UNITED STATES AUTHOR · CHILDREN · SCIENCE FICTION
James Duncan Lawrence
Also known as: Hunter Adams, Victor Appleton II
Jim Lawrence was born in Detroit, Michigan. He attended the Naval Academy in Annapolis, then earned a degree in education from Wayne University in Detroit. He went on to earn a degree in mechanical engineering from the Detroit Institute of Technology. In 1939 he married. In 1940 he began teaching art at Detroit public schools, supplementing his income with jobs as a factory hand, office clerk, and safety engineer. In 1941 he was hired as a writer by the Jam Handy Organization, a producer of short educational and commercial movies, where he wrote scripts for naval and military training films. He began writing freelance for children's magazines as well, and in 1944 he decided to become a freelance writer full-time. In 1949 he was hired to write scripts for the radio show Challenge of the Yukon. He went on to write for other radio shows such as The Green Hornet, Sky King, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, and The Silver Eagle. From the mid-1950s to 1967 he worked for the Stratemeyer Literary Syndicate, producing several of the Hardy Boys books under the house pseudonym "Franklin W. Dixon," some of the Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins books using the pseudonyms "Carolyn Keene" and "Sherry Lemmon", and 23 of the 33 Tom Swift, Jr. books under the house pseudonym "Victor Appleton II." From 1967 to 1969 he also contributed to the Christopher Cool series under the shared pseudonym "Jack Lancer." He also produced fiction under his own name, including Binky Brothers, Detectives (1968) and Binky Brothers and the Fearless Four (1971), both in collaboration with Leonard P. Kessler. In the late 1970s, he wrote the Man From Planet-X series under the pseudonym "Hunter Adams." In the 1980s, he wrote for Infocom, a software company that produced interactive fiction. He co-wrote two games for them, Seastalker (1984) and Moonmist (1986).
Most acclaimed
Tom Swift and his Outpost in Space
Tom Swift, Jr., aided by his friend Bud Barclay, overcomes several sabotage attempts while trying to design and build the first solar-operated space station.
Tom Swift on the Phantom Satellite
Consternation and panic grip the world as a strange new moon shoots earthward. Millions of people are relieved when the weird, glowing runaway moon in the sky finally goes into orbit 50,000 miles from earth. Tom Swift Jr., who has developed a machine that will produce artificial earth-type gravity in the airless void of space, makes plans to explore this new satellite. In the gigantic, atomic spaceship Titan, Tom and his associates land on the mysterious moonlet and claim the bleak but fabulously rich possession for the United States. While exploring the satellite to pinpoint the best location for setting up the young inventor's atmosphere-making machine, Swift expedition scouts discover a spaceship belonging to a hostile nation. Claiming first right to the moon because of prior landing, the foreign scientists try every means to annihilate Tom and his group. How Tom succeeds in proving the Brungarian claim invalid, and saves his associates from being set adrift in outer space, will keep the reader spellbound to the very last page of this spine-tingling adventure.
Tom Swift and his Ultrasonic Cycloplane
"There's part of Bud's wrecked plane!" Hovering his new cycloplane, the Drumhawk, in turbulent skies above the wilds of the New Guinea jungle, Tom Swift Jr. points to the sheared-off wing of his friend's plane. The area, flanked by two extinct volcanoes, is as forbidding as the deserted native huts clustered in sinister shadows. Without Tom's latest aircraft, which uses ultrasonic rotating drums to provide lift, a rescue attempt would be impossible. Battling violent weather conditions, the young inventor lands the Drumhawk and organizes a rescue expedition. Hazards are encountered from hostile natives who fire barrage after barrage of razor-sharp stone missiles and from a scientist with a deadly ray weapon. Tormented constantly by crafty enemies and nature's perils in the search of Bud, the rescuers unearth a clue that the young pilot is a prisoner of an unscrupulous group of white men who have discovered a fabulous ancient secret and are utilizing it for nefarious purposes. How Tom, at the risk of his own life, outwits Bud's captors and opens up a new field for science makes tense, exciting reading.