Here you will find the largest collection of Verne’s "Extraordinary Voyages" available in English (47 novels). The novels are in the chronological order of their original publication.
- Five Weeks in a Balloon - The Adventures of Captain Hatteras - Journey to the Center of the Earth - From the Earth to the Moon - In Search of the Castaways - Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea - Around The Moon - A Floating City - The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa - The Fur Country - Around the World in Eighty Days - The Mysterious Island - The Survivors of the Chancellor - Michael Strogoff - Hector Servadac - The Underground City - Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen - The Five Hundred Millions of the Begum - Tribulations of a Chinaman in China - The Steam House - Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon - Godfrey Morgan - The Green Ray - Kéraban the Inflexible - The Star of the South - The Archipelago on Fire - Mathias Sandorf - The Lottery Ticket - Robur the Conqueror - North Against South - The Flight to France - Two Years' Vacation - Family Without a Name - The Purchase of the North Pole - Caesar Cascabel - Mistress Branican - The Castle of the Carpathians - Claudius Bombarnac - Foundling Mick - Captain Antifer - Floating Island - Facing the Flag - Clovis Dardentor - An Antarctic Mystery - The Will of an Eccentric - The Master of the World - The Chase of the Golden Meteor
Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before people invented navigable aircraft and practical submarines and devised any means of spacecraft. He ranks behind Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie as the second most translated author of all time. People made his prominent films. People often refer to Verne alongside Herbert George Wells as the "father of science fiction."
This is a very large collection of stories written by Jules Verne. His early stories were great but the later stories were less interesting. The reason I gave this collection 3 stars is that the stories sometimes difficult to understand but there is that 19th century view of science and nature that made it interesting for me. The best stories are 20 Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Mysterious Island and the two stories about a journey to the moon and the return.
Around the World in 80 Days was the best. I followed the journey with the map applications on my computer to better see how the journey made its course around the world.
Mysterious Island can be thought as a serious version of Gilligan's Isle. The method of how the the men got to the island does not hold up in current thinking, but the work the men did is almost believable. The mystery was an unseen beneficial being who helped them survive without more than a suspicion by the survivors.
20 Thousand Leagues under the Sea was interesting in that the ship was able to dive deeply using electric power that was used to power the craft and also provide weapons.
Some of the stories are interesting because of the way he had engineers in the stories work out all aspects to be successful. The journey to the moon was how to shoot an object at the moon and how to make that object comfortable for a few men to survive the shock of the explosives as well as having provisions for food and a way to scrub CO2 from the air. Other engineering problems like making primitive tools to make better tools showing how resourceful people can be.
Much of his stories are about heroic actions in the face of unseen hostile actions. People striving towards a goal or an action that requires bravery and strength of character. Too often the stories get tedious with too much details. Verne wrote for the time period he lived.
I have been revisiting one of my favorite writers reading six of his works. FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON was Vernes' first novel, inauguerating the series Voyages Extraordinary. There is not much plot, what there is being a vessel for lessons in African history, geography, and biology. Not bad, but it gets tedious after a while. It also introduces the plot device of the main character having an eccentric servant. AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS. Here wealth British gentleman Philias Fogg wagers a fortune he can travel around the world in 80 days. Still a lot of lessons thrust upon the reader, but more plot. 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. One of Viernes best known books, we meet the fascinating Captain Nemo, sailing the submarine Nautilus on a mission of vengence. MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. Five Union POWs flee Richmond in a balloon during a hurricane eventually landing on an island in the Pacific. The novel details their survival, aided by a mysterious figure. This is probably my favorite Verne novel. ROBUR THE CONQUEROR. Advocates of the lighter than air ships as the future of aviation are carried off in a heavier than air craft, the Albatross. The inventor, Robur, gives them an education in reality which they refuse to accept. Kiddies to the end. MASTER OF THE WORLD, a sequel to ROBUR THE CONQUEROR, has the world being mystified by several machines that are far in advance of anything any country has.. Federal Detective John Strock is sent to investigate.. This and ROBUR are the best plotted Verse titles I have read in this marathon. All in all these are well worth readng, A pleasant trip into the early days of Science Fiction.
It is good to see Verne in historical perspective. Five Weeks In A Balloon, an early and less-sophisticated work, was his breakout hit. And set a pattern for much later work. High technology traveling machine. Supercharged balloon. Cannonball to the moon. Steam Elephant(house). Nautilus world-roaming submarine, which later morphs to drive and fly. Meanwhile Jules did other work. His account of the mutiny on the Bounty (strangely titled in this edition) is a super straightforward account of events without the overlay of later legal and motion-picture re-boots.
The English transcriptions are very clean, few typos. And I have seen much worse translations; many English editions of Verne do not do the author justice. Many English translations of Verne are under copyright so there is a huge chunk of original French in the e-file. As this huge e-file is already a choker on my (10th gen 4GB) Kindle, stalling and locking every few days, I wish the French had been moved to a second file.
Nope, sorry! Even with the audio book it is incredibly boring and I really don't want to continue reading or listening to it.
It began so well, I was really enjoying it up to the point where they discovered the submarine. 5 chapter describing the interior is far far too much!!! And the tedium continues from there!
It's a shame because I'd really like to see them find the sea creature that's attacking boats, but that desire is not strong enough to listed to the last 4 hours of the audio book. Even when I double to speed.
Around the World in 80 Days:
Love this one, I read the Folio Society edition and loved it then too. The ending is completely predictable but the journey getting there is so much fun! Full of colour, mishaps and rescue missions. It's written beautifully, besides the chaff about ships and trains, and I really loved the characters.
Does everything hold up? Does he write women well? Well... no. But what context does Vernes work give to history. The rise of mechanization, industrialization, imperialism, the West's venture into parts of the world unknown. See how the clichés of the past were formed? The exotic orient, deep dark Africa, the canabil islanders. Also Vernes hope on humanity and logic. A must read for any humanist. Sci Fi? No. Adventure? Yes everytime
On the books to read sometime in your life list...
What can one say? It's freaking Jules Verne...classic must read stories from a classic sci-fi writer before there even was such a thing as sci-fi...this was considered as fantasy by most.
Aventuras para adolescentes nacidos antes de la era digital
Obras de ficción escritas cuando la única herramienta de la mente era la imaginación. Hoy pueden parecer obsoletas pero leídas con la perspectiva del nacimiento de la era industrial siempre serán aventuras imposibles.