The Negative Zone

Tom Swift IV #2

by Victor Appleton, Bill McCay

Young inventor-adventurer Tom Swift's latest invention allows him to locate a mini-black hole, but he accidentally falls into it and finds himself in a parallel universe where he is a wanted criminal

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens

151 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1991

About the author

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

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Swift creates a machine that lets him go to other dimensions. Unfortunately evil versions of himself and his friends visit us, and frame Tom for murder.

Not bad. Surprisingly, none of the bad guys had goatees.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn’t very good, but I read it.

[Kevin Findley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first Tom Swift IV series book I've read. My youngest enjoyed it, but did occasionally lose interest with several chapters. It was a good entry, although I have to admit I'm not up on the last thirty years of new stories.

Still, the writer stuck to the formula of boy genius gets in over his head and has to think (and occasionally punch) his way out of trouble. Tom's friends are interesting to read about as well. I'm looking forward to figuring out the chronology of the books and seeing how it all fits in with the original books from the 1920s and the sci-fi Tom Swift Jr. novels I read in the 70s.

Find it! Read it!

[Tom Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

My name is Tom, and Tom Swift's name is Tom, and that was all the marketing magic to took to hook a 9-year-old me on this series. I read 'em all and remember exactly two: this one, where Tom opens a portal into an evil twin dimension, and the one with dinosaurs.

4 stars. Lightning in a bottle.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom is sucked into an alternate dimension, where he is mistaken for a criminal mastermind. He has to avoid the police, while getting the nuclear materials necessary to duplicate his original experiment. It was interesting seeing Tom deal with a problem that's not of his own making, and it's interesting to see him interact with the alternate version of Mandy. It was not interesting to see the Evil Tom interact with people in our world, mainly because he spent most of the time alone. He could have been handled in a better fashion. Overall, the book entertained me, but I think it should have been saved for later on in the series. This is only the second book! Readers don't have a good enough understanding of who the characters are, in order to maximize interest in a story with alternate versions of the characters.

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second book in the 90s teen version of Tom Swift involves the titular character punching a hole through to another universe via a black hole where his life is radically different. He changes places with an evil version of himself, and while he navigates his alter-ego's dark world, his evil counterpart plots to take over his own world.

I loved this classic sci-fi mirror universe idea played out with Tom Swift, but this book suffers from too much cliche. Everyone in the dark universe has pony tails and greasy hair, and the evil swift is too obviously evil in the good universe. How no one notices is a major mystery throughout most of the book. Also, the book spent far too much time in the evil universe with the good Tom Swift. I would have liked to see equal time, and to see evil Tom Swift being thrown by being completely out of his element just as good Tom Swift was.

Also, the endgame of the book, both Swifts recreating their initial experiments, seemed very implausible, given that evil Tom Swift was doing so only to kill his good universe family and there must have been an easier way to do it.

Teen fiction or not, this could have been a bit better.

[Wulfae]

For what it is, it was fun. My father bought a bunch of books in this Tom Swift series for me, because we read his copies of the Tom Swift Jr. when I was a kid.

I do wish that we'd get a little bit more development on Tom's sister. I accept that she's not the genius that Tom is, but I expect her to be good at something. She's got a brilliant father, after all.

And I assume that they have a mother? I think we've seen her once.

[Christopher Brehm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good

[Mogulman · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read this book last year as a 26 years old man,i read this book because i buy it in second hand book store in Beijing,i never saw a book such funny compare to many Chinese counterpart