The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Stories

by Mike Ashley

A hundred years after the death of Jules Verne, the founding father of science fiction, The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures celebrates his amazing vision. A host of top science fiction authors pay homage to Verne's genius with a series of breathtaking stories using as a springboard his iconic ideas and characters. Collected in this anthology of Extraordinary Voyages are stories of intrigue and adventure set in the four corners of the globe, and even within it. Stories set in the past, present and future - tales that will delight with the same sense of wonder conjured by Jules Verne in such novels as Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea..

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Steampunk, Anthologies, Adventure, Fiction, Speculative Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is the author and editor of over sixty books that in total have sold over a million copies worldwide. He lives in Chatham, Kent.

Reviews

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology of 23 short stories was published on the centenary of Jules Verne's death. These stories all pay homage to Verne and his works, using as starting points his ideas, novels, characters, and also his life. All of the stories were well written, most of them were good, with interesting concepts and/or worldbuilding. The two stories I didn't particularly enjoy were due to my personal preference. It would no doubt be helpful to have some familiarity with Verne's more famous tales, but knowledge of his more obscure stories are not required to enjoy this collection, as the editor provides a brief recap of all the salient points, as necessary. This is an entertaining collection which I'm happy to add to my personal library.


***********POSSIBLE SPOILERS************



⚙️The Drama on the Railway by Stephen Baxter: [★★★☆☆]
The introductory paragraph explains this story the best: "We are all the products of our childhood and one may wonder just what events the young Jules-Gabriel Verne witnessed that later fired his imagination for his great adventure stories. Here, as a prelude to those later adventures, Stephen Baxter takes a flight of fancy to Verne's infancy and the dawn of the railways." This was a fun little introductory story to the collection.

⚙️Jehan Thun's Quest by Brian Stableford [★★★★☆]
This is a tale that explores events a generation or two (after the St. Bartholomew Massacre) after those events described in Jules Verne story "The Watch's Soul". This is a fairly interesting and atmospheric story involving printer-turned-watch-maker Jehan Thun's quest for his grandfather's presumably cursed clock and has something to say about the tenacity of superstition in the face of rising technological invention.
I tracked down the original story: HERE and HERE.

⚙️Six Weeks in a Balloon by Eric Brown [★★★★☆] An exploration of the effects of the novel 'Five Weeks in a Balloon' on history/politics if the general populace assumed the novel was a factual account. An all too relevant examination of propaganda, truth, and fiction.

⚙️Londre au XXIe Siècle by James Lovegrove [★★★★☆]
London in the 21st Century is a fire-singed and fragmented sequel to Jules Verne's posthumously published (but not written - it was his second completed novel) Paris in the 20th Century. Lovegroves London in the 21st Century is evocative and features interesting future predictions (the short story is about two decades old by now) that seem terribly accurate. This satire is clever and poignant.

⚙️Giant Dwarfs by Ian Watson [★★★⯪☆]
This fast-paced adventure paying homage to 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth', follows the intrepid Mademoiselle Hortense and her lover, Captain Pierre Marc-Antoine Dumont d'Urville, (along with some other people including an obnoxious minor writer named Jules Verne) down a sink-hole and along a series of underground tunnels for an astonishing series of encounters with troglodytes, dinosaurs, time-slipped military Germans (no guesses on the identity of this group) and a group of dwarfs with a fondness for kidnapping. A fun little romp to the centre of the Earth.

⚙️Cliff Rhodes and the Most Important Journey: A Land at the End of the Working Day Story by Peter Crowther [★★☆☆☆]
This is a story about "journeys" of adventure. A bit philosophical. The writing style didn't really appeal to me, nor the story.

⚙️The True Story of Barbicane's Voyage by Laurent Genefort [★★★★☆]
This story provides an account of an event omitted from Verne's Journey to the Moon and Journey Around the Moon. Verne's intrepid adventurers didn't merely travel around the Moon, they actually landed on it, and were sworn to secrecy about what they found there. This one was very entertaining, very Verne and I liked how the Selenites fit into other classical lunar adventures.

