My review, as posted in Tintin Books

"The Shooting Star" is a welcome return to form after the entertaining but less innovative "The Crab with the Golden Claws". Herge was still working under Nazi-occupied conditions, which explains why this era of his albums strays from political debates and focuses instead solely on narrative concerns. Still, the battle to recover the meteorite echoes the scientific attitude which prevailed throughout WWII and would culminate in the '50s and '60s with the Space Race.

There's certainly more padding than usual here, as in some albums this adventure would be a six-page subplot! But yet it works: all of the characters, from the crazed Belgians to the Icelandic sailors, are densely characterised. As with the previous albums, there is the constant fear of being double-crossed, which is particularly effective here with such a range of characters present.

The scenes at sea, particularly, come alive. This is the second of four consecutive albums which feature large stretches of plot at sea: for whatever reason (the confinement of characters? the literal feel of movement?) Herge must have felt comfortable in this environment, for - as we'd see in his next album, "The Secret of the Unicorn" - he'd create some of his best work here.

And while this isn't a pinnacle of the "Tintin" series, it's four-star entertainment. Captain Haddock is already quite well-defined (although he'll evolve further), and we get the last in a string of mad professors whose descendant will be Cuthbert Calculus. Snowy gets comparatively little to do here (a typical charge laid against Haddock's presence) but it isn't noticeable, because by now we have a wealth of characters and slapstick with a dog now seems only appropriate as occasional tension-relieving humour.

At the end of the race, we get a sprint to the finish: a mysterious island of scientific improbabilities. It's great fun, and shows the wide-reaching canvas that Herge could work with. Perhaps the lack of political implications would suggest this is lighter entertainment than Herge was generally producing, but honestly it's also more sophisticated. ( )

So good for my spanish lessons that I have ordered two more. Knowing the story as well as the pictures means I can read without looking everything up. And as with most Tintin books there is lots and lots of text and only very restrained slang. Bought this one first because I've always loved the astronomy and the exploding mushrooms! ( )

I have a friend who's quite fond of these old Tintin comics, and he's taken to occasionally lending me some if he thinks they'll be of particular interest to me. (Which so far has just meant having something to do with outer space.) This one features a meteorite that hits the Earth and lands in the ocean, provoking a race between two rival expeditions to reach it first and collect a sample of the previously unknown metal it harbors.

The previous Tintin volumes I read featured a trip to the moon, and I was a little surprised by how a lot of the science in it was actually pretty good. This one... not so much. Mostly it's left me wondering how the same author can apparently understand the concept of spectroscopy perfectly well, yet clearly have no idea what a meteorite actually is. For that matter, he doesn't even seem to have a good grasp of the fact that the ocean is very deep.

But never mind that, I guess. It's not like this is trying to be hard SF. Really, it's just a silly little adventure story with a bit of humor. And, taken as such, it's mildly amusing, but not particularly memorable. I suspect, not for the first time, that one really has to encounter Tintin at an impressionable age to fully appreciate it, and I've simply missed the window. ( )

I had forgotten what an alcoholic the Captain was, but I've turned out ok, so I guess this childhood favorite wasn't too damaging :p ( )

Tintin's first science fiction adventure is a great one, although Hergé's better with the fiction than with the science! Nonetheless, the story is exciting and atmospheric, particularly the initial "Armageddon" sequence. There's a real feeling of desperation at the impending destruction of civilization. Was this an expression of Hergé's angst at the Nazi occupation of Belgium? However that may be, it's certainly his most effective piece of work in Tintin's adventures to this point.

The story has resonances with H.G. Wells's The Food of the Gods and Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Mysterious Island: giant growths of vegetation and animals; scientific expeditions in search of strange lands, etc. I don't know that Hergé had these books in mind, but I'd be surprised if he wasn't at least aware of the works of Wells and Verne, and the correspondences are there.

Although only introduced in the previous album, The Crab With The Golden Claws, Captain Haddock already seems to be a well-established part of Tintin's world and he adds an extra dimension of unpredictability to the adventures. Hergé relegated Thomson and Thompson's roles to a single-panel cameo, which was a good decision as it gave him the opportunity to get the Captain well bedded-in.

I did feel, however, that Tintin's use of whisky to manipulate the alcoholic Captain was morally suspect, but I guess we're dealing with a story written in simpler times as far as attitudes to substance abuse is concerned. ( )