilling of the Tom Swift space adventures.

To solve the mysteries of some Mayan relics found in the Yucatan Peninsula, Tom uses his new electronic retroscope, which utilizes residual patterns of radiation in matter when it was new. He encounters an unusual number of technical difficulties, and his new paraplane is beset with a number of mishaps that just might be sabotage. But if so, it is so cleverly done that he unable to prove it. Befriending a mysterious giant who turns out to be a California wrestler who now lives in a cave, he pursues an unscrupulous patent pirate out to steal his inventions.

In an effort to come up with an inexpensive means of space travel, Tom invents the Space Kite, which uses focused gravity instead of a string and the stream of "cosmic" (solar?) radiation instead of the wind. Meanwhile, Li Ching, a dangerous oriental scientist dispossessed of any country, is out to destroy other scientists around the world, especially the Swifts. He has pirated their new ocean research vessel, the Sea Charger and is keeping it hidden behind an invisibility cloak. Threatening phone calls, bombs, and a near fatal failure of the Space Kite 100,000 miles from Earth add excitment to Tom's otherwise dreary () life. But he can do better than the Space Kite: a space sailing vessel with cosmic keel, just in time to thwart the capture of his space station and recover the Sea Charger.

The Swifts' space friends are sending an emissary to Earth, but since he could not survive the trip in physical form, he is coming as pure energy. Tom must construct a container for him, while keeping him from falling into the hands of a group of unscrupulous scientists. Meanwhile, a group of Brungarian scientists is attempting to eliminate Western scientific superiority by destroying critical installations with artificially induced earthquakes. Swift Enterprises seems like the next logical target. Enter a daring plan: turn the alien visitor into an electronic spy by allowing the Brungarians to capture it.

The Jupiter probe that the Swifts built for the goverment is returning with its valuable data. But the Brungarians launch a rocket of their own to divert it off course, and engage in a race to retrieve it first. Tom must counter with a series of inventions that allow them to explore the ocean floor freely, while at the same time avoiding capture or death from the Brungarian's indetectable submarine.

One of the many inventions based on the repelatron, the atomicar can travel on land, in the sea, and even fly, hence the name triphibian. Herein, the Swifts are assisting a new central Asian country of Kabulistan in securing their independence, but run afoul of a local corporation who believe they should have the business, and of an unscrupulous businessman wanting to reap the rewards of a lost and half mythical ruby mine.

Arguably, this is the coolest Tom Swift, Jr., book written. We have a well-conceived mystery, several sub-plots, and some realistic science, even though it wouldn't really work as Tom describes.

The space prober is akin to a telescope, but scans space with a beam of parallel radio waves, rather like a laser. Meanwhile, his best friend Bud is called away for a mission to Venus operated by one of the Swifts' competitors. But something else is amiss: it becomes apparent that other scientists are suddenly replicating a lot of the Swifts' amazing inventions, and far too quickly. before they're even out of the lab. Could it be that there is a traitor in Swift Enterprises itself? And what is to happen when Bud's mission runs afoul of the jealously of an over-ambitious co-pilot?

If Tom Swift and his Megascope Space Prober has one of the coolest stories, I've always thought this one had one of the coolest covers. Suddenly, the phantom satellite, now named Nestria, is surrounded by an impenetrable barrier of antimatter. It turns out the barrier was placed there by a mysterious organization called Cobra, who wants to claim the satellite to use as a base in their plan to conquer Earth. The Swifts can no longer send crucial supplies to their personnel on Nestria, and they are in danger of starvation. To rescue them, Tom must find a way to crack the barrier, while coping with the menace of Cobra.

The government of the newly independent African country of Ngombia urgently needs a highway to connect its eastern and western halves. Unfortunately, between them is an unexplored and nearly impenetrable jungle sliced by a mucky, slighly radioactive swamp. A competing engineering company has already failed. Hence the repelatron skyway, a road suspended above the treetops by repelatron beams. But agents of a shady mining company don't want the project to succeed, and use trickery, sabotage, and attempted murder at every turn. And what of the missing Professor Eldredge, who 20 years earlier had thought he could breed extinct animals?

