While Americans looked up to the moon, the Soviets looked down. In the frozen wastes of the Kola Peninsula, they spent 20 years drilling the deepest hole in history. The goal was the mantle. They reached 12,262 meters (7.6 miles) before the laws of physics stopped them.

This book documents the engineering marvel of the Kola Superdeep Borehole. It debunks the urban legend that they "heard the screams of hell," but the scientific reality was stranger: At that depth, rock behaves like plastic, and water exists where it shouldn't. It is a story of extreme engineering, Cold War rivalry, and the crushing heat that protects the Earth's secrets.