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I think The Shooting Star was the third Tintin book which I read so I must have been about eight years old. Bruno Frappat wrote of ������é in Le Monde in 1983, the year of his death “I don't know if I ever met a greater genius�� and referred to his “perpetual quest for an impossible purity.�� The Shooting Star is arguably one of ������é's finest achievements. The adventure centres around a meteorite which has plunged into arctic waters. The idea of a threat from a shooting star which might bring about the end of the world has received impetus from the widespread belief that the great extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by a 125 mile wide meteorite landing in present day Mexico 66 million years ago. In addition to that the great increase in observation of space and the sophistication of techniques for observing space has increased awareness of the omnipresence of shooting stars. The end of the world atmosphere is strong at the beginning of this book, where a sense of the end of days is mixed in with the fantasy of dreams.

The meteorite causes no harm after all but lands in the Arctic Ocean. One charmingly eccentric Professor Phostle ("tell me young man, do you like bullseyes?") has identified a new metal in the meteorite and the remaining story is a tale of adventure as two ships race to the Arctic. The first to land a person on the island which the meteoroid in the Arctic ocean has become, will claim the metal. (It is doubtful that this accords with international law but the adventures of Tintin are not concerned with the niceties of international law). Tintin, Professor Phostle and Captain Haddock are in one ship. The rival ship is he property of Mr Bohlwinkel “a powerful Sao Rico financier�� and he will stop at nothing to prevent Professor Phostle from claiming the meteorite. The new metal has strange other worldly qualities. It increases the size of living organisms (but not, illogically, of Tintin or Snowy) and a small spider morphs into a monster. So the end of the story with its monstrous spider recalls the early scene where Tintin mistakes a small spider for a monster spider as it crawls over the lens of Professor Phostle's telescope.

A first class children's book a nod at the panic of humans facing “the end of days��, an understanding of the machinations of big money, a superb adventure story, a science fiction fantasy, a humorous depiction of human foibles and weaknesses: The shooting Star is a masterpiece.