Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat

Rating:
Summary: Old time muscular fiction for boys
Review: In this sequel to Tom Swift and His Airship, Tom Swift helps his dad finish his newest invention, an electric-powered submarine. The United States government is going to be holding a series of trials to find the best submarine, and $50,000 goes to the winner. However, when Tom reads about a ship that sank off the coast of Uruguay, with $300,000 in gold aboard, he quickly realizes that his dad's new submarine would be the perfect tool for retrieving that gold. However, when one of his father's competitors finds out what the Swifts are up to, the race is on to see who can get to the gold first, and the other side isn't above pulling a few tricks!

This book is listed as being written by "Victor Appleton", but that is really a pseudonym. In truth, the Tom Swift books were the fruit of the collaboration of Howard R. Garis (1873-1962), author of the Uncle Wiggily books, and Edward T. Stratemeyer (1862-1930), author of the Bomba the Jungle Boy books and the Hardy Boys mysteries. Yep, that's quite a team.

This is muscular fiction such as boys used to grow up on, filled with adventure, danger and bravery. Tom Swift himself is clean-cut, reverent and respectful, and the sort of boy that every parent in the country wished they could have. Yep, this is wonderful fiction from yesteryear.

Now, this is actually science-fiction of 1910, but plausible science-fiction for the era. Overall, I found this to be a fun and entertaining book, one that I did not hesitate to turn over to my eleven-year-old son. He enjoys this series, and so do I. We both highly recommend this book to you.


Rating:
Summary: Tom's Slightly Less Than Amazing Adventure
Review: Judging this both as an original Tom Swift story, and as a Quiet Vision reprint, it is not a first-rate effort.

The plot is juvenile, even by 1910 juvenile standards, and way below the series average. Much of the science is wrong, and was obviously wrong even in 1910. The characters are not shown off to their best adventage -- way too much Mr. "Bless my collar buttons" Damon, and not enough Eradicate, too little Ned, and too much pilot and sea captain guest characters. Eradicate may be politically incorrect for newer generations, but he's one of the most interesting characters in the series, and he's THERE -- at a time when many Americans pretended that black people did not even exist in fiction.

The reprint -- good paper quality, and a good sturdy binding. I wish they'd gone with a smaller typeface and more pages (at a quarter-inch, this just "feels" to thin). And while they've cleaned up old typographic errors and mis-spellings, they've inserted even more new ones, in a very poor proofreading effort.

But it's still TOM SWIFT, you can hold it in your hands and read it, and it's under ten bucks -- and that's not bad.

Rating:
Summary: A great book.
Review: The tom swift line of books have been books of a smart boy and his adventures with many contraptions he creates or buys. Not only does Victor Appleton create a world of good clean fun, he creates a place you can visit as many times as you want.

If you have not read any of the Tom Swift books, start with the first one, Tom Swift and his Motercycle.