⚙️Columbiad by Stephen Baxter [★★★★☆]
Barbicane, Verne's lunar explorer, is now on his way to Mars. And his fellow explorer Ardan regrets not going along, as he explains to ... another author of classical science fiction stories. This twist at the end was brilliant!

⚙️Tableux by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre [★★⯪☆☆]
I didn't particularly like this story. Jules Verne and his brother are on a trip to the U.S.A, and Jules has hallucinatory experiences, that are actually the unintended effects of a message from the future. I assume the reader is supposed to assume that this is how Jules Verne acquired some of his writing ideas. 🤷🏻‍♀️

⚙️The Secret of the Nautilus by Michael Mallory [★★★★☆]
This story tells us more about Captain Nemo's history, as well as giving the reader an entertaining adventure in pursuit of purloined documents that would be dangerous in the wrong hands.

⚙️Doctor Bull's Intervention by Keith Brooke [★★★★☆]
This story is in homage to Verne's satire 'Dr. Ox's Experiment'. Sunny Meadows is a lethargic little town... until Dr. Bull starts meddling with the instantaneous NutriMent Food supply (although it sounds more like a pastry and dessert supply). Funny and charming, and a very good spoof of the original novella.

⚙️The Very First Affair by Johan Heliot [★★★★☆]
This story is based on 'Around the World in 80 Days'. The story is told from the perspective of a very indignant Passepartout, which is apparently not his true name, who was hired by the French Information Services to keep an eye on the enigmatic and mysterious Phileas Fogg on his absurd trip around the world. Apparently Phileas Fogg is a talented medium with a fascination for his pocket watch, and an extracurricular activity of contacting his doubles in other worlds. And it is not just a wager to see if Fogg can travel around the world, but also a Game between Good and Evil. The story has an interesting concept and a nice twist at the end. This also looks like the story was used as a basis for a novel by another author: The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip José Farmer.

⚙️Eighty Letters, Plus One by Kevin J. Anderson & Sarah A. Hoyt [★★★★☆]
This is a retelling of 'Around the World in 80 Days', told from the perspective of the slightly pompous and obsessed Inspector-Detective Fix, via letters to his wife The story has lovely evocative descriptions of all the destinations in the novel, not to mention an amusing ending.

⚙️The Adventurers' League by Justina Robson [★★★⯪☆]
This is a futuristic science-fiction story based on 'The Mysterious Island", and looks ahead to the inspiration that the novel and character of Captain Nemo gave to future generations. A journalist gets abandoned on a very unusual island where he is introduced to the "Adventurous League and Dance Club of the Ocean, which is the sea and pledged to defend her wealth and nurture her children, we adventure in body and spirit within her, we danced to her music", and given secret details of a potential extra-terrestrial weapon. I loved the concept of Forged people and the Originals/Unevolved. Of course, there is tension when you have two separate groups of people with wildly different needs living together. The plot is a bit vague, but I loved the concept.

⚙️Hector Servadac, fils by Adam Roberts [★★★☆☆]
Off On a Comet or Hector Servadac was Verne's 1877 fantastical and dreamlike publication in which the Earth is struck by a comet and a chunk of it are carried away into space, and the unfortunate inhabitants of the chunk attempt to return to the Earth by balloon. In this dreamlike story, Hector Junior goes home to find his father preparing a doomsday commune/cult awaiting an asteroid impact. The story is an examination of reality. It looks like this short story was developed into a novel title Splinter in which the central event is the sudden detachment of a portion of Earth, including the ranch where Hector Servadac's father resides, during the impact. This splinter of Earth, complete with its inhabitants and atmosphere, embarks on a journey through space, much like in Verne's original novel. I may have to track down both the original Vernse novel and Adam Roberts' Splinter.

