The Adventures of Tintin, Volume 6, by Hergé

This volume contains three stories: The Calculus Affair, The Red Sea Sharks, and Tintin in Tibet.

In "The Calculus Affair", Marlinspike Hall is home to a strange series of disturbances, which destroy glass and ceramic objects, but without any evidence of what is making these things happen. Originally starting during a rainstorm, there is no evidence that the thunder is responsible. Then, shots ring out on the manor grounds, and Professor Calculus walks in. He seems not to have heard the shots, but Tintin finds a bullet hole in the Professor's hat. Again, the Professor seems not to understand or care. He is leaving tomorrow for a conference in Geneva.

After he leaves, Marlinspike Hall quiets down, which suggests that the Professor might have something to do with the disturbances. Investigating his lab, located on the estate, has them finding a device that might be a chemical engine exhaust valve... or a giant sonic contraption. But a strange man surprises Haddock and Tintin and knocks Haddock down and beats him. He looks Eastern European, and before he escapes, Snowy bites off one of the man's trenchcoat pockets. Inside are a box of cigarettes and a box of matches from the same hotel that Calculus will be staying at in Geneva.

Tintin and Haddock guess that he might be in trouble and rush to Geneva to help him. But by the time they get to his hotel, he has gone to stay with a friend of his, Professor Topolino. They make the trek there, only to be forced off the road along the way. Recovering, they make their way to Topolino's house, and eventually find him trussed up in his own coal cellar. He claims Calculus did this to him, but when they show him Calculus' picture, he comes to realize that the man who did this isn't the real professor Calculus.

The two men who earlier drove them off the road attempt to blow up Topolino's house and kill Haddock and Tintin. They succeed at the first, but not the second. Following the men, they discover a plot and the countries of Syldavia and Borduria fighting over Calculus's invention, which they intend to use to wage war. But can Tintin and Haddock retrieve their friend, and the umbrella in which he hid his plans before the invention is used as a war machine?

In "The Red Sea Sharks", Tintin and Haddock are visited by Adullah, the son of the ruler of the land of Khemed, which Tintin last visited in "Land of the Black Gold". It seems that his father sent him away from Khemed for his safety, for Sheik Bab El Ehr was about to overthrow him. Tintin and Haddock, to get away from Abdullah's endless tricks, travel there, but are turned away at the border.

In their attempts to get back, they eventually meet with the Pasha, who tells them of the problem plaguing his country: slavery. A man who the Emir had dealings with, by the name of Gorgonzola, turned out to be a slaver. Many slaves started out as pilgrims to Mecca. Tintin and Haddock leave to go to Mecca and investigate, but men who have on their trail, the Mosquitos, wreck their boat by strafing it with a plane. They end up on a raft, and rescue the pilot of the plane, a Norwegian named Skut. From there, they are picked up by Gorgonzola's boat when his party guests, including Bianca Castafiore, make it impossible for him to just leave them.

As soon as he can, he has them transferred to another boat, a tramp steamer called the USS Ramona. Captaining her is Allan, Haddock's one-time first mate, who kept him well-plied with liquor. He locks them in the hold, but the next day there is a fire on the ship, and the crew abandon her. Haddock and Tintin break out, douse the fire (not realizing the ship is loaded with munitions and gunpowder, and free some Africans from the hold. Skut is also on board and helps them repair the radio, which the crew smashed before abandoning the ship.

The Africans still insist on going to Mecca, where they would have been enslaved, but eventually see reason, and help Haddock and Tintin make for Djibouti. When an Arab Dhow hails and boards them, he asks for their cargo of Coke (not cocaine, but a type of coal). Haddock insists there is none on board, but when the Arab insists on examining a nearby African for how well he can work, Haddock and Tintin realize that "Coke" is the code word for slaves, and Haddock is enraged, kicking the man off the boat and hurling abuse at him (even through a megaphone) until the man is too far away to hear.

But Gorgonzola still wants Tintin and Haddock dead. Can they escape him and bring him to justice before he sees to it that they never make port in Djibouti?

In "Tintin in Tibet", Tintin has an intense dream of a Chinese friend of his called Chang. He dreams that Chang is in trouble, and everywhere, he seems to hear his friend's name. An airplane went down in Tibet, and Tintin soon finds out that Chang was on that very plane.

Without any delay, he leaves for China, and then Tibet to rescue his friend, even though everyone is sure that all passengers on the plane are dead. No one, it seems, wants to help him, as everyone is sure that all passengers died. But Tintin's courage in insisting on going forward eventually bring people around, and he and Haddock find bearers to take them to the site of the plane crash, but they eventually run off after hearing the cry of the Abominable Snowman.

Only one man remains, the Guide, called Tharkey. He helps them find Chang's muffler, which Tintin spots hanging from a rock. And from there, they find a monastery to take shelter in as they fight the cold, the thin air, and the terrain, which is very rough. The Lama of the Monastery also declines to help them, though he does allow them to take shelter in the monastery for a while.

But a monk named Blessed Lightning, is prone to visions and floating in the air. It was he who first "saw" Tintin and Haddock needed help, and when Tintin hands him Chang's muffler, he sees Chang needing help. But does Tintin have the strength to continue his journey, or will he fall and fail in the snow-covered mountains of Tibet?

This is a fairly intense series of stories, with two of them involving survival in inhospitable places (The open sea and Tibet), but of them all, I liked "Tintin in Tibet" the best, and it also happened to be Hergé's favorite as well. In it, there is no real villain and no opposition except for nature itself. It's very unlike any of the other Tintin stories. All Tintin has to follow is a dream he had and the conviction that Chang is still alive, and eventually, he is proven right.

If more Tintin stories were like that one, I'd like the series better. It also has far less jokes and clownishness in it, and is a very serious story. As for the series itself, even in these supposedly complete volumes, there are stories that weren't published. Early stories like Tintin in Russia, Tintin in the Congo, Tintin in America, and the last story "The Alph-Art" are not part of the collection. Probably because the first three contain some fairly offensive stereotypes, and the last isn't really finished.

But for a series, it isn't bad. It just isn't as interesting as other series which I have read, and while I enjoyed reading it from the library, I'd never spend money on it myself.