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Hal & Roger Hunt Adventures #11
Diving Adventure
Teens Hal and Roger Hunt stay in Undersea City, 200' below Australia's Great Barrier Reef, to find rare species for dad's Long Island collection, and ways to produce food from sea. They face coral cuts, man-eating sharks, killer whales, giant squid, other dangers. When they find sunken treasure, villain Kaggs starts a landslide, proves deadlier than sea creatures.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
2 people are currently reading
113 people want to read
About the author
Willard Price
142 books77 followersWillard DeMille Price was born in Peterborough, Ontario, and moved to the US when he was four. He got his MA and Litt.D from Columbia. He held a special interest for natural history, ethnology and exploration and made numerous expeditions for the American Museum of Natural History and the National Geographic Society. Price also went on to edit various magazines on travel and world affairs and spent six years working in Japan as foreign correspondent for New York and London newspapers. He travelled in seventy-seven countries before his death in 1983.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 2, 2020
I really enjoyed this whole series,I do not normally read adventure books but these were really interesting.
July 28, 2020
Whilst the main part of the Hunt’s business is capturing animals for zoos and other collections, this series of books has actually been more interesting when they have been involved with scientists. That is again what happens in “Diving Adventure”, although I can’t help but wonder if the titles for this and “Underwater Adventure” would have been better the other way around, given how the books turned out, plotwise.
Following their adventures collecting animals in Africa, the Hunt brothers have returned to the water, to work as naturalists for Dr. Dick, head of Undersea City, an experimental town built under the sea on the Great Barrier Reef. They have been hired to seek out ways of catching fish for food, as that is one of the resources the world is short of. Things become a little complicated when they discover their roommate is to be Merlin Kaggs, the man who left them for dead in “South Sea Adventure”, but who appears to be a changed character and is now pastor of the undersea church.
This novel seems to be built, as with many of the novels in this series, in two parts, only one of which is particularly interesting. In the early section when the brothers are looking for ways to catch fish more easily, it’s fascinating, if a little brief on information and a little too quickly paced for anything to happen in detail, which is a shame. The poison collecting is a little more akin to the animal capture sections from previous books, although the threats they face seem to be underplayed and there’s not much that suggests the boys are in any danger, which removes much of the tension from the novel.
It is the rest of the book which is a let down by comparison, as it skips around between sub-plots and none of them are terribly fulfilling. The trip to see the Mariana Trench is interesting from an information point of view, but the actual journey seems to have been forced to be exciting to distract the reader from the fact that it doesn’t really fit. Even worse is the sub-plot at the end with the ship, which feels tacked on in the way the ending of “Gorilla Adventure” did and seemed far too easily resolved.
I had hoped that having a returning antagonist might assist with character building, which has always been a weakness in this series, but that wasn’t to be. Apart from the link between the two, there is little to suggest Kaggs and the Hunts have met before and if you’ve not read “South Sea Adventure”, the references will be lost on you. Supposedly a reformed character, there is nothing that suggests this and he slips back into the familiar Kaggs too easily considering what he is now supposed to be. There is the addition of a secondary potential antagonist, but he is treated so poorly in terms of space in the novel that he might as well not exist.
Perhaps one of the worst things here is a complete lack of continuity, not just in the Kaggs character building, but also elsewhere. When they are looking to use electricity to kill the fish, there is a conversation between the Hunt brothers which contradicts information they learned in “Whale Adventure”, as if Price himself had lost track of what the boys have learned in their adventures. There have been a couple of moments in other novels that seemed familiar in terms of the information presented, but here the conversation seemed repeated almost verbatim and it’s the exact opposite of the Kaggs situation, whereby not having read previous novels would then be a benefit.
This is a strange novel in many ways, as whilst parts of it are very interesting and potentially more educational than many of the others in the series, it feels like a missed opportunity in others. There are several repeated sections and revisited characters and sub-plots, none of which are written well enough to be entirely fulfilling. It is a book of contrasts, with some of the better storytelling in the first half and some of the most wasted opportunities in the second, leaving me feeling rather more ambivalent about it than many of the others.
