The Shooting Star (The Adventures of Tintin)

When Planet Earth suffers a mysterious heat wave, young reporter Tintin is on the story, and discovers the Earth may shortly be struck by a meteorite. Of course, the Earth survives the landing of the meteorite, and Tintin and his faithful dog Snowy get to go along on the expedition to examine the "shooting star", which has come down in the Arctic Ocean.There is an exciting international race to get to the shooting star, as Tintin rides aboard the Polar Star under the command of good friend Captain Haddock. The race to be first goes down to the final seconds. The shooting star itself will turn out to be a quite mysterious object with strange properties, not least that it won't float forever! How on earth will Tintin and Snowy get back to the Polar Star?Another exciting Tintin cartoon adventure book, highly recommended to young readers, and those still young at heart. The science in this story is of course out of date, but it is still a fun read.

Love these books from my youth, rebuying in English for my teens.

These books are so sturdy!!I was afraid they were going to be like comic book paper, but they are strong and will last for a long time!

My 8 year old is not a big reader, but he got hooked on Tintin books. He loves these books and they keep him excited about reading. I also loved these books as a kid. So I am happy to share them with him.

Grew up reading Tintin and Milo's adventures and couldn't get enough of them. Once you pick up the books, you can't put them down, no matter how old you are. Wish they would keep the original (French) names in the English version of the books though, more authentic! Thank you Hergé!

tin tin the classic I liked the glossy paper which was not the case in old days so it is more durable

In this adventure (written 1941) the world comes close to annihilation when earth almost collides with a star (or a meteorite). A piece of the star (or the meteorite) brakes off, and it falls into the Ocean. Professor Phostle discovers a new metal in the meteorite/star using spectroscopy, which is named phostlite. Tintin and Captain Haddock sets out on an expedition together with a team of international (European) scientists to find the piece that broke off as well as the new metal.From the drawings and the description of the approaching object it is clear that it must be a star (being a large hot fusion object in space, and the use of spectroscopy, etc.) On the other hand solid pieces cannot break off from stars, and it is described as a meteorite at one point. It is clear that Herge did not know the difference between a star and a meteorite. There are also other passages that show poor understanding of science (previous reviewer points out another example). Therefore, this adventure cannot be viewed as good science fiction (just compare with other contemporary science fiction literature).However, as with most Tintin books, the story is fast paced, spell binding, exciting and full of humor. The story is heavy with mystery and tension but it also has light hearted moments. It is an entertaining story, and once you start reading it you can't put it down.I should say that there is some controversy surrounding this adventure. The international members of the team picked for the expedition are from Nazi Germany, axis occupied nations, or neutral nations. Also the original villains were Americans (this was later changed to Sao Rico). It might also have contained an anti-Semitic caricature, but this is not noticeable unless you expect it before hand. However, it should be noted that Herge denied that the character in question (Bohlwinkle) was intended to be Jewish. Belgium (where Herge lived) was occupied by Germany at the time, and the newspaper he worked for was the only independent media that was allowed to operate under the Nazi occupation. This might have influenced how he wrote the story.Despite its flaws, I really enjoyed this story and I have read it and re-read it dozens of times, but it is not among the better Tintin adventures.

I read all of these stories as a youngster, so nice to find them once again in the original format - I've bought every one for my grands