Tom's been training his entry, SwiftBot, for the upcoming Robot Olympics -- a major event being sponsored by the White House's Office of Science and Technology. Teenage inventors from around the country will be bringing their homemade robots to compete in a series of athletic competitions. The Road Back, an antiscience terrorist group, has issued a statement condemning the event, and Tom hopes that the tight security at the Robot Olympics will keep TRB from causing trouble. But no such luck. Someone is playing dirty . . . and things are going to get dangerous.
Victor Appleton was a house pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and its successors, most famous for being associated with the Tom Swift series of books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_...
The character of Tom Swift was conceived in 1910 by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book-packaging company. Stratemeyer invented the series to capitalize on the market for children's science adventure. The Syndicate's authors created the Tom Swift books by first preparing an outline with all the plot elements, followed by drafting and editing the detailed manuscript. The books were published under the house name of Victor Appleton. Edward Stratemeyer and Howard Garis wrote most of the volumes in the original series; Stratemeyer's daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, wrote the last three volumes. The first Tom Swift series ended in 1941. In 1954, Harriet Adams created the Tom Swift, Jr., series, which was published under the name "Victor Appleton II". Most titles were outlined and plotted by Adams. The texts were written by various writers, among them William Dougherty, John Almquist, Richard Sklar, James Duncan Lawrence, Tom Mulvey and Richard McKenna. The Tom Swift, Jr., series ended in 1971. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift