Tintin in Tibet

Author : Hergé

Language : English

Whilst on holiday in a resort in Vargèse with Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus, Tintin reads about a plane crash in the Gosain Than Massif in the Himalayas. That evening at their hotel, Tintin dozes off while playing chess with the Captain, who is having trouble deciding his next move. Tintin has a vivid dream that his young Chinese friend Chang Chong-Chen (see The Blue Lotus for back story) survived a plane crash, and awakes with a violent start, yelling "Chang!" and throwing the whole recreation room into chaos. The next morning, he reads in the paper that Chang was aboard the plane that crashed in Tibet. Believing that his dream was a telepathic vision, Tintin travels to Kathmandu with Snowy, followed by a skeptical Captain Haddock. They meet with a sherpa named Tharkey, and accompanied by some porters, they travel from Nepal to the crash site in Tibet.

Upon entering Tibet, they discover footprints in the snow that Tharkey claims belong to the yeti. The porters abandon the group in fear, and Tintin, Haddock and Tharkey go on, taking the porters' loads as well. They reach the crash site, where Tintin finds a teddy bear half-buried in the snow, which he believes may have belonged to Chang. Tintin sets off with Snowy to try and trace Chang's steps, and find a cave where Chang carved his name on a rock, proving that he survived the crash. Following a snowstorm in which Tintin falls down a crevasse, he rejoins Haddock and Tharkey, who had sheltered in the plane.

Tharkey decides not to go on any further, believing Chang to be dead, and Tintin, Snowy and Haddock travel in the direction of a scarf that Tintin spotted on a cliff face. While attempting to climb upwards, Haddock loses his grip and hangs perilously over a cliff edge, impaling Tintin, who is attached to the other end of the rope, upon a rock. He tells Tintin to cut the rope to save himself, but Tintin refuses, saying that they will either both be saved or they die together. Tharkey, moved by Tintin's selflessness, returns just in time to save them. That night, they pitch their tent in a storm, but it blows away, into the face of the yeti. They trek onwards, unable to sleep, and eventually arrive within sight of the Buddhist monastery of Khor-Biyong before collapsing due to exhaustion. An avalanche occurs, and they are buried in the snow.

Blessed Lightning, a telepathic monk at the monastery, 'sees' Tintin, Snowy, Haddock and Tharkey in the snow, in a vision. Up in the mountains, Tintin regains consciousness and, unable to reach the monastery himself, writes a note and gives it to Snowy to deliver. Snowy lets go of the message when he finds a bone, but then realises what he's done, and runs to the monastery to make someone follow him. The monks head after him.

Two days later, Captain Haddock awakes to find himself in the monastery. He joins Tintin and Tharkey in an audience with the monks. After Tintin tells the Grand Abbot why they are there, the Abbot tells him to abandon his quest and return to his country. However, Blessed Lightning has another vision, through which Tintin learns that Chang is still alive, in a mountain cave, but that the "migou", or yeti, is also there. Haddock doesn't believe the vision is genuine, but the Abbot explains to him that many things that occur in Tibet seem unbelievable to Westerners. Given directions by the Abbot, Tintin travels to Charabang, a small village near the Horn of the Yak, the mountain mentioned by Blessed Lightning. Haddock initially refuses to follow Tintin anymore, but soon changes his mind and pursues him to Charabang. The two of them, and Snowy, head to the Horn of the Yak on the final lap of their journey.

They wait outside until they see the yeti leave the cave. Tintin ventures inside with a camera to look for Chang, having been told by the Captain to take a photograph of the yeti if he can. Inside the cave, Tintin finally finds Chang, who is feverish and shaking. The yeti returns to the cave before Haddock can warn Tintin, and he reacts with anger upon seeing Tintin taking Chang away. He reaches toward Tintin, setting off the flash bulb of the camera, and the yeti, frightened by the light, runs out of the cave, bowling over the Captain, who has come to save Tintin. The two of them carry Chang back to the village of Charabang, and he tells the story of how he survived, and how the yeti took care of him. Along the way, they briefly encounter the yeti, who is scared off by Haddock, leading Chang to sympathize with yeti, calling him "Poor Snowman". Tintin notes that Chang, the only person to have known the yeti, didn't refer to him as "abominable". "Of course I don't, Tintin," replies Chang, "he took care of me. Without him I'd have died of cold and hunger." They are later met by the Grand Abbot and an envoy of monks, who present Tintin with a silk scarf in honour of the bravery he has shown, and the strength of his friendship to Chang. The monks take them back to Khor-Biyong, and after a week, when Chang has recovered, they return to Nepal by caravan. As their party travels away from the monastery, Chang muses that the yeti is no wild animal, but instead has a human soul, while the yeti sadly watches their departure from a distance. Courtesy : wikipedia.org

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Tintin and the Calculus Affair

Author : Hergé

Language : English

The story is set in the 1950s, several months after Tintin and his friends have returned from the Moon. Tintin and Captain Haddock are on a stroll in the countryside around Marlinspike, but are suddenly caught out by an approaching thunderstorm and rush back to the manor.

Events take a mysterious turn during the storm. Inside Marlinspike, several items of glass within the house mysteriously break for no apparent reason. Then, Jolyon Wagg, an annoyingly gregarious and impolite insurance salesman, turns up uninvited to seek shelter. He claims that all the windows of his car have somehow blown to bits.

