What do you think?
Rate this book
Usborne Puzzle Adventures #14
Search for the Sunken City
Join Flic, Toby and Uncle Ollie as they are plunged into a perilous adventure. They encounter danger above and below the waves when they set sail in their search for a legendary sunken city.
48 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1989
2 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 31, 2021
I loved this book as a kid and when my brother and I recently remembered it, I bought a copy off eBay. Let me tell you, this thing made me furious.
To successfully solve one maze you have to decide the characters can tie a creeper to a boulder first. Why would I assume that’s an option when no other maze I’ve done in my entire life permitted that sort of thing?
One puzzle has you reconstruct a statue - one piece of the statue is clearly a left arm but the solution says that the arm attaches to the right shoulder. Just sloppy artwork that had me scouring the page for an entirety for something that wasn’t there.
Another puzzle has you trying to work out which building you need to go to by deciphering some kind of code; the solution tells you which building is correct without explaining the rationale behind the solution.
Two different puzzles have you piece together a torn up letter or some such with the pieces scattered across the page. Without photocopying and cutting out these pieces to reassemble them like a puzzle, I don’t know how you would solve these. My brain just doesn’t work that way. It’s less of a brain teaser and more an impossible task.
I enjoyed the nostalgia of revisiting this book but it wasn’t enough to get me past my abject rage at the sloppiness of parts of it.
To successfully solve one maze you have to decide the characters can tie a creeper to a boulder first. Why would I assume that’s an option when no other maze I’ve done in my entire life permitted that sort of thing?
One puzzle has you reconstruct a statue - one piece of the statue is clearly a left arm but the solution says that the arm attaches to the right shoulder. Just sloppy artwork that had me scouring the page for an entirety for something that wasn’t there.
Another puzzle has you trying to work out which building you need to go to by deciphering some kind of code; the solution tells you which building is correct without explaining the rationale behind the solution.
Two different puzzles have you piece together a torn up letter or some such with the pieces scattered across the page. Without photocopying and cutting out these pieces to reassemble them like a puzzle, I don’t know how you would solve these. My brain just doesn’t work that way. It’s less of a brain teaser and more an impossible task.
I enjoyed the nostalgia of revisiting this book but it wasn’t enough to get me past my abject rage at the sloppiness of parts of it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
August 19, 2023Despite being by a different author, this book contains three of the same puzzles as the first Usborne Puzzle Adventure I read: a torn-up letter puzzle (two of them!), a map puzzle, and a maze. It also throws in a cryptic crossword clue which felt like it’d be a little much for a ten-year-old reader, let alone me.
Some of the puzzles were pretty loose, both in defining what they were looking for and in what the answer was. As an adult, it’s whatever (okay, it’s not, it annoyed me), but as a child who wanted the satisfaction of solving everything I would’ve hated that. I have a feeling in the back of my brain that this is why I stopped reading these books in the first place…
Still, I liked this one. The story was enjoyable and the illustrations weren’t bad.
Some of the puzzles were pretty loose, both in defining what they were looking for and in what the answer was. As an adult, it’s whatever (okay, it’s not, it annoyed me), but as a child who wanted the satisfaction of solving everything I would’ve hated that. I have a feeling in the back of my brain that this is why I stopped reading these books in the first place…
Still, I liked this one. The story was enjoyable and the illustrations weren’t bad.
February 3, 2024
A nossa turma da 3ª Série já estava completamente fissurada por essa coleção quando veio a novidade: saíram dois livros novos! Eram "O espião invisível" e esse "A cidade submersa", livro que depois eu ganharia no meu aniversário de 10 anos e tenho até hoje. Era tão legal quanto o restante da coleção!
June 10, 2019
Two children end up tangling with looters when looking for a hidden city.
The basic story and graphics were good, some of the quiz elements were a bit too clever.
Reading time around thirty minutes.
The basic story and graphics were good, some of the quiz elements were a bit too clever.
Reading time around thirty minutes.
December 12, 2021
The Usborne Puzzle adventures were brilliant as a kid and they still stand up. Fun, engaging stories with great artwork and decently challenging problems for the target age group.
February 8, 2026
I remember this was one of the first Usborne Adventure books that I owned.
Flic (great name!) and Toby are staying with their uncle Oli who asks their help to find a lost city but other people are greedy and want to stop him.
This is an excellent book. I solved quite a few of the puzzles in this one! The setting really works and it is tricky to work out which characters are on your side which gives it an added dimension.
Flic (great name!) and Toby are staying with their uncle Oli who asks their help to find a lost city but other people are greedy and want to stop him.
This is an excellent book. I solved quite a few of the puzzles in this one! The setting really works and it is tricky to work out which characters are on your side which gives it an added dimension.
January 8, 2012
Borrowed from a co-worker, had this laying around in the office. Started reading out of curiosity but end up getting hooked. Strangely, I got mad when people disturb me while I was solving the puzzles, even though I read this in office lol
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews