''The Mohole Mystery'' is a juvenile

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

, the eleventh in Hugh Walters' ''Chris Godfrey of U.N.E.X.A.'' series. It was published in the UK by Faber in 1968, in the US by Criterion Books in 1969 under the title ''The Mohole Menace''. It was also published in

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

as Pionniers des ténèbres, (literally "Pioneers of Darkness") by Éditions de l'Amitié in 1973 and as A ameaça de Mohole in

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

by Edições Dêagã.

Plot summary

A drilling project in

Dudley Dudley is a large market town and administrative centre in the county of West Midlands, England, southeast of Wolverhampton and northwest of Birmingham. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the ...

in the

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

region of the United Kingdom hits a cavern 20 miles beneath the surface of the Earth and detects strange

microbes A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

. UNEXA send Russian Serge Smylov down to search for other forms of life in a rocket-propelled capsule but it is damaged when it hits the bottom of the cavern. Then strange creatures start attacking him... The book, under its US title ''The Mohole Menace'', is mentioned in '' A Short History of Nearly Everything'' by

Bill Bryson William McGuire Bryson (; born 8 December 1951) is an American–British journalist and author. Bryson has written a number of nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science. Born in the United States, he has b ...

Project Mohole

The real

Project Mohole Project Mohole was an attempt in the early 1960s to drill through the Earth's crust to obtain samples of the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or Moho, the boundary between the Earth's crust and mantle. The project was intended to provide an eart ...

was an American project to sink a bore-hole through 15,000 ft of the Earth's crust into the

Mohorovičić discontinuity The Mohorovičić discontinuity ( , ), usually referred to as the Moho discontinuity or the Moho, is the boundary between the Earth's crust and the mantle. It is defined by the distinct change in velocity of seismic waves as they pass through ch ...

or "Moho". The project came to be called the "No Hole", and was discontinued by the US Congress in 1966 due to ever-rising costs and the fact that they had only managed to drill to a depth of 601 ft.

References

External links

The Mohole Mystery page
1968 British novels 1968 science fiction novels Chris Godfrey of U.N.E.X.A. series Faber and Faber books Novels set in the West Midlands (county) Novels set in subterranea {{1960s-ya-novel-stub