Unlike the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys titles that were also products of the prolific Stratemeyer Syndicate, the original Tom Swift stories were not rewritten in the 1950s to modernize them.

Most of the books (Titles #5-#7 and #9-#30) were written by James Duncan Lawrence, who had an interest in science and technology and was faithful to the canon of the previous Tom Swift series.

Typical story elements include Tom's loyal and quip-prone friend Bud Barclay, his comic-relief cook "Chow" Winkler, a spy (typically from Soviet stand-ins Brungaria or Kranjovia), use of a wonder-material called Tomasite that did anything the story needed, the amazingly versatile force-ray repelatron, and atomic-powered everything, including the atomicar.

The first invention of the series and the one making the most frequent appearances in subsequent stories, the Flying Lab (named Sky Queen), was a giant VTOL research airplane the size of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

One subplot, beginning on the first page of the first volume and running the length of the series, is Tom's communication, via mathematical "space symbols", with beings from "Planet X".

The Hardy Boys books (another series from the Stratemeyer Syndicate) was also released in a blue spine version; this may have prompted the change in color.

Criticism similar to that of the Nancy Drew Mysteries was leveled by writers Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas, who found the first installments of the series "a most misguided venture, well below juvenile TV or comic book average in crudity of prose, construction, character and ideas.