Tom Swift and the Asteroid Pirates
By: by Victor Appleton II [pseudonym]; illustrated by Charles Brey.
Contributors: Charles Brey (Illustrator)
Series: Tom Swift Jr. #21
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap Inc.
Published: 1963
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 178
Copyright date: 1963
Subjects: Swift, Tom (Fictitious character) -- Juvenile fiction.; Adventure and adventurers -- Juvenile fiction.; Science fiction -- Juvenile.
Genres: Juvenile fiction.
Description: A violent explosion in space touches off one of the most thrill-packed adventures in Tom Swift Jr.'s scientific career. The appalling news that a cargo rocket has disintegrated while en route with vital supplies to Swift Enterprises' research base on the asteroid, Nestria, sounds a grim warning that the lives of Nestria's personnel are at stake.

To rescue the marooned men, Tom undertakes a hazardous voyage to Nestria, only to find the way blocked by an invisible barrier of deadly radiation created by an unknown enemy whose objective is possession of the base.

Tension mounts at Swift Enterprises when a mysterious Oriental is shot while attempting to warn Tom that his life is in danger from the Black Cobra. The Oriental's mumbled warning, plus some revealing data collected by United States Intelligence, sends Tom winging to a secret fortress in South America for the first encounter with his inscrutable foe.

But the decisive encounter is destined to take place in space. How Tom uses his new invention, the magnetic deflector, to crack the radiation barrier around Nestria, and how the young space scientist and his crewmen pit their wits and courage against the asteroid pirates and their diabolical leader, the Black Cobra, will hold every reader breathless with suspense.
Notes: Description from book cover.