Once the storm passes, Wagg leaves, but gunshots are heard from outside, and Wagg is found hiding in the bushes. Another man is also found injured but then disappears. In the midst of the mystery, Professor Calculus, returns to the house that night with bullet holes in his hat. Calculus, somewhat apathetic to the whole series of events, leaves the following day to attend a conference on nuclear physics in Geneva.

When he is gone, things grow calmer. Tintin suspects that the strange events may have been connected with Calculus, and suggests to Haddock that they have a look inside his laboratory. They find a strange sonic device and are surprised by an eastern European wearing a trenchcoat and a mask. The intruder escapes after punching and knocking out Haddock. However, Snowy bites off the trenchcoat's pocket, and two items fall out: a key and a box of balcanic cigarettes with the name of the Hotel Cornavin (where Calculus is staying in Geneva) scrawled onto it. Concerned that Calculus is in danger, Tintin and Haddock decide to follow him to Switzerland.

In Geneva, Tintin and Haddock miss Calculus at his hotel by seconds, delayed by two men dressed in the same trenchcoats as the man in the lab. They track Calculus to Nyon, at the home of Professor Topolino, an expert in ultrasonics. On the way to Nyon their taxi is forced into a nearby lake by the same 2 men from the hotel, but they manage to get out and reach Topolino's house. Calculus's umbrella is there but he is not and Topolino is found bound and gagged in his own cellar. Topolino claims that it was Calculus's doing but after being shown his photograph, he realises that an impostor posing as Calculus attacked him. Tintin determines that Calculus has now been kidnapped. The same two men who had earlier impeded Tintin and Haddock's efforts to find Calculus in Geneva blow up Topolino's house in an attempt to kill them all, but they survive nonetheless.

Tintin and Haddock conclude that the sonic device that they found in the laboratory was responsible for the breakages at Marlinspike. However, the breaking of glass is just the beginning. Calculus also discovered how to turn the device into a weapon which could destroy metal, including buildings, tanks etc. Concerned of the consequences of such a thing, he had decided to talk it over with Topolino, whom he consulted by letter while developing the device. But Topolino's manservant, a Bordurian named Boris, learned of this and informed his country's intelligence service.

It soon dawns on them that rival teams of agents from both Syldavia and Borduria have knowledge of the device and its potential. Abducted at first by Bordurians, Calculus is dramatically seized by Syldavian agents in spite of Tintin and Haddock's efforts to rescue him, which are thwarted from a long distance by none other than Wagg: while pursuing the Syldavians across Lake Geneva into France, Haddock tries to contact the police by radio; he instead gets through to Wagg who turns down all pleas to contact the authorities, thinking that the whole thing is a wind-up on Haddock's part. Later, when Nestor, the Marlinspike butler, tells Haddock that Calculus's lab has been robbed, Wagg again interrupts the call, dismissing the whole thing of as no importance, and preventing Haddock from getting any details on the investigation.

After being pursued by Tintin and Haddock through the French countryside, the Syldavians escape in a plane, with Calculus as their prisoner. However, the plane is forced down over Bordurian territory, and tension between the two nations increases. Tintin and Haddock set off for Borduria in hope of finding their friend again.

Throughout the story, the two have been followed continuously by Bordurian spies, and their location comes to the attention of the Bordurian Chief of Secret Police, the notorious Colonel Sponsz (who had been informed by the 2 men in Geneva), who arranges for them to be picked up at the airport of the Bordurian capital, Szohod, assigned two minders who restrict their movements, and taken to a luxury hotel which is full of secret listening devices. Sponsz presumably hopes to prevent them from rescuing Calculus and get information from them that will coerce him into giving the plans of the sonic device to the Bordurians.

Meanwhile, at a secret meeting of Bordurian military officials, the capability of Calculus's device is revealed: Bordurian scientists have discovered its potential to destroy glass and clay, and are conducting research using the original prototype to use it as a weapon of mass destruction.

Escaping from the hotel into the nearby Szohod Opera House, Tintin and Haddock have a run-in with Bianca Castafiore, whom by chance, Sponsz visits in her dressing room to congratulate upon her performance. Tintin and Haddock hide in Bianca's closet, overhearing the conversation between Sponsz and Castafiore (an ironic twist of events given that it was he who tried to listen to theirs at the hotel). Sponsz reveals Calculus's location, a prison in the fortress of Bakhine, and the pressure on him to surrender his plans. If he does give them up, then he will be handed over to two officials from the Red Cross, to whom he must swear that he went to the Bordurians of his own accord and gave them his plans voluntarily.

Overhearing all this, Tintin and Haddock disguise themselves as the two officials and seize Calculus, escaping from Borduria in a car and later a tank. Realising the catastrophic potential of his invention, Calculus burns his plans. Courtesy : wikipedia.org

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Tintin and the Red Sea Sharks

Author : Hergé

Language : English

The Red Sea Sharks is an adventure in which Tintin investigates the supporters of Sheikh Bab El Ehr's overthrow of Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab, the Emir of Khemed.

