Picked up a set of second generation Tom Swifts at a library book sale. This one might not have been a good place to start; it consists basically of a series of vignettes that don't really have any flow to them. And oh my, the inventions that Tom has to play with by this point! The giant vertical-takeoff-and-landing airplane, the long-distance molecule retriever, helijets, the triphibian atomicar, the megascope space prober...how anyone could come up with a scenario that doesn't involve Tom lightly snickering and pulling a device out his pocket to fix everything is beyond me. But that might be why they resorted to aliens and space exploration for a lot of these books.

When the Swifts actually get around to tackling the eponymous comet, the book perks up a little, with some dramatic moments out in space and a nice betrayal-and-redemption storyline. Still, I hope the other ones will be better. ( )