Victor Appleton (1)

The Tom Swift stories were favorites of my dad when he was a kid and everything from Project Gutenberg is free, so I popped one onto my Kindle. I actually had a ball reading it, though perhaps not in the way that the author intended. It was all just so, "Gosh, Dad, let's go down into the basement and put together a submarine in a couple of weeks." It was fun to watch all the hand-waving at how things worked. Need a submarine that can descend to three miles underwater? No problem, just use a show more triple steel hull with "layers of secret material between them that can withstand enormous pressure." Want to figure out how to navigate underwater in those days when sonar was cumbersome? Just put in glass windows that are "really strong" (able to withstand over 7050 pounds per square inch, if I remember my calculations from scuba class correctly).

It managed to cross that line separating really bad from amusing. Since it only took an hour to read, I can actually envision picking up another one someday just for fun. ;-) show less

The very first Tom Swift book, from 1910, is a bit of fun, but only a bit. It is a far cry from the science-fictional Tom Swift I read a few adventures of in the 1960s. Those books were from a later, much different second series. This book is very much grounded in 1910, and the setting (New York State) is quite interesting. Not so interesting is the book's casual racism as Tom meets up with a black man named Eradicate Sampson, who is called a "darky" numerous times and refers to himself as a show more "coon". Each time Tom meets him, he is sitting hopelessly while some machine or another fails to work, which Tom, of course, fixes quickly, leaving Eradicate marveling at how smart he is. Throughout the book, Tom is referred to as "the young inventor" or "our hero". Of course, this is hardly a book for adults. Kids are supposed to admire Tom for his intelligence and his industriousness, although he makes more than one mistake during the book that gets him into trouble (and prolongs the plot.) The plot itself is modern enough. A group of men, working for some unscrupulous lawyers, are trying to steal an invention from Tom's father, inventor Barton Swift. When reading a book like this, one knows it will have a happy ending, but dark clouds still loom ahead, as in the tradition of other books from the same publishing syndicate, the next adventure is introduced on the final pages. I can't say I didn't enjoy reading this, but it is definitely lacking the plotting and characterization of the best Hardy Boys books I remember from my youth. show less

Tom Swift and His Big Dirigible, book 33 in the original series, was first published in 1930, or seven years before the famous Hindenburg disaster, but our intrepid inventor makes use of a fictionsl less explosive gas Tom invented (safer than nitrogen, but not as safe as helium, we're told), and a fictional metal called 'oralum' to build his huge dirigible. It was commissioned by Mr. Martin Jardine of the Jardine Company. Martin Jardine is not the easiest customer to work with. There's a show more chapter in which he brings in several impractical ideas and doesn't want to listen to Tom.

The airship in the third book in the orginal series, Tom Swift and His Airship, was named the Red Cloud. The dirigible is named the Silver Cloud.

Tom's father becomes ill early in the book. Mr. Swift, Tom's wife, Mary, and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Nestor, are spending some time at a lovely hotel on Mount Camon. The fact that the surrounding forest is very dry is mentioned several times.

There are misadventures in the book. Tom takes his family and in-laws to the hotel in the house on wheels from book 32. On the way, they help a couple with a traveling marionette show whose van has overturned. The Notines go on to provide entertainment at the hotel on Mt. Carmon. Not long after that rescue, the house on wheels is caught in a disaster of its own.

The Silver Cloud runs into an interesting problem during one of its test flights, but the climax of the book involves a forest fire. (This is no spoiler. The original title of the book was Tom Swift and His Big Dirigible; or Adventures Over the Forest of Fire.) Tom and his employees have their work cut out for them to save some people who are trapped in that fire.

The only downside to this book is the way some characters are portrayed. Pietro and Maria Notine, the Italian (or Italian-American) marionettists, are merely passionate about their work. The Italian (or Italian-American) hotel gardener, Cosso Tobini, is described as 'evil-faced' as well as being less than sane when it comes to guests picking the roses. (Decades ago I knew a Red Cross volunteer who was retired military and Civil Service. He had been called 'Italian' when he was young, although I think he was born in Connecticut. He used to tell me that when he was young he was Italian, but now he's considered a WASP.) The Swifts' faithful African-American employee, Eradicate, speaks in stereotypical dialect for the era. So does the giant employee Koku. There's a dwarf named James Chock who is treated as a suspicious character. If you can hold your nose for those portrayals, this is an enjoyable read. show less

A fast-paced vintage adventure story. Scientific / technological details are hit and miss, as expected - written in 1954, before any humans made it into space! But the inventions and things read as being well-considered, it all feels plausible enough to enjoy the story. (It's going to be a fun game of "would that actually work?" if I hand this to my engineering-minded kid.) Characters are pretty two-dimensional (mains are all white men, as expected), definitely some Cold War xenophobic show more vibes, but nothing terribly racist sexist etc. A sufficiently fun genre romp. show less