After watching a movie, Tintin and Captain Haddock round a corner and bump into General Alcazar, who drops his wallet. Tintin attempts to return it, but the hotel he claimed to be staying at has never heard of him, and when Tintin calls a phone number found in his wallet, the man refuses to talk to him. When Tintin and Haddock return home, they discover that the Emir's bratty, impossibly spoiled son Abdullah has been sent there for protection, along with a colourful entourage of servants and dignitaries who have established a bedouin-bivouac in the great hall of Marlinspike Hall.

Thomson and Thompson inform Tintin that they know of his meeting with Alcazar due to their investigation of an arms dealer called Dawson. They then tell him the name of the real hotel where the General is staying. At the hotel, Tintin and Haddock see Alcazar talking with Dawson, whom Tintin recognises as an enemy he met in The Blue Lotus.

Haddock returns the wallet to Alcazar, while Tintin follows Dawson and overhears him discussing how successful his sale of De Havilland Mosquitoes were in starting a coup d'état in Khemed. Tintin decides to go to Khemed and rescue the emir, who has been overthrown by Sheikh Bab El Ehr. Reluctantly, as usual, the Captain agrees to go along, partly because he knows it's his only chance of getting rid of Abdullah, whose practical jokes are getting too much for him.

Meanwhile, Dawson, realising that Tintin is again meddling in his affairs, resolves to take desperate measures.

At Wadesdah Airport in Khemed, Tintin and Haddock are turned back by customs, while someone (presumably an agent of Dawson) plants a bomb on the plane to "take care of them". The bombing is foiled by an engine fire, which forces the plane to crash-land minutes before the bomb goes off. Realizing that they best take a lower profile, Tintin and Haddock walk away from the crash site and slip in unobserved at night into Wadesdah. There they meet another old friend, the talkative Portuguese merchant Oliveira da Figueira. He helps them escape the city by dressing up as veil-wearing women. Once outside they meet a guide with horses and ride to the Emir's hideout (modelled on the ancient Jordanian city of Petra).

Their escape is reported however, and a leading figure in the new regime sends out a squad of armoured cars and Mosquitos to intercept them. The officer is Mull Pasha who is in fact Doctor Müller, an adversary whom Tintin fought against in The Black Island and Land of Black Gold. Thanks to a military miscommunication, the Mosquitos attack their own armoured cars instead of Tintin and his friends.

The Emir tells them about the ongoing slave trade run by the Marquis di Gorgonzola, an international businessman with whom the Emir had a falling out several months ago. The Marquis uses the pilgrimage to Mecca to capture and enslave African Muslim travellers. Tintin and Haddock leave for the Red Sea coast and board a boat for Mecca to investigate. They are attacked by the Mosquitos again; Tintin manages to down one with a German StG-44, but their schooner receives critical damage and they end up shipwrecked aboard a raft, along with Piotr Skut, the pilot of the downed plane. They are then picked up by di Gorgonzola's yacht, the Scheherazade, which happens to pass by, but di Gorgonzola isolates them from his guests and offloads them the next night to the SS Ramona, a tramp steamer. Unbeknownst to Tintin and Haddock, the Ramona is one of di Gorgonzola's own ships, used in the slave trade.

That night they are locked into their cabin by Allan, Haddock's former first mate, who commands the Ramona. A fire breaks out on the Ramona and the crew abandons ship. Tintin and Haddock force their cabin door open and manage to put out the fire, not realizing that the front of the ship was loaded with munitions. They then free a number of black African men (who speak Yoruba) from a rear hold and discover that they had paid for the voyage to Mecca, but were intended to be sold as slaves instead. Haddock attempts to explain the situation to them. Initially, many of them don't understand, or refuse to, thinking Haddock is lying. After some discussion, the men come around; an older member group recalls how some men from his village never returned from the Hajj. The Africans agree to help Haddock sail the ship to neutral territory in Djibouti, while Tintin and Skut attempt to fix the radio, which had been smashed.

Tintin finds a slip of paper in the radio room with an order to deliver "coke", and is puzzled. In shipping, "coke" would normally refer to a coal-derived fuel, but none is being carried (this is prior to the use of "coke" to mean "cocaine"). They are then approached by a dhow and take aboard an Arab who wishes to inspect the coke, puzzling Haddock, who claims they have none. The man then turns about and starts examining the physical strength of one of the Africans. With the nature of the term coke, a codename for slaves, clear to him, Haddock furiously confronts the Arab. The inspected black African manages to thwart the Arab's attempt to stab the Captain, and the slaver is thrown off the ship.

Di Gorgonzola (who is actually Rastapopoulos, the leader of the international drug smugglers from Cigars of the Pharaoh and The Blue Lotus) finds out from the Arab that Haddock has taken control of the ship, and sends a submarine to attack them. Tintin spots the submarine by accident just prior to attack. Haddock manages to outmanuever a number of torpedoes, but all appears lost when the engines of the ship get stuck in half reverse. At this point the Ramona is saved by the arrival of aircraft from a nearby US cruiser, the USS Los Angeles, whose crew had been radioed by Tintin. The submarine makes one more attempt to destroy the Ramona by attaching a limpet mine to the front of the boat beside the explosives, but this is foiled when the diver is hit by the Ramona's anchor. A shark swallows the mine and swims away.

