Tom Swift Inventors' Academy, Book 8 - Depth Perception

Well, it seems this month is the month of endings.  The last book in the League of Secret Heroes series - the last book in the Blackwater saga - and now the last book in the most recent Tom Swift series (Tom Swift VI, I believe ... the original series, the "Jr" series, the Wanderer series, the Archway series, the Young Inventor series, and now the Inventors' Academy series).  I always seem to put off reading the last book in a series because I know that once I read it, that is it - the end.  No more stories with characters that I have grown to love (or merely like, as the case may be).  But putting it off indefinitely won't change the fact that sooner or later I have to pick it up and read it.  And so it goes with this final Tom Swift, Inventors' Academy book.

To date, I have pretty much enjoyed the series, even though Tom is a lot younger than any of the previous series.  But Depth Perception is probably my least favorite of the series.  Previous books had at least some level of mystery mixed in with the technological aspects of the story, but this book seems more about the technology and less about any real mystery.  There is a background mystery of sorts surrounding an armored trunk that was stolen years ago and driven into a quarry that has now been turned into a lake - the truck lies at the bottom of the lake, but a legend claims the money that was in the truck was never recovered, and the thieves never made it out to tell where the money went.  However, very little time is spent on that mystery.  The focus of the book seems to be more about the submersible that Tom and his friend Noah have created and their excitement about testing it out over Spring Break when a group of students from Swift Academy is taken to a local park to show off their latest inventions for keeping the environment clean.  Of course, that also happens to be the same park where the lake now is that holds the sunken armored truck.

While it is definitely nice to see Tom Swift focused on the technology and inventions (which has been a staple of Tom Swift since the first iteration way back in the early 1900s, unlike the recent television show that seemed to forget what Tom Swift was truly about), I much prefer when there is a mystery mixed in with the tech.  Tom Swift, Sr. plays a larger role in this story, as does Mr. Swift's friend, J.J. Jefferson, who is a famous engineering genius.  It's rather cute to see how Tom and Noah are so star-struck around Mr. Jefferson (no, not THAT Mr. Jefferson - he's a dry-cleaning tychoon, not an engineering genius!), and it reminds readers that no matter how smart Tom, Noah, and their friends may be, they are still young men and women, barely in their teens, who are easily awestruck by their so-called idols in the tech world.

There is a sort-of mystery surrounding Mr. Jefferson and what he is really doing at Lake Carlopa, but even that is minor and very quickly resolved.  In fact [AND THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD, SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED ABOUT THE END OF THIS BOOK, READ NO FURTHER!!!], there are actually no bad guys whatsoever in this story and no crimes are committed.  The ideas that Tom and Noah get in their head about the boat of scuba divers anchored in the lake next to the small island there is completely off-base, and it turns out that the sinking of their sub reveals just how wrong they were about what is going on at the lake.

It's truly a shame this series didn't make it past eight books (although that is two books more than the last series in the early 2000s).  While this book may not have been the best in the series, it was still a good read, and the ghostwriter(s) have managed to develop some very fleshed out characters in Tom, Noah, Sam, and Amy.  It has been a lot of fun reading their adventures, following their camaraderie, and rooting them as they ferreted out the villains and solved the mysteries.  Perhaps at some point, Simon & Schuster will give Tom Swift another try, and when they do, I'll be here, ready and waiting.

 

RATING:  7 bag of Boldero Bandit's money out of 10 for keeping the series lighthearted and fun and giving readers a Tom Swift that they could really enjoy.