Tom Swift and His Wireless Message: or, the castaways of Earthquake island

Tom Swift Sr. #6

by Victor Appleton

American boys' fiction under pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate who produced Tom Swift series, Nancy Drew mysteries, the Hardy Boys, Dave Fearless and many others.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Childrens, Adventure, Science Fiction Fantasy

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

Victor Appleton was a house pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and its successors, most famous for being associated with the Tom Swift series of books.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_...

The character of Tom Swift was conceived in 1910 by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a book-packaging company. Stratemeyer invented the series to capitalize on the market for children's science adventure. The Syndicate's authors created the Tom Swift books by first preparing an outline with all the plot elements, followed by drafting and editing the detailed manuscript. The books were published under the house name of Victor Appleton. Edward Stratemeyer and Howard Garis wrote most of the volumes in the original series; Stratemeyer's daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, wrote the last three volumes. The first Tom Swift series ended in 1941.
In 1954, Harriet Adams created the Tom Swift, Jr., series, which was published under the name "Victor Appleton II". Most titles were outlined and plotted by Adams. The texts were written by various writers, among them William Dougherty, John Almquist, Richard Sklar, James Duncan Lawrence, Tom Mulvey and Richard McKenna. The Tom Swift, Jr., series ended in 1971.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the sixth book in the original series of Tom Swift books for boys. It was written by Howard Garis for the Stratemeyer Syndicate and was published in 1911 by Grosset & Dunlap under the house pseudonym Victor Appleton. Tom is a young inventor who lives with his widowed father in Shopton, New York. (There's also an unfortunately racist caricature character named Eradicate, sadly typical for a 1911 children's story.) Tom's girlfriend is Mary Nestor, who invites several of her girlfriends to spend some time with her at the family home while her parents are off on a cruise. She finds herself in sudden need of a new cook, and Tom helps her secure the services of one, because she's desperately afraid that otherwise she and her friends will starve to death... apparently, they're unable to make a sandwich on their own. Anyway, Tom next undertakes to help an aspiring aviator/inventor in Philadelphia who's a friend of his father design and launch a new style of aeroplane, but once they take to the air there's a sudden storm that blows them far out into the ocean. His constant companion, Mr. Wakefield Damon, an older eccentric gentleman who constantly blesses unusual and unlikely objects, is also along for the adventure. In one of the oddest and most unlikely coincidences in the history of Stratemeyer coincidences, Mary's parents' ship is wrecked, and they end up as castaways on the same island, which has unfortunately chosen that exact moment to begin decomposing. It's a smaller world than we thought. Tom has to build a wireless unit from scratch to call for help and save the hearty band of survivors in the nick of time. The Professor from Gilligan's would've been proud. (One of the other castaways provides an unusual bridge to the next book in the series, Among the Diamond Makers.) It's one of the most action-packed stories in the series, as well as one of the more scientifically oriented ones, as Tom has to excel in aeronautics as well as radio engineering, but it's one of the least plausible due to the coincidence quotient. I read the book a long, long time ago (though in this same galaxy), and enjoyed revisiting it via this Librivox recording. It's presented by a variety of reader volunteers, most of whom did quite well. Bless my shoestrings and liver pills if they didn't!

[Nikky3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

TOOOOOOOMMMMM SWIFFFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE!! Join our hero on this epic adventure of friendship, adventure, and two really annoying old guys!
Tom Swift gets a message from a guy he doesn't know to come fix his airship. Tom does! After rebuilding like his whole machine Tom finds himself flying through a storm! Crashing on Earthquake Island our hero must face many problems and build not a boat, not a plan, but a wireless message system to get his friends and himself off the island. Can he do it before they run out of food!?!?!? Will they be rescued before the island sinks!?!?!?! Read on and find out fellow adventurer!

[Rex Libris]

This edition is editorially very different from the others. There is not a big arc to which the whole story is attached, but smaller segments loosely connected together. In this story, our hero helps another inventor perfect an airship design. While testing the new design, they get blown out to sea in a hurricane and crash on an island slowly falling apart due to earthquakes. Tom takes pieces from the wreckage and builds a wireless transmitter. Keep in mind, that was a big thing to do in 1911 when the book was written.

[Patrick Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been trying to read all of Tom Swift's adventures because I heard so much of them when I was little but could never find them. And there is a huge reason for that, which I'll get to...

The novel concerns Tom helping out a fellow inventor who can't get his huge plane to fly. Tom, flying his own plane, goes to the man's house with a friend and does what he can with the larger plane. It appears to be in working order and the three take if for a test run. The plane works great, but an unexpected storm has the three flying over the ocean to avoid crashing and end up on a, supposedly, deserted island. There are several strong earthquakes on the island, suggesting that the entire land could soon fall into the sea. Using some parts from the fallen plane, Tom creates a wireless electric signaling device that he hopes will be able to broadcast an SOS to someone who is listening. There are other books in this series, so the end should never be in doubt.

I didn't like this book as much as Tom's previous exploits because the "science" doesn't really come into play into the last quarter of the book and the Earthquake Island comes across as pure fiction. Then there's the inclusion of Eradicate "Rad" Andrew Jackson Abraham Lincoln Sampson, a horrifically stereotyped black man of the time who talks in a horribly stilted way. In 1911 this may have been acceptable, but it is embarrassing and sad to read today. This character could have been eliminated from the story--and all of Tom Swift's adventures--and nothing lost.

I still look forward to reading Tom's early adventures, but I know what I'm getting into.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this classic (in very good condition) while browsing through the West Side Book Shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Treasures were everywhere and the word hoard held me spellbound for some hours. Never having read any of Tom Swift's adventures as a boy (I was all about the Hardy Boys), I figured that I had missed something important, so I took home this book.