Following their adventures collecting animals in Africa, the Hunt brothers have returned to the water, to work as naturalists for Dr. Dick, head of Undersea City, an experimental town built under the sea on the Great Barrier Reef. They have been hired to seek out ways of catching fish for food, as that is one of the resources the world is short of. Things become a little complicated when they discover their roommate is to be Merlin Kaggs, the man who left them for dead in “South Sea Adventure”, but who appears to be a changed character and is now pastor of the undersea church.
This novel seems to be built, as with many of the novels in this series, in two parts, only one of which is particularly interesting. In the early section when the brothers are looking for ways to catch fish more easily, it’s fascinating, if a little brief on information and a little too quickly paced for anything to happen in detail, which is a shame. The poison collecting is a little more akin to the animal capture sections from previous books, although the threats they face seem to be underplayed and there’s not much that suggests the boys are in any danger, which removes much of the tension from the novel.
It is the rest of the book which is a let down by comparison, as it skips around between sub-plots and none of them are terribly fulfilling. The trip to see the Mariana Trench is interesting from an information point of view, but the actual journey seems to have been forced to be exciting to distract the reader from the fact that it doesn’t really fit. Even worse is the sub-plot at the end with the ship, which feels tacked on in the way the ending of “Gorilla Adventure” did and seemed far too easily resolved.
I had hoped that having a returning antagonist might assist with character building, which has always been a weakness in this series, but that wasn’t to be. Apart from the link between the two, there is little to suggest Kaggs and the Hunts have met before and if you’ve not read “South Sea Adventure”, the references will be lost on you. Supposedly a reformed character, there is nothing that suggests this and he slips back into the familiar Kaggs too easily considering what he is now supposed to be. There is the addition of a secondary potential antagonist, but he is treated so poorly in terms of space in the novel that he might as well not exist.
Perhaps one of the worst things here is a complete lack of continuity, not just in the Kaggs character building, but also elsewhere. When they are looking to use electricity to kill the fish, there is a conversation between the Hunt brothers which contradicts information they learned in “Whale Adventure”, as if Price himself had lost track of what the boys have learned in their adventures. There have been a couple of moments in other novels that seemed familiar in terms of the information presented, but here the conversation seemed repeated almost verbatim and it’s the exact opposite of the Kaggs situation, whereby not having read previous novels would then be a benefit.
This is a strange novel in many ways, as whilst parts of it are very interesting and potentially more educational than many of the others in the series, it feels like a missed opportunity in others. There are several repeated sections and revisited characters and sub-plots, none of which are written well enough to be entirely fulfilling. It is a book of contrasts, with some of the better storytelling in the first half and some of the most wasted opportunities in the second, leaving me feeling rather more ambivalent about it than many of the others.
June 10, 2019
Hilariously anthropocentric and improbable. Many of the other books in the series could be renamed Racism Adventure, a fact Price's descendants recognise in the foreword; not such a big deal among the white, mostly male residents of Undersea City, although being picked off in alarming numbers by a pesky (and soon-to-be-dead) shark might be of more concern. I thought these books were absolutely brilliant when I was a kid! Well, I'm really happy for past me finding an author and characters to love, but the past is where they belong.
January 28, 2021
Rather a flat contribution to the series which is petering out.
Hal andRoger find themselves in an underground city near the Great Barrier Reef where they train dolphins, collect specimens for poison to use in medicines and animals for father's zoo.
They go in a sub to the deepest point in the ocean, the Mariana Trench and layer find a wreck with loads of gold. The baddie is easily caught and arrested.
The author just seemed to go through the motions with this one.
Hal andRoger find themselves in an underground city near the Great Barrier Reef where they train dolphins, collect specimens for poison to use in medicines and animals for father's zoo.
They go in a sub to the deepest point in the ocean, the Mariana Trench and layer find a wreck with loads of gold. The baddie is easily caught and arrested.