When the Los Angeles attempts to arrest di Gorgonzola afterwards, he fakes his own death by allowing a motorboat which he steers from his yacht to the cruiser to sink while he escapes in an inbuilt mini-submarine. Thinking him dead, Tintin, Haddock and Skut return to Europe to international acclaim for their efforts in exposing the slave traders. Soon afterwards, the Emir recaptures control of Khemed. Courtesy : wikipedia.org

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Tintin and the Explorers of the moon

Author : Hergé

Language : English

The story continues from Destination Moon. Calculus is taking Tintin, Tintin's dog Snowy, Haddock and his assistant Frank Wolff to the moon in his rocket. However, Thomson and Thompson come up from the hold, having mistaken the time of the launch (1:34 a.m. on Tuesday, June 3, 1952). Calculus is concerned at the effect this will have on their air supplies; Haddock is furious, and lambasts the Thompson twins for being too imbecilic to understand the difference between 1:34 a.m. and 1:34 p.m.

The journey to the Moon is not uneventful--Haddock has smuggled some whisky in hollowed-out books, becomes drunk, and engages in some unscheduled extravehicular activity that results in him briefly becoming a moon of the asteroid Adonis. Tintin must also don a space suit to fetch him, and, in a very rare display of temper, lashes out at the Captain, declaring that the latter's recklessness has "nearly cost us our lives." When the rocket must temporarily halt in order to execute the turnaround maneuver that will enable it to land on the moon right side up, the momentary lack of artificial gravity also poses problems for Haddock, who neglects to put on his magnetic-soled boots in time.

Additionally, the Thompson twins suffer one of their periodic relapses of the condition caused by their ingestion of the energy-multiplying substance Formula Fourteen (see Land of Black Gold). As a result, they sprout thick hair that grows at lightning speed and frequently changes color. The Captain, having no other immediate duty, volunteers to cut their hair, but can scarcely keep up with it, and begins to suffer blisters from the scissors. He remarks sarcastically that in future, when people ask him what he did on the rocket, he will reply, "Me? I was the hairdresser!" Gradually, however, the twins' condition abates, and their appearances begin to return to normal.

The spacecraft lands safely in the Hipparchus Crater, and by agreement of the crew, Tintin is the first to set foot on the Moon - the first human to do so. Everyone then gets a chance to walk about; even the Captain enjoys it, but upon seeing the Earth, expresses fear about whether they will survive to see it again.

The crew soon starts unpacking the scientific payload (telescopes, cameras, and a battery-powered tank), finishing the work at 23:45 Earth time on June 3. Calculus decides to reduce the total stay on the lunar surface from 14 Earth days to 10 in order to conserve oxygen. Three days later, the Captain, Wolff and Tintin take the battery-powered tank to explore some stalactite caves in the direction of the the Ptolemaeus Crater; Snowy falls on an ice sheet, damaging his two-way radio and there is a minor drama in rescuing him, but they return to the rocket safely.

Tintin decides to rest up and have lunch with Wolff while the Captain, the twins and Calculus immediately go out in the tank again on a 48-hour trip to explore the lunar caves in detail as Calculus suspects they might find uranium or radium deposits there.

A sudden turn of events occurs when the spy plot briefly overlooked in Destination Moon is revealed. A secret agent from a foreign power, the brutish Colonel Jorgen, whom Tintin had previously encountered and bested in King Ottokar's Sceptre, has been hiding in the rocket since it was launched eight days previously (having been smuggled aboard along with technical equipment). Wolff reveals his history of gambling debts, which Jorgen's employers have used to blackmail him into aiding them involuntarily.

When Tintin goes below to fetch some supplies for lunch, Jorgen knocks him out and tries to seize control of the rocket, which he plans to fly back to his own country, leaving the others marooned on the Moon. Outside, from the moon tank, the Captain, the Thompsons and Calculus watch, horrified, as the rocket blasts off, shuts down, and, for one horrible moment, appears to be on the verge of collapsing before coming to rest right-side up. Tintin has freed himself and succeeded in foiling the plot, but in order to do so has been forced to sabotage the rocket to prevent Jorgen's attempted liftoff. After the group interrogates Jorgen and Wolff, Tintin eventually locks the spy in the hold, against protests by the Captain that they won't have enough oxygen to last the journey home unless they abandon him on the Moon or kill him. Calculus determines that the crew needs at least four days to repair the damaged rocket while the remaining oxygen supply will last at most four days.

Due to the strain on the oxygen supplies, the crew decides to abandon some of the equipment, rather than disassembling it and packing it up, and to cut short the lunar stay. The repair work is completed slightly ahead of schedule after three days, and the rocket cleared for lift-off 4:52 PM Earth time as the sun sets over the Hipparchus Crater. Even so, shortly before take-off, the Captain becomes the first among them to experience a bout of dizziness due to build-up of carbon dioxide. The lift-off is successful, but the rocket is off-course, and by the time the crew awake from the liftoff-induced blackout and correct it, they have lost additional time and consumed yet more oxygen.

Halfway back to Earth, Jorgen escapes after overpowering the Thompsons, who had gotten the idea into their heads that handcuffs would be more secure than the Captain's knots. When Wolff sees that Jorgen intends to shoot Tintin and the others, he tries to dissuade him; the gun goes off accidentally, and Jorgen is killed instantly. The crew have no choice but to consign the body to space. However, even without Jorgen, now there isn't enough oxygen to make it home. Overcome with guilt, Wolff opens the airlock and lets himself out into space to save the others' lives whilst they are sleeping, leaving a moving farewell note.

