Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober by Victor Appleton II

Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober by Victor Appleton II

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The tall, dark-haired reviewer sat down to write her review on the book and considered how to begin. It was interesting, she thought, how everything in her busy, vivid life had suddenly required two adjectives. She wasn’t sure if it was connected to the dynamic, beautifully designed book in front of her but she did know that it was connected to something. Something strange and mysterious. All of a sudden she heard a noise outside the window! She turned and saw a man with a ray gun! He pointed it at her window! Luckily enough, the window had been made with Antiraygun Glass, an invention that she had made somewhere in between breakfast and lunch, and the ray gun was repelled! The man put down his ray gun and shook his fist at the window. “I’ll stop that review whatever the cost!”

Bit dramatic, thought the reviewer, as she sat back down at the brown, wooden desk. She began to type her review. The books, she began, were kind of like a science-fiction version of the Hardy Boys meets the Nancy Drew books with the emphasis on the science. They were a lot of fun and she had genuinely enjoyed reading them even if one had kind of seemed the same as the other. And the pace of them, she reflected in a thoughtful, considered manner, was remarkable! Things happened so swiftly! A character would go to space as nonchalantly as going to the shops! And then, all of a sudden, she felt the temperature in the room fall!

“Okay,” she said. “What now?” She turned around and realised that there was a low mist coming into the room from under the thick, solid door! It was slowly turning the room cold! She wasn’t quite sure about the scientific specifics of this one but knew that, in thirty seconds, her Antimysteriousgasunderthedoor extraction system would kick in! She sat back on her chair and counted to thirty. Sure enough, the fans kicked in and the silver, cold mist disappeared and the temperature in the room returned to normal. She glanced at her tall, mysteriously handsome chum who had been quietly working in the corner throughout all of this. “What do you think of that, chum?”

“I think somebody’s out to stop your review!” said Chum, because that was also his nickname in a time-saving sort of manner. “I’ll phone our contacts at the CIA, the BBC, the FBI, the MBA, the WWE and at the ANPR! And you just keep typing! Quickly though! I think there’s a space ship about to crash on us!”

“Okay!” said the reviewer. She wrote quickly: these books are great but also deeply ridiculous, if you’ve read one, you know what you’re getting in all of the others, the covers are outstanding, I really rather loved them, and then she paused for a brief moment. Just as she did, the space ship appeared outside of her window, just as Chum had said. It was okay though: because of the invisible web of Catchingfallingspaceshiprays she had previously installed just above street level, the space-ship came to a gentle halt. The space beings opened the door. “Thanks!” they said.

“All in a day’s work!” said the reviewer. And then she pressed send.

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