The Mohole Mystery

Chris Godfrey of U.N.E.X.A. #11

by Hugh Walters

After their expedition to Saturn, Chris Godfrey and his friends were given the longest spell of leave they had ever had. Every day they expected to hear about their next assignment from Sir George Benson, Director of the United Nations Exploration Agency, but when they tried to get in touch with him they found it was impossible. Clearly something strange was going on.When Sir George finally reappeared he had a startling proposition for them. A new kind of expedition was to be launched, not into space but into the depths of the earth. The astronauts were about to become 'subterranuts'. Or rather one of them was, for only one man could enter the capsule which was to carry him down the Mohole, the borehole which had been drilled twenty-one miles into the earth, to end in a huge underground cavern...

Kindle Edition

Published November 24, 2020

Reviews

[Jeffrey Gallen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent juvenile science fiction from British writer, Hugh Walters, concerning a novel area of manned exploration, the subterranean earth. The book, part of a series about a team of astronauts, dates from the early 1960s, and was inspired, not only by the space program, but the Mohole Project. Here, one team member, Serge, is sent down in a small capsule, just big enough for one, very thin, person. Of course, he gets stuck, and the rest of the team must rescue him. The team has to use their ingenuity, much like the real life NASA astronauts and crew, when various glitches occurred. I only gave it 3 stars because the characters were pretty flat. I had a tough time telling them apart—kind of like the the old Thunderbirds TV show and the team for International Rescue.

[Kifflie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yikes. I commented before on the polycule and fracking. But these scientists and engineers are pretty bone-headed if they can't realize that if you bore a hole into something, you leave a mess underneath. So Serge's mission is doomed before it starts. Maybe it's just a plot device to get Chris and Tony in the capsules as well. Poor overgrown American Morrey gets left out of the fun. And with all the fright early on about underworld bacteria, the actual scary things are white oblong shapes that move around and explode into white dust.

Hugh also seriously rushes the rescue and denouement, but that's typical of a lot of these books.

The boys are better off in space.