Review of Tom Swift and His Sky Racer, by Victor Appleton

Review of

Tom Swift and His Sky Racer, by Victor Appleton


Four out of five stars

 Written in 1911, this book is a member of the series of books about the original Tom Swift. That series was the start of a set of series starring a teen inventor called Tom Swift. The second series featured Tom Swift junior, with more modern adventures. To present day readers accustomed to more sophisticated technologies, the inventions in the original series seem rather quaint.

 Yet, like all of the Tom Swift books, they planted a seed in in the minds of many adolescent boys, some of which were hopelessly bitten by the science and technology bug and went on to build later technologies. For this reason, these books had a magnifying effect on society.

 This book features a plane that is designed to go at the incredible speed of over 100 miles-per-hour. Given that modern autos are capable of exceeding that speed, it is necessary to adopt a mindset of time and technology past. If you can do this, then you can enjoy this book. It is also possible to see a bit of the later Hardy Boys genre in this book, specifically when Tom gets knocked unconscious, a regular feature of the Hardy adventures. I very much enjoyed the look back to the time when incredible speeds were nothing like what they are now.