The author just seemed to go through the motions with this one.
April 27, 2018
Very special book in Adventure's.
December 7, 2020
Bonkers bonkers bonkers. And really quite outdated.
March 27, 2019
Action, adventure, survival, environment, conservation...
I loved these books when I was a kid. At the time, they seemed to border on sci-fi regarding the at-the-time-amazing technology the boys used.
Of course, looking back you can see how these stories are flawed, but I still think they are enjoyable. In fact, it would make for a really interesting middle school science project for children to read one of these books and then compare them with the knowledge of the world and technology we have today.
I loved these books when I was a kid. At the time, they seemed to border on sci-fi regarding the at-the-time-amazing technology the boys used.
Of course, looking back you can see how these stories are flawed, but I still think they are enjoyable. In fact, it would make for a really interesting middle school science project for children to read one of these books and then compare them with the knowledge of the world and technology we have today.
January 6, 2021
Willard Price returns beneath the waves for the next thrilling adventure in the series, this time at Australia's Great Barrier Reef. This is the only book that embraces fantasy full-on with its fictitious Underwater City where civilians live out their daily lives. Although a city of this scale never existed, the idea was inspired by the Sealab experiments that ran throughout the 1960s by the US navy to create livable, breathable underwater habitats. The whole project was eventually scrapped after a sabotage and murder attempt by a mentally unbalanced crew member, a plot worthy of a Willard Price novel! There is a certain charm to the book's naive optimism for using the ocean to solve man's problems. We have not reaped a bountiful harvest from the sea to cure world hunger, nor have we addressed problems of overcrowding.
The weakness of this book is Price forgetting details from previous adventures. For instance, discoveries about the killer whale meant that he retconned the scene in Whale Adventure where a pod attacks the boys. Perhaps he hoped readers wouldn't be reading the books in sequence, or notice. The new killer whale is portrayed as a human-loving, overgrown dolphin that can be trained by sticking one's head in its mouth. There are various instances of the characters suffering from plot amnesia and relearning things they already discovered. The villainous pearl trader Merlin Kaggs makes a reappearance, posing once again as a missionary, but he's rather underused this time round. The scenes with the boys collecting poisonous specimens and being stung in the process is definitely the highlight.
The weakness of this book is Price forgetting details from previous adventures. For instance, discoveries about the killer whale meant that he retconned the scene in Whale Adventure where a pod attacks the boys. Perhaps he hoped readers wouldn't be reading the books in sequence, or notice. The new killer whale is portrayed as a human-loving, overgrown dolphin that can be trained by sticking one's head in its mouth. There are various instances of the characters suffering from plot amnesia and relearning things they already discovered. The villainous pearl trader Merlin Kaggs makes a reappearance, posing once again as a missionary, but he's rather underused this time round. The scenes with the boys collecting poisonous specimens and being stung in the process is definitely the highlight.
May 10, 2009
This book is fun, if highly improbable. For example, Hal manages to impart a lengthy discourse on the habits of sharks while the submersible he and Roger are in is attacked by a tiger shark. However, the locations and action are good, and the book as a whole evokes the SeaLab era, where undersea exploration was seen as a viable means of solving mankind's problems.
December 10, 2016
I remember loving one of this series when I was a kid - they were stranded on a desert island. This one, reading it for the first time as an adult, I wasn't so keen on - guns and exploiting the ocean. I wouldn't give it to a child.
August 18, 2007
i learned about more sea creatures (giant octopus and giant squid) and what to do when they try to eat us - wow i don't know our food is big enough to eat us when they fight back.
June 28, 2016
I wrote a review! http://www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blo...
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March 3, 2011eh...ternyata ada diving adventure juga...
ah...ini harus dicari...^_^
ah...ini harus dicari...^_^
January 2, 2013
Book is good
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 26, 2015
I love this series! Willard Price makes animals and their habitats so intersting and fun to read about :) and its a nice easy read ;)
October 21, 2010
This is definitely the best book of the Adventure Series by Willard Price.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews