One day as I was at the library it struck me that, somewhere in the land, there should be a copy of Tom Swift and the Galaxy Ghosts in the hands of a library. If this was the case, then it should be possible for me to special order it from the library. This I did, and I found out that the Texas A&M University Library had a copy of this book, which they loaned to my local library, who then loaned it to me.

The book that I got had, unfortunately, been re-bound in an unattractive (but very sturdy) blue hardcover binding. All the pages were intact and in perfect condition. The only flaw that I could see was an ink stamp on the side of the pages that read "TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY LIBRARY". Other than that, there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about the book. Except, that is, for the story inside it.

But, boners aside, the book was still bad. No emphasis to speak of was put into the science of the inventions, or on the problems Tom had trying to work out his inventions, or on pulling jokes on Chow, or on the trouble Tom invariably gets into when he tests the inventions. Tom didn't work late at night in his laboratory trying to get his Transmittaton to work. Nope. Instead, Tom was afar off into the Andes or somewhere else chasing after Brungarians spies while his father or some other unknown scientist worked out the bugs of his invention. This unique behavior on Tom's part is entirely out of character -- nowhere, nowhere, in all of the other 32 books did anything like that occur. In other books, if the invention itself wasn't already around when the book started (as in book #1) Tom always insisted on working on it himself and spent many long, hard hours at the laboratory doing so. This book reminded me of the new Hardy Boy books that you can still buy on the shelves today -- it's all glitter, but the glitter is only electroplated -- there is no gold to be found. Tom, in this book, had utterly lost all of his character.

The cover of this book, I think, emphasizes this point. Now, I'll admit that most of the covers of Tom Swift books do not completely agree with the story inside them. This cover, however, is so bad that I think that it deserves special merit. First of all, there is the little fact that the Transmittaton doesn't even faintly resemble the device pictured on the cover. Secondly, there is the little fact that the scene on the cover never happenned in the book -- if it had, the radiation from the Galaxy Ghost (which is that little whispy creature supposedly being emitted form the Transmittaton) would have instantly killed Tom.

Beyond the scientific flaws with the cover, however, there is the radical change in Tom. I recently received a letter that expresses the radical change in Tom very well, and since he has agreed to let me post it, here it is:

1. This book should be re-written to satisfy Tom Swift Jr. collectors everywhere and republished, or
2. Another book (#34) should be written and published that will finally and satisfactorily end the series.

There are, however, many (mostly legal) problems associated with this. Recently, I received the following e-mail from the Tom Swift expert James D. Keeline that helped highlight the problems with putting out a new book:

Like many other series books, the Tom Swift Jr. series was produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Today, we would call this entity a "book packager". As you probably know, the Syndicate hired writers to complete book-length manuscripts from brief outlines -- ranging from a couple of sentences to several pages. For this effort, the ghostwriters were paid a flat fee for all rights. Between 1904 and 1984, the Stratemeyer Syndicate produced over 1,600 series books. Some of which were very popular and others are all but forgotten today by the general public. Ever hear of the White Ribbon Boys series? Edward Stratemeyer, who founded the Syndicate, died in May 1930. Thereafter, his two daughters, Harriet S. Adams and Camilla Stratemeyer Squier continued the business operation. Camilla withdrew in 1942 after her marriage and became a silent partner. Harriet continued to run the Syndicate until her death in 1982. The Syndicate was run for a couple of years by the junior partners who were around. However, they decided to sell the company to Simon & Schuster in 1984. All of the existing series were stopped. Some were resumed (like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series) under the new Minstrel imprint of Simon & Shuster. When the Syndicate was still in operation, these titles were published under the Wanderer imprint. Eleven Tom Swift stories were published between 1981 and 1984 under the Wanderer imprint.

Nearly three-quarters of the Tom Swift Jr. series was written by James Duncan Lawrence (1918-1994) -- specifically volumes 5-7, 9-29. Other authors wrote the remaining volumes. The volume you mention, TOM SWIFT AND THE GALAXY GHOSTS (1971) was written by Vincent Buranelli, who also wrote some Hardy Boys books during that time period. This was his only Tom Swift book. I think the Syndicate was in a state of denial and did not believe that the series would end at this point even though they did not announce a new title at the end of the story.

