Editing Tom Swift (section)

=== Third series (1981–1984) ===
{{main|Tom Swift III}}

The third Tom Swift series differs from the first two in that the setting is primarily outer space, although Swift Enterprises (located now in [[New Mexico]]) is occasionally mentioned. Tom Swift explores the universe in the starship ''Exedra'', using a [[faster-than-light]] drive he has [[reverse engineering|reverse-engineered]] from an alien space probe. He is aided by Benjamin Franklin Walking Eagle, a [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native American]] who is Tom's co-pilot, best friend, and an expert computer technician, and Anita Thorwald, a former rival of Tom's who now works with him as a technician and whose right leg has been rebuilt to contain a miniature computer.<ref name="Molson"/>

This series maintains only an occasional and vague continuity with the two previous series. Tom is called the son of "the great Tom Swift"<ref>Appleton (1981), 38.</ref> and said to be "already an important and active contributor to the family business, the giant multimillion-dollar scientific-industrial complex known as Swift Enterprises".<ref>Appleton (1981), 10–11.</ref>  However, as critic Francis Molson indicates, it is not explained whether this Tom Swift is the grandson of the famous Tom Swift of the first series or still the Tom Swift Jr. of the second.<ref name="Molson"/>

The Tom Swift of this third series is less of an inventor than his predecessors, and his inventions are rarely the main feature of the plot. Still, according to Molson, "Tom the inventor is not ignored. Perhaps the most impressive of his inventions and the one essential to the series as a whole is the robot he designs and builds, Aristotle, which becomes a winning and likeable character in its own right." The books are slower-paced than the Tom Swift Jr. adventures of the second series, and include realistic, colloquial dialogue. Each volume begins where the last one ended, and the technology is plausible and accurate.<ref name="Molson"/>