Tom Swift Inventors' Academy, Book 2 - The Sonic Breach

This latest incarnation of the Stratemeyer Syndicate's young boy inventor continues with the second volume in the Tom Swift Inventors' Academy series - The Sonic Breach.  I was never a Tom Swift fan back in the day (my first real introduction to the character was back in the mid-1980s with the Wanderer publication, where Tom Swift was in space in the future), but I did fairly enjoy the 6-book series from the early 2000s - so I figured I would give this series a shot.  The first book was okay, with decent enough writing, and the second book is pretty much the same (making me think it was the same author who wrote both stories). Not sure, though, how I feel about Tom and his friends being so much younger (while they do not specify the characters' ages, the feel of the story is that they are in upper middle school or perhaps the lowest grade of high school - much younger than any of the earlier incarnations of the character).

The Sonic Breach at first seems to focus on an upcoming robot battle among the students - these genius level students are tasked with the job of creating robots that will battle each other in a competition.  Tom, of course, is grouped with his friends Noah and Sam, who believe they have created the ultimate fighting robot.  The story (and ultimate mystery) changes gears, though, when the students all get the same text message, warning them about a pop quiz coming up in their next classes.  You see, the teachers at Swift Academy of Science and Technology have had the sudden inspiration of testing their students on nearly an everyday basis, to see if they are actually studying the material.  And the students are tired of the numerous pop quizzes - so someone developed an app that will allow students to post about the quizzes to their friends and classmates, to give them the heads up before they hit their next class.  But, isn't that cheating, Tom wonders?  Especially when the tone for the incoming texts is set at a decibel that cannot be heard by adults?

As Tom and his friends try to upgrade and prepare their robot for the ultimate challenge, Tom is left in the quandary of what to do about the app.  Who created it? Since it doesn't allow students to reveal questions or answers, is it cheating or not? Should he tell administration?  Should he tell his father?  All of those questions become even more difficult to answer when he finds out who is actually the creator of the app!  Of course, this isn't really much of a mystery, now is it? Well, how about when someone highjacks the app, starts charging for the use of the app, and starts allowing students to post pictures of the quizzes and provide answers to their friends and classmates?!?!  Now that's a mystery that Tom, Noah, Sam, and Amy will have to solve before the true creator of the app takes the fall.

Yes, the mystery does involve a bit of cyber-tech (such as hacking and such), but it's not overly technical, and quite frankly, Tom does very little of the work. It seems Noah is the one who does most of the technical work in this mystery, with Tom sitting on the sidelines trying to catch clues from everything Noah discovers and does.  And once again, with only 130 pages of story, there is little time for true character development (although readers do learn a bit more about Amy's personality and background in this book).  I really wish S&S would allow these authors to flesh out these stories, to provide more character revelations and growth so that readers actually get to know the characters and they are not simply two-dimensional people who could really be just about anyone these days.  Seriously, the idea behind this latest series (Tom and his friends being students at an advanced school of learning) is actually a cool idea with lots of opportunity, particularly if they were high school students with a lot more freedom (and the ability to drive!).  But S&S, along with so many publishers today, seem to think that books aimed at the young reader market have to feature middle school children as the crime-solvers.  Ah, well, it's probably just me wishing for the books of the old days....

Interestingly, there is no author bio at the end of this book, although there is a brief few page preview of the next book in the series, Restricted Access.  I guess since they no longer preview the next book title at the end of the story like they did back in the day, giving a brief preview like this is a way of whetting readers' appetites for the next mystery.

On a side note, the book I have (and not sure if this will be corrected in future printings), but the names of the chapters 3 and 4 in the table of contents are opposite of what they actually are in the book - in the table of contents, Chapter 3 is "The Restoration Deliberation," while Chapter 4 is "The Notification Escalation" - but in the actual story, the names are opposite.  (And yes, the chapter names are still in the same format as the title of Big Bang Theory episodes, so I'm assuming this will be an ongoing thing for this series - which is a plus, in my book!)

RATING:  6 all-white fencing uniforms out of 10 for reminding readers that just because we have the technology to do things, it doesn't always mean it should be used in such a way!