Casterman/Little, Brown and Co.
Creator: Herge
Release date: 1946
Obviously, I was still doing some reading during the time when this blog was on hiatus. I had previously discussed the first four Tintin adventures, and during the time we were apart, I have read the next five, bringing me to this 10th volume.
I'm not going to go back and do full reviews of the titles I didn't blog about, but here are some brief thoughts on them. The Blue Lotus, No. 5 in the series, brought Tintin back to Asia to thwart opium smugglers. If memory serves, I believe this tale was a bit of a direct continuation from No. 4, Cigars of the Pharaoh, and I didn't care for it as much. It seemed to move very slowly.
The Broken Ear, No. 6, was a little better but also seemed a bit ponderous. The usually very bright Tintin seemed a little slow to put the pieces of this South American mystery together. The Black Island, No. 7, however, moved at a much more brisk pace and was a much more light-hearted tale in places, one of the hallmarks of Tintin adventures I most enjoy. Despite its faster story pacing, it still takes two-thirds of the story before the titular Black Island on a Scottish loch comes into the story.
Next up was King Ottokar's Sceptre, adventure No. 8. This story is set in a fictional European country and very clearly shows parallels to the real world, being written as it was immediately prior to the outbreak of World War II.
The Adventures of Tintin No. 9, The Crab with the Golden Claws, is actually the first Tintin book I ever read. It was in the school library where I attended junior high, and I checked it out and read it several times during junior high and high school. This is the tale that first introduces Captain Haddock into the Tintin cast of characters along with his unique brand of liquor-laced comic relief. Haddock makes a fun ally/foil to the much more straight-laced Tintin. And this book is very much responsible for my love of the series.
All of which catches us up to The Shooting Star, No. 10 in the series of 24 adventures. A massive meteorite barely misses colliding with the Earth, causing a number of catastrophes and allowing Professor Decimus Phostle to discover a previously unknown mineral within the meteorite's composition. Tintin and Haddock help lead an expedition into the Arctic Ocean to recover a piece of the massive meteorite to verify Phostle's discovery, which makes for an entertaining read, especially when our heroes find they are in a race for the prize with another ship also trying to claim the meteorite.
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