Editing Tom Swift (section)

=== Second series (1954–1971) ===
{{main|Tom Swift Jr.}}

{{quote box | bgcolor = #eee8aa | width = 26em
| quote =
"Did you have time to learn anything?" Bud asked the young inventor.

Tom shrugged. "A little. I was using my new gadget as a wave trap or antenna to capture light of a single wave length from certain stars so I could study their [[red shift]]."
| source = From ''Tom Swift and His Polar-Ray Dynasphere'' (1965).<ref>Appleton II (1965), 4.</ref>
}}

In this series, presented as an extension and continuation of the first, the Tom Swift of the original series is now the [[CEO]] of Swift Enterprises, a four-mile-square enclosed facility where inventions are conceived and manufactured. Tom's son, Tom Swift Jr., is now the primary inventive genius of the family. Stratemeyer Syndicate employee Andrew Svenson described the new series as based "on scientific fact and probability, whereas the old Toms were in the main adventure stories mixed with pseudo-science".<ref>Andrew Svenson, quoted in Dizer (1982), 45.</ref> Three [[PhD]]s in science were hired as consultants to the series to ensure scientific accuracy.<ref name="Time"/> The younger Tom does not tinker with motorcycles; his inventions and adventures extend from deep within the Earth (in ''Tom Swift and His Atomic Earth Blaster'' [1954])  to the bottom of the ocean (in ''Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter'' [1956]) to the Moon (in ''Tom Swift in the Race to the Moon'' [1958]) and, eventually, the outer Solar System (in ''Tom Swift and His Cosmotron Express'' [1970]). Later volumes of the series increasingly emphasized the [[Extraterrestrial life|extraterrestrial]] "space friends", as they are termed throughout the series.<ref>See Dizer (1982), 59.</ref> The beings appear as early as the first volume of the series, ''Tom Swift and His Flying Lab'' (1954). The Tom Swift Jr., Adventures were less commercially successful than the first series, selling 6 million copies total, compared with sales of 14 million copies for the first series.<ref name="Disch">Disch (2007).</ref>

In contrast to the earlier series, many of Tom Jr.'s inventions are designed to operate in space,<ref name="Molson"/> and his "genius is unequivocally original as he constructs nuclear-powered flying labs, establishes outposts in space, or designs ways to sail in space on cosmic rays".<ref name="Vonder"/> Unlike his father, Tom Jr. is not just a tinkerer; he relies on scientific and mathematical theories, and, according to critic Robert Von der Osten, "science [in the books] is, in fact, understood to be a set of theories that are developed based on experimentation and scientific discussion. Rather than being opposed to technological advances, such a theoretical understanding becomes essential to invention."<ref name="Von279">Von der Osten (2004), 279.</ref>

Tom Swift Jr.'s [[Cold War]]-era adventures and inventions are often motivated by patriotism, as Tom repeatedly defeats the evil agents of the fictional nations "Kranjovia" and "Brungaria", the latter a place that critic Francis Molson describes as "a vaguely Eastern European country, which is strongly opposed to the Swifts and the U.S. Hence, the Swifts' opposition to and competition with the Brungarians is both personal and patriotic."<ref name="Molson"/>