⚙️The Mysterious Iowans by Paul Di Filippo [★★★☆☆]
This story features the Nautilus (Nemo would be turning in his grave!!) and Robur from 'Clipper of the Clouds'. HERE and HERE. Robur, like Captain Nemo, is on a vengeful mission against the world, only Robur makes use of a flying machine known as the Albatross. This story highlights Verne's growing pessimistic attitude to scientific advancement - he saw the need for progress but was aware of its dangers and the need to proceed cautiously. It is set in a city known far and wide as Lincolnopolos, "the capital of the enigmatic sovereign empire known as Lincoln Island, a dominion incongruously situated in the vast heartland of the United States of America, bounded roughly by the borders of what had once been the state of Iowa". Lincoln Island seems to have become a blockade to global technological advancement. The juxtaposition of 19th century dress and culture against a more futuristic Lincolnopolos is fascinatingly jarring. The ending was unexpected.

⚙️Old Light by Tim Lebbon [★★★★☆]
This story pays homage to 'The Castle of the Carpathians', a gothic romance set in Transylvania and featuring a genius scientist. A few generations in the future, a descendant of that genius scientist comes into possession of an archaic flashlight/torch via mysterious means. The torch illuminates the future, or more specifically, how someone dies. The descendant is all in a dither about this and decides to discuss the matter with his former wife. 'Old Light' is a delightfully atmospheric gothic romance in which "old light" can mean several things.

⚙️The Selene Gardening Society by Molly Brown [★★★★⯪]
This story features the Baltimore Gun Club members 20 years after their Purchase of the North Pole and attempt to get rid of the arctic glacier ended in disaster. Maston takes up gardening of the destructive kind, much to the annoyance of his wife. In an attempt to get her garden back, her friends suggested she get the old club back together and give the men something constructive to do. And so the "Selene Gardening Society" was borne - the attempt to turn the Moon into a Garden of Eden with the purpose of having humans living there eventually. This story features a wonderful cast of women and the solution of a growing problem via early and experimental (theoretical?) attempts at terraforming. Absolutely brilliant.

⚙️A Matter of Mathematics by Tony Ballantyne [★★★★☆]
Another story featuring the hubris of human desire to control nature - in this case, to influence the axial tilt of the Earth. This is an amusing tale of sabotage gone wrong... and the wiles of women, robotic or otherwise... not to mention a little matter of mathematics. A fairly amusing story with a charming ending.

⚙️The Secret of the Sahara by Richard A. Lupoff [★★★★⯪]
This tale tells of the possibly discovery of lost pre-Egyptian or Ancient Egyptian civilization beneath the sands of the Sahara expedited by the creation of the sea in the Sahara as described in Jules Verne's story 'The Invasion of the Sea'. This exciting jaunt of archaeological exploration requires a submarine journey to reach a specific channel under the Saharan Sea, which becomes a dry bit of land during for a few hours on the imminent and unique conjunction between the lunar and solar attractions that control earthly tides. This Lovecraftian-flavoured story presses several of my button and also involves a warrior cat. I enjoyed it very much and wish that Lupoff had turned this into a novel. The original story can be found HERE and the wikipedia summary HERE.

⚙️The Golden Quest by Sharan Newman [★★★⯪☆]
This story is based on Verne's 'The Chase of the Golden Meteor' or 'The Meteor Hunt', originally published posthumously in 1908. The original story involves another 'mad scientist' inventing a "tractor beam" device and capturing a meteorite of solid gold. When the scientist realises the global financial consequences of this he ensures that the meteorite falls into the ocean. Once again, this story showcases Verne's opinion that humans cannot cope with scientific progress. Sharan Newman explores if the scientist is correct in his assessment of humanity and what might have happened. This story involves paying a visit to H.G. Wells, because who else are you going to ask when you need a time machine? Wiki summary of the original story is HERE (because I couldn't find a freebee version).