The rest of the group continues towards Earth, as their oxygen runs low. Everyone falls unconscious. Tintin faints but mission control sounds a piercing tuning signal which awakens him, allowing him to set the rocket up to land. After the ship lands, firemen break the door open, finding everyone unconscious. On the tarmac, everyone is revived, except for the Captain. A doctor is giving a prostrate Haddock oxygen, but fears that his heart is worn out because "It seems he was a great whisky drinker." Suddenly roused by the sound of the word "whisky", Captain Haddock wakes up with a start. Everyone rejoices and a ground crew member returns with a bottle of whisky. Calculus gives a toast which includes his hopes for a return to the moon. The Captain gets furious and promptly walks away, resulting with a trip and a fall over a stretcher in the midst of declaring that "Man's proper place ... is on dear old Earth!". Courtesy : wikipedia.org

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Tintin and the Destination Moon

Author : Hergé

Language : English

Tintin's friend Professor Calculus has been secretly commissioned by the Syldavian government to build a rocket ship which will fly to the moon. Tintin and Captain Haddock agree to join the expedition (even though Captain Haddock didn't want to, as usual). Upon arriving in Syldavia, they are taken to the Sprodj Atomic Research Centre (referred to simply as the Centre in the story), headed by the scientist Mr. Baxter. They are escorted by the "ZEPO", a special security force designed to protect the Centre from outsider threats. While working for Syldavia Calculus is flanked by the engineer Frank Wolff who works in the Centre and accompanies Tintin and Haddock around the facility. Prof. Calculus reveals that the Syldavian government invited nuclear physics scientists from other countries to work for the Centre, which was created four years earlier when large uranium deposits were discovered in the area. The Centre is entirely dedicated to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Calculus heads the Centre's astronautics department since this is his primary area of expertise.

While in the Centre, they soon come to realize the purpose to the ZEPO: they are designed specifically to block a foreign power that is also interested in the project. On one particular night, spies are parachuted into areas surrounding the facility and the Centre is placed on red alert. The security staff later arrest and interrogate two men dressed in Greek dance costumes, but in fact they are actually the Thompson twins, whom Tintin instantly recognizes and clears. The pair remain in the Centre.

An unmanned subscale prototype of the rocket -- the V-2 rocket like "X-FLR6" -- is launched on a circumlunar mission to photograph the far side of the moon as well as test Professor Calculus's revolutionary nuclear propulsion engine. The rocket successfully orbits the moon but is then intercepted by the foreign power and the research team has no other option than to destroy the rocket. As the compound is heavily secured, there must have been a spy who leaked information, but no suspects are found.

Despite this set-back preparations are made and the equipment is tested. While testing of the space suits, Captain Haddock gets frustrated in the situation and claims that Calculus is "acting the goat", (a line which would end up becoming a famous line in the Tintin series), leading to a well-known comic scene causing Calculus to go into a fit of anger. He leads them out of the complex and to the site of the Moon Rocket, where he falls down a ladder and suffers temporary memory loss, from which Haddock caringly - and unwittingly - helps him recover.

Preparations are made for an actual moon flight and a full scale manned rocket is built. Finally, on June 3, 1952 at 1:34 in the morning, the rocket takes off with Tintin, Haddock, Calculus and Wolff on board.

The story continues in Explorers on the Moon, picking up where Destination Moon left off. Courtesy : wikipedia.org

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Tintin and the Land of Black Gold

Author : Hergé

Language : English

Experts are confused by a series of spontaneous car engine explosions, apparently caused by tampered fuel supplies. Political tensions heighten, leading the world to the brink of war, and Captain Haddock is mobilised in anticipation of an outbreak of hostilities. Following different leads, Tintin and Thomson and Thompson set off for Khemed (a fictional country in the Middle East) on board a petrol tanker. Upon arrival, the three are framed and arrested by the authorities under various charges. The Thompsons are cleared and released, but Tintin is kidnapped by Arab insurgents (In the original version of the story he initially arrived in the port of Haifa in British Palestine and was first kidnapped by members of the Irgun, before being subsequently abducted by Arabs).

In the course of his adventures, Tintin re-encounters an old enemy, Dr. J.W. Müller (see The Black Island for back story), whom he sees sabotaging an oil pipeline. He reunites with the Thompsons and eventually arrives in Wadesdah, the capital of Khemed, where he comes across his old friend, the Portuguese merchant Senhor Oliveira da Figueira. When the local Emir Ben Kalish Ezab's young son, Prince Abdullah, is kidnapped, Tintin suspects that Müller (who is masquerading as an archaeologist under the name of Professor Smith) is responsible. He pursues Müller in hopes of rescuing the prince and in the process discovers the doctor to be the agent of a foreign power responsible for the tampering of the fuel supplies. Courtesy : wikipedia.org

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Tintin and the Prisoners of the Sun

Author : Hergé

Language : English

Tintin and Captain Haddock arrive in Peru to look for Professor Calculus, following the events in The Seven Crystal Balls, which ended with Calculus being kidnapped for putting on the bracelet of the mummified Inca, Rascar Capac. Although Tintin and Haddock intercept the ship carrying Calculus, the Pachacamac, near Callao, they are unable to rescue him, and they set off on the trail of the Quechua-speaking natives who have taken him. It leads them to the mountain town of Jauga, where a train is sabotaged in an attempt to kill them. They find both the authorities and the locals extremely unwilling to help them track Calculus' kidnappers.

Tintin then encounters a young Indian boy named Zorrino, whom he protects from two bullying men of white descent. Following that, a mysterious Indian gives him a medallion, telling him it will save him from danger. Soon after, Zorrino offers to take them to the Temple of the Sun, where he claims their friend is being held. The Temple lies deep in the Andes, and the journey there is long and eventful - it involves hindrance from natives and Captain Haddock being terrorised by the local wildlife.

Finally they come upon the Temple of the Sun - and stumble right into a group of Inca who have survived until modern-day times. Zorrino is saved from harm when Tintin gives him the medallion (the Indian who had given it to him reveals himself as one of the Incan high priests, and explains that he gave it to Tintin because he was moved by his effort to protect Zorrino from abuse), but Tintin and Haddock are sentenced to death for their sacrilegious intrusion and end up on the same pyre as Calculus. Tintin has, however, chosen the hour of their death to coincide with a solar eclipse, and the terrified Inca believe he can command their God, the Sun. Afterwards, the leader of the Incas tells them the "magic liquid" mentioned in the preceding volume was a coca-derivative used to hypnotize the explorers who had excavated Rascar Capac's tomb as punishment for their sacrilege. Tintin convinces him to break the curse, and they return to Europe with a gift of Incan gold and jewels, while Zorrino decides to stay with the Incas. Courtesy : wikipedia.org

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Tintin and the Seven Crystal Balls

Author : Hergé

Language : English

A mysterious illness is afflicting members of an archaeological expedition recently returned from the Andes, where they had unearthed the tomb of the Inca, Rascar Capac. One by one, the expedition members fall into a mysterious coma. The only clue is shards of crystal found near each victim, which are fragments of shattered crystal balls. Concerned, Tintin, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus go to stay with Calculus's old friend, and expedition member, the ebullient Professor Tarragon, who is keeping Rascar Capac's mummy in his house. But the mummy soon disappears when a lightning storm sends a ball of fire down the chimney, and, after each being visited in their nightmares by the mummy, the three wake to find Tarragon comatose, with the telltale shards of crystal by his bed.

Tarragon later wakes up but screams about mysterious figures attacking him. Tintin later visits a hospital where all the other stricken explorers go through the same horrors at a precise time of day.

The plot thickens even further, however, when Calculus, taking a stroll around Professor Tarragon's house, discovers a striking gold bracelet, puts it on (remarking on how nicely it goes with his coat), and then mysteriously disappears. The bracelet had previously been worn by the now-vanished mummy.

While looking for Calculus, Tintin and the Captain are fired upon by an unseen gunman who escapes in a black car, having kidnapped Calculus. The alarm is raised and the police set up road blocks, but the kidnappers switch cars and slip through the net.

Tintin and Haddock pursue the abductors to La Rochelle, where they discover that Calculus is on board a ship called the Pachacamac, which is bound for Peru, and resolve to meet his ship there.

The story is continued in Prisoners of the Sun, the next volume in the series, although that did not appear until 1946, due to problems Hergé got into following the liberation of Belgium at the end of World War II, when he and other members of the Le Soir were investigated for working for a collaborationist newspaper. Courtesy : wikipedia.org

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Tintin and the Red Rackhams Treasure

Author : Hergé

Language : English

In The Secret of the Unicorn, Tintin and Captain Haddock discovered the location of the Unicorn, a pirate ship which was blown up in the West Indies by Captain Haddock's ancestor Sir Francis Haddock in 1676. After destroying the vessel, Sir Francis fled to a nearby island. Tintin and Captain Haddock believe that the eponymous pirate's treasure, taken by Sir Francis, remains hidden on that island. Red Rackham's Treasure depicts their search for the treasure.

Tintin and the Captain hire the Sirius, a boat under Haddock's command, to search for said treasure. As the crew prepare for the search, their plans are discovered and publicized by the press, forcing Tintin and Haddock to deal with numerous strangers claiming to be Rackham's descendants and insisting on a share of the treasure (but they are quickly driven away by Haddock). Another petitioner is Professor Cuthbert Calculus, an eccentric and largely deaf inventor who offers the use of a special shark-shaped, electrically powered one-man submarine to help search for the sunken ship without being bothered by the numerous sharks in the area. The treasure hunters turn him down and later set off for the trip.

Before Tintin and the Captain clear the port, their friends, Thomson and Thompson intercept them with orders to join the crew to protect the treasure hunters from the possible threat of Max Bird, a rival treasure hunter who escaped from prison. (Ultimately, Bird is never seen or mentioned again, making him a MacGuffin for getting the detectives on board the ship). Shortly after the departure, Tintin and Haddock discover that Calculus has stowed away on board (in a lifeboat, complete with bedclothes;pillow and blanket stolen from the Thompson twins cabin over which they are shown quarreling; and a tin of biscuits which the ship's cook had blamed Snowy for swiping from the galley). The professor has stashed the unassembled parts of his submarine in the hold--removing the Captain's crates of whisky in the process. Despite initially threatening to throw Calculus into the hold on bread and water, Haddock grudgingly decides to keep him along for the trip.

