Tom Swift and His Airship by Victor Appleton – youth SF – book review

Tom Swift and His Airship; or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud by Victor Appleton (A pseudonym , real author was Howard Roger Garis ( Publish1910 )

This is the third book in the original series of Tom Swift. It is a very much SF of it's day. A large dirigible with propellers, so it was half balloon and half plane. It must have been large to have a area for bunks, kitchen, bathroom and more. And remember, the Wright Brothers only first flew in 1903!

It is aim at young boys. It a time with no phones, no tv, or even radios. Where autos and motorcycles were rarities and needed constant attention.

Sometime characters like Eradicate Andrew Jackson Abraham Lincoln Sampson, A.K.A. Rad-Stereotypical Negro journeyman jack-of-all-trades. Chicken-coop cleaner and whitewasher. "Eradicates dirt." . Speaks very illiterate but a true friend and hard worker. Also has a mule named Boomerang. Now would be consider very racist.

When I was young my father brought me a set of Tom Swift, Jr and Hardy Boys series. He told me when he was young he read the first series. Reading these old stories, I am thinking of my father, how he enjoy these in his youth. Now in my old age, I am reading them and enjoying them, too.