Into the Deep Unknown

Level A1 to A2

3rd year of learning / 7th grade
750 words

Environment / Adventure / Thriller

The story takes place at the beginning of the 1950s. The father of the 'Wild Twins,' Abbie and Alex, is a marine scientist and inventor. With his own bathysphere, he wants to break Beebe and Barton's 1932 record for deep-sea diving and reach new, unknown depths. Abbie and Alex are there for the first dives in Bermuda, as is Major Starr, who is working on the development of his own bathysphere and eagerly follows Wild's progress. Finally, the big day arrives when the record is to be challenged, but the attempt seems to be dogged by bad luck from the start: a technician falls ill, the telephone connection, and finally the electricity fail. Alex and his father float helplessly in the 1000-meter deep sea. Has someone sabotaged the vessel? Will Abbie be able to catch the saboteur and bring her father and brother safely to the surface?

Alan Milson is the pen name of a writer of science fiction screenplays and suspense novels for adults. Ever since childhood, when he read H.G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds' about Martians invading the Earth and saw late-night movies about BEMs (Bug-Eyed Monsters), he has been fascinated by stories of creatures from other planets. Alan has lived in many countries and knows what it is like to be an 'alien,' to feel like the odd person out, to struggle with a language, and to be stared at as a curiosity. No, he doesn't have bug-eyes himself, and children don't run screaming when they see him coming, but he does think people should try to make more effort to understand those who don't look or talk like them. And one day he would like to be there when humans make first contact with an alien race, as he thinks they will. What about you?.