Although it is never directly stated in the book, the coordinates given in the parchment place the island in the Caribbean, to the north of Hispaniola. Initially, the party cannot find anything at the coordinates (20°37′42″N, 70°52′15″W), but then Tintin hypothesizes that Sir Francis Haddock used a Paris meridian instead of the Greenwich one (which would yield 20°37′42″N, 68°32′1″W). Sure enough, the ship reaches an unknown and uninhabited island, where Tintin and his friends believe the treasure to be buried. As they come ashore to explore it, the Captain stubs his toe on a piece of wood protruding from the sand, which is excavated and turns out to be the remains of Sir Francis Haddock's rowboat. As they penetrate into the interior of the island, they encounter numerous skulls, which Tintin deduces are the remains of the island's cannibalistic former inhabitants. There is also a magnificent pagan icon of Sir Francis, and numerous parrots that repeat the Haddockian argot, which an amused Tintin realizes has been passed down for generations.

Calculus's submarine proves useful in searching for the sunken Unicorn, while the actual examination of the wreck itself is performed with a hardhat diving suit. The Thompson twins soon begin to rue their decision to join the treasure-hunt, because they are consigned to manning the gigantic air pumps supplying the diving suit when Tintin, and later the Captain, explore the wreck. While facing complications like shark attacks, they discover a gold bejeweled cross, a strongbox of old documents, the figurehead of the ship and, to Captain Haddock's delight, a large supply of vintage Jamaican rum.

Although the search is otherwise unproductive, the crew spots a large wooden cross on the island itself and Tintin believes that the reference in their map to "under the Eagle's cross" could refer to it as the marker for the treasure's location in Sir Francis's calendar etchings. Upon coming to the cross the party begins to dig, but after a while, Tintin realizes that they are following a false lead, considering that Sir Francis would not deliberately leave his treasure on an island he did not intend to return to, and they return to the Sirius.

Time passes. Although there are further dives to the wreck, they are unable to find the treasure itself and they go home disappointed. Upon disembarking, the Captain is accosted by a reporter. In retribution for the unwanted attention brought earlier by the press to their expedition, Haddock impishly refers him to "my secretary, Mr. Calculus," whom the reporter tries to interview in vain.

Once home, Calculus's further examination of the parchment documents in the chest that they retrieved allows him to determine that Captain Haddock is heir to the large estate of Marlinspike Hall. Upon this discovery, Tintin insists that Haddock must purchase the estate (which is up for auction), but the Captain declines, noting that he is short on funds due to the wasted expense of their failed treasure hunt. However, Calculus, who has received large sums of money from the government after a profitable sale of his submarine design, overcomes that difficulty in gratitude for a successful test run.

After purchasing the Hall, Tintin and Captain Haddock explore the cellars of the main house. Amongst the cluttered antiques left by the malevolent Bird Brothers (the former owners), they find a statue of Saint John and Tintin remembers that he is called "The Eagle of Patmos" (the island where he was supposedly exiled to) and is often depicted with that bird. The statue is holding a globe, and Tintin finds the location of the island where Sir Francis Haddock was exiled. He accidentally discovers it to be a trigger button to open the globe. The treasure was hidden inside the globe — and the statue was holding a cross above it, just as the map indicated. Courtesy : wikipedia.org

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Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn

Author : Hergé

Language : English

There is an amazing epidemic of wallet-snatchings around Brussels. Thomson and Thompson - who, during the course of the story, eventually lose their wallets by the dozens to the thief - look for the culprit at the Old Street Market where they meet Tintin. Tintin buys a boat model of an old ship for Captain Haddock, but, as he does, two men try to haggle it off him. The first is a Mr. Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine, and the second is later revealed to be Barnaby. Sakharine calls on Tintin at his flat later, seeking to convince him -unsuccessfully- to sell his ship, but leaves his card. A little while later, the mainmast is broken by Snowy, and Tintin repairs it.

When the Captain visits Tintin, he sees the ship and reacts with astonishment. Haddock takes Tintin back to his apartment and shows him a portrait of one of his ancestors, Sir Francis Haddock, the captain of a 17th century naval vessel. In its background is the very same ship, called "the Unicorn" (a French ship in the original; in the English translation part of the fleet of Charles II of England, and a Union Flag has been inserted as the flag flown by the Unicorn). When Tintin and the Captain return to Tintin's flat, they find that the model boat has been stolen. Tintin visits Sakharine, accusing him of having stolen it. While he discovers an identical ship in Sakharine's collection, it is evidently a different one, for in this case, the mast has not been broken. The ship carries the letters "UNICORN" on the back as well. When Tintin returns home, he finds that his flat has been ransacked, and while cleaning up he finds a mysterious parchment. He realizes that it must have been hidden within the mainmast broken by Snowy, and subsequently rolled out onto the floor. He guesses that the parchement holds the clue to finding treasure and rushes back to the Captain's flat.

The Captain, meanwhile, has taken out some heirlooms that had belonged to his great ancestor: a cutlass, a hat, and a journal which tells of how in 1676 he defeated the pirates led by Red Rackham. Haddock eagerly reads it out aloud to Tintin, sometimes getting a bit carried away while describing the battle scenes. Tintin himself is so taken in by the story that he does not even bother to take off his raincoat.