While attempting to cross the Atlantic in only hydrolung suits, Tom and Bud's power cells suddenly die, leaving them marooned in the middle of the ocean. Sabotage. Evidence indicates that this mishap may be connected to the disappearance of a ship loaded with gold bullion and an invaluable art treasure. There are some very clever and dangerous criminals afoot. To solve the mystery and bring the criminals to justice, Tom uses his new aquatomic tracker, which can detect and follow minute tracesof metals in sea water. The trail takes them to the French Riviera and into a trap concocted by a ruthless millionaire. One of Tom's better adventures.

Could this be the holodeck decades before Star Trek: The Next Generation? The 3-D telejector projects a life-like image in space. But this amazing invention runs afoul of a renegade engineer who has invented a similar but inferior system. Meanwhile, the mysterious Green Orb has appeared in space, disrupting communications. An attempt to land there renders Tom and his friends unconcious, and it actively resists his Megascope Space Prober. Something about the Green Orb is also hostile to the 3-D telejector, and has communicated with a ruthless organization of scientists on Earth, conspiring to stop it even if it means destroying Swift Enterprises.

The polar-ray dynasphere, is sort of the opposite of the repelatron: this gizmo attracts things. But the bulk of the story involves political plotting plotting in the remote Himalayan kingdom of Vishnapur, an adventure that begins when a mysterious rocket glances off the space outpost and nearly kills everyone aboard. The plot thickens when Tom develops a plan to drain and clease a poisonous lake in the highlands. The Lake of Kali. Is the goddess of death out to get them, or have they merely stumbled into the beginnings of a political coup?

American cities are suddenly coming under attack with sound — sound so intense that it is disabling. There is no apparent source, and no revealed reason. Tom's new silentenna, designed to nullify sonic booms, might do the trick of defending against such attacks, if only he can perfect it. But to do so, he needs a liquid-crystal actuator invented by Dr. John Wyvern. But Dr. Wyvern has suddenly disappeared. Could this be related to the disappearance of several other leading scientists, who were gone months then reappeared with no memory of where they had been? Tom's search for Dr. Wyvern takes him to the outback of Australia. Although they succeed in finding him, he is kidnapped again by their unknown enemy, and further clues are sparse. Now comes the ultimatum: the U.S. must pay $10,000,000 or a major city will be attacked with sound so intense it will be not only disabling, but lethal. And the Swifts' attempts to create their own actuator have failed. Can they solve the puzzle in time?

A lot of Tom's inventions are implausible given a scientific analysis, but this was the only one that really bothered me as a kid. The geotron travels through solid rock by using an array of repelatrons on either side to clear the way. What structural materials could stand up to that stress? From whence would come that much power to feed the repelatrons?

Anyway, the Swifts' space friends ask them to retrieve a data cache left on Earth thousands of years ago during a colonization attempt. Trouble is, it's buried 4,000 feet below the ocean floor. Hence, the subocean geotron. A dictatorial space group wants the cache,too. They offer the Swifts a deal to give them a powerful weapon in exchange for the cache. When the Swifts refuse, the aliens make the same offer to the Kranjovians. Now, Tom must hurry, for woe would befall the world if the Kranjovians got their hands on such a weapon.

When sinister forces attack the new U.S. spaceport still under construction, it is just the beginning. As Tom is trying to perfect his new Duratherm Wing, an opportunity arises to plant a scientific colony on a near-Earth planetoid. But when plans for that project become public, he is beset with a series of plots to wreck in, and when those fail, a series of clever an potentially lethal attacks on his life? Meanwhile, Chow's opportunity at investing in a sapphire mine of incredible value introduces another twisty subplot. And the planetoid Petronius has suddenly moved into an orbit around Earth. Can all this be related? And what is the great secret of Petronius itself? When Petronius' orbit begins to decay into a collision course with Earth, he has only ten days to come up with a plan to save the planet.

Sorry, I haven't even read this one.

Nor this one!

At last! One that I've read again. Tom plans a grand tour of the solar system with his biggest spaceship yet. But an evil organization called VIPER is out to destroy him and steal his inventions. Not an original Tom Swift plot, I'll admit. Can Tom defeat this foe in the depths of space? What do you think?

Well, I haven't read this one either, and from what I've heard about it, that might not be a bad thing. This was the last book of the series, and apparently an attempt to prolong its life by the publisher, with little concern for being true to the Tom Swift legacy. Oh, well...