My review, as published in Tintin Books:


"The Seven Crystal Balls" is a wonderfully atmospheric album, in which fears of the supernatural meld perfectly with the scientific discoveries of the time. Anyone who grew up with the animated TV series will probably recall this one in great detail, as there is so much good material here: particularly notable is the agonising wait in Tarragon's manor, and the marvelous frame of the seven victims waking up on cue in their hospital beds, and screaming.

Although Herge was remaining stoically apolitical, his series had acquired a wealth of recurring characters to enrich the story, and many of them - Thompson & Thomson, Bianca Castafiore, Nestor, General Alcazar, as well as the newcomer Cuthbert Calculus - appear here. There's some very good character work for a wide variety of the cast - including a welcome return for General Alcazar - and it's pleasant how quickly we care for Calculus. His disappearance, and Haddock's subsequent concern, are affecting even though we only met him in the last album! Among other evolutions in the series, Tintin appears to have left his Brussels flat in favour of living with Haddock at Marlinspike Hall. Their relationship with Calculus has also quickly deepened, as evidenced by Haddock's severe depression when the professor goes missing. Like Haddock before him, Calculus' popularity was a surprise for the artist - but a surprise he took in his stride.

At the same time, it is worth mentioning that a lot of time is spent on set-up. Very little actually happens for most of this album. This is partly a result of Herge's required output in the era, and partly because he himself was so fascinated by creating realism in his settings, characters and costumes, that he devoted himself to every scene and every supporting character. It's very clearly only the start of the story (which is why most adaptations take us to South America and the plot of [book:Prisoners of the Sun|96428 quite quickly).

However, what we have here is both creepy and amusing, and clearly demonstrate the mastery of his form which would soon lead Herge to start playing around with the established formula. I'd probably give it a high three-and-a-half stars, but I'm upgrading it to four for the sake of this review. ( )

A tee-up story for Prisoner's of the Sun, which is great. Nothing really happens in this one, but it's adequate enough. ( )

There's the usual Tintin fun to be had, but it feels like the set-up of a story, which of course it is, rather than an adventure in itself.

There are some nicely effective sections, the best being Tintin's dream-vision of the mummy, Rascar Capac. Or, was it a dream-vision? I'm looking forward to the next instalment, Prisoners of the Sun, which I hope will pay off on the set up of this book. ( )

bookshelves: radio-4x, series
Read on November 29, 2013


HUZZAH! Sunday ...

OR

Complete adventure on youtube

Took the easy option and went for the youtube version. Excellent. Every time Snowy barked, and he barked a lot in this one, K9 growled.
HAH! ( )

Review by: Liying

This book is about young reporter Tintin and his frinds having a great adventure. Seven explorers who discovered the the mummy that from Inca. They all got a attack and fallen sleep. Tintin's friend kidnapped after all these things happened. Could Tintin get his friend back? I am very looking forward to read the next book! I like this book very much. I like the way how author give the detail of the story. And I could guess what might happen next after I read a few more pages. This book is a comic book, that makes me could understand what happened easily.

Review by: Mickey

TYVM you've solved all my problems ( )