The pirate Red Rackham had just stolen some diamonds from a Spanish naval vessel when he engaged Sir Francis Haddock in battle in the West Indies. Although the volleys fired by Sir Francis destroyed Rackham's much smaller ship, the pirates managed to overpower Sir Francis's sailors; all but Sir Francis were either killed or forced to walk the plank. Red Rackham's crew took over the Unicorn, stowing the jewels and treasure on board. Sir Francis escaped, killed Red Rackham in hand-to-hand combat, and escaped after igniting a long fuse in the munitions hold. As Sir Francis rowed to the safety of an uninhabited island nearby, the Unicorn exploded, killing the rest of the pirates.

The boat model which was stolen is just one of three constructed by Sir Francis which hold three parchments which, when placed together, will give the treasure's location. Tintin is later kidnapped by the Bird Brothers, two unscrupulous antique dealers who believe that he possesses the parchments. They are behind the theft of Tintin's model, having discovered the second parchment and have figured out that they needed all three to decode the clue to the treasure's location. Tintin later escapes Marlinspike Hall, a country estate owned by the Bird Brothers. The parchments themselves, however, were stolen by a kleptomaniac specializing in wallets (the same pickpocket pursued by Thomson and Thompson, who is eventually cornered with Tintin's help).

By the end of the story, Tintin and Haddock have the parchments, and discover where they will find the treasure, by combining the parchments to read 20°37′42″N, 70°52′15″W. The sequel, Red Rackham's Treasure, continues the story.Courtesy: wikipedia.org

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Tintin and the Shooting Star

Author : Hergé

Language : English

One night Tintin is out walking with his dog Snowy. The evening is particularly hot. Tintin then notices an extra star in the Great Bear. When he reaches home, he calls the Observatory. They say that they have the phenomenon under observation and hang up.

Tintin wonders why it is so hot, and opens the window. He sees that the star is getting bigger every minute. He walks to the Observatory, and, after some trouble, gets inside. He meets a man called Philippulus who proclaims himself to be a prophet and tells him that "It is a Judgement! Woe!" Puzzled, Tintin proceeds to the main room with the giant telescope. There he meets the director of the observatory, Professor Decimus Phostle, who explains that the extra star is a vast ball of fire making it way towards Earth, which will cause the end of the world.

In the event, however, the shooting star passes by the Earth, though a piece of it, a meteorite, lands in the arctic ocean, causing an earthquake that lasts a mere few seconds.

After an analysis of a spectroscopic photo of the meteor, Phostle deduces that it is composed of an entirely new metal. He names this metal "Phostlite", but is dismayed to discover that the meteor has landed in the sea and therefore, presumably, is lost. Tintin, however, realises that the meteor could be protruding above the surface of the water, and the Professor is persuaded to organise an expedition led by himself to find the metal and to retrieve a sample of it for further research. The expedition consists of leading scientists, as well as Tintin, Snowy and the alcoholic Captain Haddock (ironically serving as president of the Society for Sober Sailors), aboard the trawler Aurora.

However, unknown to the Aurora expedition, another team has already set out, backed by a financier from São Rico by the name of Bohlwinkel, aboard the polar expedition ship Peary. The expedition becomes a race to be the first to land on the meteor. Bohlwinkel attempts to sabotage the Aurora expedition by getting a henchman to plant a stick of dynamite on the ship on the eve of departure, but it is found and thrown overboard. While crossing the North Sea the Aurora is almost rammed into by another of Bohlwinkel's ships, but Haddock manages to steer his ship out of the way.

Further setbacks occur at the Icelandic port of Akureyri, when Captain Haddock is informed that there is no fuel available. Despondent, he and Tintin have a drink in a local bar, where the Captain bumps into an old friend, Captain Chester. Chester reveals that there is plenty of fuel, and that the Golden Oil Company (which has a fuel monopoly) is owned by Bohlwinkel. The three of them devise a plan to run a hose from Chester's ship, Sirius, to the Aurora and thus trick Golden Oil into providing them the fuel they need. By connecting a hose from the Sirius fuel tank to the Aurora fuel tanks

Coming close to catching the Peary, the Aurora then receives an indistinct distress call from another ship and has to turn round in order to help. Inquiries by Tintin then lead him to realise that the distress signal is a fake designed to further delay them. Resuming the journey, they then intercept a cable announcing that the Peary expedition has reached the meteorite but not actually claimed it yet. Tintin uses the ship's seaplane to parachute on to the meteor and plant the expedition flag, beating the crew of the Peary by seconds. The Aurora expedition has won the race.

Tintin makes camp while the ship's over-exerted engines are repaired. The next day he discovers the remarkable properties of Phostlite: his apple core instantly grows into an enormous tree full of oversized apples, and a maggot turns into a massive butterfly. Tintin is menaced by a giant spider and huge, exploding mushrooms before rescue arrives. Then a sudden seaquake shakes the meteor to its core; the young reporter and Snowy retrieve a rock sample and jump to safety as the rock sinks into the sea.

The triumphant expedition's return is reported on the radio, along with the news that law enforcement agencies are closing on Bohlwinkel. As they prepare to dock, the Captain announces that they are short on one vital commodity — whisky. Courtesy: wikipedia.org

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