So quickly after the Unicorn / Rackham two-fer, we’re on to the other best-known, most admired set in the canon, the Moon books. Destination Moon, like Secret of the Unicorn, is all about preparation, getting ready for the voyage, and leaves us hanging at the end, even more than the earlier book does, as the astronauts have launched into space but are not responding to communication attempts. Have they survived the launch? Well, from the tagline at the bottom of the last page asking about what they’ll find on the moon when we read the next book, we can assume they do.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Destination Moon is a great book not only because of the moon launch plot, but because the rocket launch project is also a part of the larger Syldavia/Borduria conflict, which we first visited in King Ottokar’s Sceptre and will visit again in The Calculus Affair. We don’t know who’s attempting to sneak into the base, and who’s stealing the valuable plans, but if the target is Syldavia, it’s safe to say that Bordurians are involved.

Hergé and his studio colleagues’ attention to detail is brought to bear on some new topics this time around; instead of ships and cars, it’s nuclear power plants and interplanetary rockets. The half- and full-page panels showing the rocket are revelations, especially inviting for a kid reading the book on the floor, nose to the page, scanning the entire scene for all of its details. I was outside a Peet’s on Main Street in Santa Monica this time, but I can remember what it was like.

The book is also striking in its written detail; it’s the most text-heavy book of the series, at least so far, with frame after frame filled with massive text balloons in which characters, usually Professor Calculus, explain the science behind the nuclear reactor and the construction of the rocket. Seventeen years before Apollo 11, the science in the book is surprisingly detailed and convincing, and is a credit to Hergé’s research and demand for accuracy.

The copy I read is one of our originals, this one from the Magnet publishing house, as opposed to those we have from Little, Brown or Atlantic-Little, Brown. This one even has a price in pounds on the back, as well as dollars. It’s been well-loved over the years, but it’s still holding together.