Tom Swift and His Wireless Message engaged me from the start. Tom and his friends get into an adventure of survival. Nevermind that he's the only non-adult in the story and the others have to rely on his for survival. The story still holds the power to enthrall even today. Even though there are a lot of Tom Swift stories in the series (so you know he doesn't die) I was fearing for his and his companions' lives. I think that young children would be just as captivated by this story reading it today, or having it read, as the children were back in the early days of the 20th century. Suspending disbelief is not a huge task in order to read this story.

If I come across more Tom Swift books, I will pick them up for some fun reading. Some of my best childhood memories involve the excitement of reading books like this series.

[Rhonda Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not the best of the original Tom Swift Sr. books, this one was a solid, fun read. Of course, as always, you must take into account that it was written over 110 years ago. That means the science is amusingly naive at times and the language/behaviors are very endemic to the times. It is still fun.

[Joe Stevens · Rating 3 out of 5]

A jolly romp that gives away much of the plot in the title. Thus far these books are more enjoyable when they feature adventure in the air and at sea where they seem a touch of Jules Verne if Jules had been writing for a younger set and lost seventy nine point three percent of his ability as a writer. Good fun.

[Steven Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

6 out of 10

[Chris Potgieter · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun book! My favorite character is Damon - he is so funny! He blesses everything😂

[Gary Parker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting primarily for what it can teach us about American culture in the early 1900s.

[Jennifer Booth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great adventure!

I have been a fan of Victor Appleton's Tom Swift. The book are set back in time when it was great to see airships in the skies

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

After spending lots of time reading boy books written in the mid to late 1800s, I've finally continued my time travel experience to the early 1900s. The Tom Swift series is one of the earliest books in the Stratemeyer Syndicate (think The Bobbsey Twins Series, Hardy Boys Complete Series Set Books 1-66, and Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew. I grew up reading Nancy Drew and I knew that the books I read were re-written in the 1970s. At one point, I read some of the original Nancy Drew books. I knew about the Stratemeyer Syndicate but had never heard of the Tom Swift books until recently. Unlike the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, Tom Swift is not a detective. He is a teen inventor. He's the son of Barton Swift, who is also an inventor.

In this one, Tom has invented a wireless receiver so that he can send and deliver messages. Tom and his friends, including the eccentric Mr. Damon, take his airship, the Red Cloud, on a trip. They get caught in a hurricane and end up crashing on Earthquake Island, called such because of the frequent small earthquakes. A ship has also crashed there and among the passengers are the parents of Mary Nestor, his, for lack of a better word, girlfriend. These books are so chaste that the word girlfriend is never used. Also on the island is a scientist who is certain that an earthquake will come soon and destroy the island.

Since there are more books in the series, I don't consider it a spoiler to say that Tom rescues everyone.

[Larry Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had friends who were into Tom Swift, but somehow I never read a single Tom Swift book. I figured I shouldn't go to my grave before I had read at least one. It turns out, not surprisingly in retrospect, that the Tom Swift series is another creation by Edward Stratemeyer, the same guy who came up with the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, the Rover Boys and the Bobbsey Twins. Basically, Stratemeyer would come up with outlines, and them con some poor, impoverished slob into filling out the text, like Leslie McFarlane , who wrote the Hardy Boys from necessity, apparently hating it all the while.

Anyway, back to Tom Swift. The kid is an inventor par excellence. In this story, he helps out another inventor build an air ship, which crashes on a desert island. Tom saves the day by turning some of the "electrical apparatus" salvaged from the crashed airship into a wireless radio. It reminded me of my youth when I was a radio ham...well, the part about sending out messages in Morse code.
So, I'm guessing most Tom Swift books are pretty similar. Tom does something clever and inventive and saves people from disaster.

The books, like the Hardy Boys (I've not read any of the other Stratemeyer series) are simple, fast paced and somewhat incongruous. Great writing you won't get. But if you like action and don't mind a heavy dollop of implausibility, you could do worse than Tom Swift (or the Hardy Boys for that matter). I mean, what's not to like about young boys with gadgets (or motorcycles and motorboats)?

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the earlier Tom Swift books in the series, the invention featured in the book was generally created either by Tom Swift with the assistance of his father and others or by his father with the assistance of Tom and others. In this book, the invention, an airship, is invented by a Mr. Fenwick of Philadelphia who is aware of Tom Swift’s airship described in an earlier book. When Mr. Fenwick has trouble, he calls upon Tom who helps him. That is the first part of this book. During a test flight, there is a storm and Tom, Mr. Fenwick, and Mr. Damon make a controlled crash on an island in the ocean. They discover other castaways from a boat wreck and they all struggle to survive. That is the rest of this book.

This adventure of Tom Swift differs from the others in another way. The adversary isn’t Andy Foger or a gang of criminals. The adversary is Mother Nature. Even so, Tom finds a way to save the day. In the process, he increases the admiration for him in Mary Nestor, his love interest, albeit in an indirect way. The danger in this book feels more extreme than the others. It is satisfying when it is overcome. This is a worthwhile entry in the Tom Swift series of books.

[Rich Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fairly good Tom Swift novel, this time with the young inventor in a jam when the airship he's helping test crashes on a very unstable island.

The tale is well written, though with the morals and attitudes of the early 20th century (or Andy Foger would get his propet just desserts for messing with Tom), it will probably be a bit too polite for a lot of pulp fans.

[David Hibberd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the Tom Swift Sr. books as a child and again when I got my Kindle in 2010. They are an easy read and enjoyable. It is interesting to see how writing has changed since these books were written.

[Nana]

Good series

[Marv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now why did I become a Ham? Oh yea, Tom Swift books.