There were several reasons for the demise of the series. First, the Baby Boom Generation had out-grown the books. The same children who made the series a virtual best seller in the 1956 to 1961 time period were approaching 20 by 1971 -- far too old to be interested in Tom Swift Jr. There were fewer children born after 1952 and many of these would be entertained by television of the 1960s rather than series books. The sales of all series books plummeted at this point. It killed many series before 1971 (Rick Brant in 1968, Ken Holt in 1964, etc.).

Second, the Tom Swift Jr. vision of the future was not borne out by reality. I contend that not one of the major inventions in the Tom Swift Jr. series was realized in any form in the real world. This is unlike the original Tom Swift series where nearly all of the major inventions were realized in some form or another ... Synthetic Diamonds, Picture Telephones, Television, Motor Homes, etc. By 1969, the Saturn V rocket, not Tom Swift Jr.'s gyroscope-shaped Challenger, was the vehicle that took men to the Moon. Even the premise of the "scientific background" for the series has not seen reality. We did not expect to have Tomasite. However, we also don't have a repelatron either. The repelatron was the basis for many of the Tom Swift Jr. books. They were science fantasy -- not science fiction as they are often described.

Simon & Schuster has published two Tom Swift series. The one from 1981 to 1984 and another, better series published between 1991 and 1993. Even though some of the titles were ridiculous, like CYBORG KICKBOXER, the stories went back to the original Tom Swift mantra -- extrapolate on ideas in current science publications and popularize the ideas. When superconductors were in the news, Tom was making a hoverboard out of it. In one case, when I read the latest story MOONSTALKER, it described a computer-controlled mirror to adjust for the atmospheric disturbances. After an all-night read, I woke up to the morning newspaper to find that scientists at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory had performed a similar accomplishment using the same technique described by "Victor Appleton."

Both Tom Swift series were not popular with young readers. They did not sell well and are sought only by fans of the other two Tom Swift series. Simon & Schuster has given up on publishing new Tom Swift stories but they are unlikely to look the other way should someone try to publish a new story based upon characters whose trademarks and copyrights they own. Even though the story would be new, there would be a trademark infringement through the use of the character names and situations.

Simon & Schuster, through it's permissions department and Kevin Sullivan, have sent strong letters to editors of hobby magazines, like THE WHISPERED WATCHWORD when they ran an article psychoanalyzing Syndicate characters. Rather than viewing this as parody (which is generally protected under the first amendment and existing copyright law), they saw it as a trademark infringement. In the end, nothing came of it. However, the trademark laws require the owner to "vigorously defend" their trademark properties lest they slip into the public domain through common usage. For example, the Baum family did not have a role nor did they object to the 1939 MGM film. As a result, there isn't a trademark for the Oz characters. However, the Burroughs family has worked pretty closely with any films using the Tarzan character, preserving their trademark. It's much more complicated than this and I don't begin to understand it all.

Going the official way with S&S's permission department is tough too because of the stiff licensing fees they require. Bob Cook, who published a TOM SWIFT AND HIS AMAZING WORKS CATALOG had to pay a fee to S&S and is only allowed to publish 900 copies of his Catalog. The only thin he uses is the name Tom Swift, a couple of photographs with thumb-nail sized photos of the book covers, and the list of titles in English and foreign languages. He does not like to disclose the amount, but it was high enough to discourage me from continuing work on my own TOM SWIFT "COMPLETE" ILLUSTRATED BIBLIOGRAPHY which had much more article content describing the history of the series, production methods, unpublished titles, etc.

Karen Plunkett-Powell had to pay licensing fees for the photographs in her NANCY DREW SCRAPBOOK (St. Martin's Press 1993?). It's a tough nut to crack. In the end, could a satisfactory conclusion to the series be written by someone who had nothing to do with the original series? Would anyone care? Vincent Buranelli is still alive, though getting up there in years. Most of the other Tom Swift Jr. ghostwriters, including James Duncan Lawrence, are deceased. It is a different situation from the leftover manuscript by Hal Goodwin for the Rick Brant series --which took about 5 years to sell 1,000 copies -- not good.

I have many internal documents from the Syndicate describing the profiles for the characters, locales, etc. But until you get some sort of permission, there isn't much of a point.

This letter does a good job of pointing out the difficulties of giving the series a satisfactory ending. What can be done? I, for one, am not sure. The series still needs a good, solid ending, but it looks like the legal side of the matter will prevent this from ever happening. Any ideas, anyone?