⚙️The True Story of Wilhelm Storitz by Michael Pagel [★★★☆☆]
This story refers to 'The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz', which is Verne's version of the Invisible Man story via the aid of an invisibility elixir. Michael Pagel explores the links between Verne's story and that of H.G. Wells' 'The Invisible Man', with a bit of time travel tossed in, and narrates how the secret of invisibility fell into Storitz's hands. A bit muddled, but makes the dangers of misusing science perfectly clear. The original story was also fairly entertaining and can be found HERE.

⚙️The Shoal by Liz Williams [★★★☆☆]
The following story was inspired by a visit to the Jules Verne Museum in the city of Nantes, where Verne was born. This is a brief examination of the future and the past. An interesting idea celebrating the inspiration that Verne provided.

[Farseer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This British anthology, published on the centenary of Verne’s death, presents twenty-three stories in homage to the French master of adventure. The stories use as a starting point the works of Jules Verne, his ideas, stories and characters and the life of the man himself.

The book is subtitled "Return to the Center of the Earth and Other Extraordinary Voyages, New Tales by the Heirs of Jules Verne". None of the stories are titled "Return to the Center of the Earth", though. That's just the title of the introductory essay.

I have to admit I'm always a bit suspicious of this kind of "homage" anthologies, as I feel that most of the writers involved just produce a story on demand without it being really inspired. But let's not judge before the fact and look at the actual contents of the book:

A DRAMA ON THE RAILWAY by Stephen Baxter: The author Stephen Baxter is given an old manuscript written by a young lady who, sometime in the early 1830s, gets the chance to go on the inaugural trip of the new Liverpool - Manchester railroad. Among the other guests, there's a French lawyer and his wife and young boy. The boy, whom the lady writer calls Julie Venn, is clearly meant to be Jules Verne. During the trip, there's an incident where the British Prime Minister, also present for the inauguration, almost loses his life. Little Jules unwittingly plays a role in saving him. The story is very short, and it's meant as a homage to the technological innovations that changed the world so much during Verne's lifetime, in this case represented by the steam trains. It's a pleasant read, without being outstanding.

JEHAN THUN’S QUEST by Brian Stableford: This is a sequel to Verne's "Master Zacharius", a short story included in the collection "Dr Ox". It's a story that Verne wrote when he was very young, years before his first novel. Writing a sequel may seem an odd choice for a collection like this, given that "Master Zacharius" is not a typical Verne work. The Verne story in question is a fantasy tale in the style of E.T.A. Hoffman or Edgar Alan Poe, about a very skilled watchmaker who may be putting his soul into his watches, in a too literal manner. In this sequel, the watchmaker's great-grandson travels to the Château of Andernatt, a now abandoned building in the Alps where Zacharius' story ended. His great-grandson hopes to look for the remains of a legendary watch his ancestor made and perhaps ascertain the truth of the dark legends that surround his family. It's a nice, thoughtful read, perhaps not as unsettling as Verne's story but I appreciated the author's attempt to pay homage to human progress and technology. In Stableford's own words, "Master Zacharius" was "one of the earliest stories Verne wrote, and embodies ideas that he subsequently set firmly aside; this sequel is, I think, far more Vernian in the best sense of the word."

SIX WEEKS IN A BALLOON by Eric Brown: This is an alternative history where Britain, in 1930, has been at war with Germany for decades, an enmity inflamed in the 19th century by the publication of Six Weeks in a Balloon (instead of the Five Weeks in a Balloon from our timeline). Dr. Fergusson and his companion were actual people in this world, and the book describing their balloon journey contained chapters describing the treacherous attacks by German troops along the banks of the Nile against the expedition. Due to the influence of this book, dirigibles form the basis of public transportation between cities, and Britain has been in almost constant war against Germany. Britain is under an authoritarian government, and Germany is quickly becoming a fascist state. In the story, a journalist receives an invitation from a very elderly Joe Smith, Dr. Fergusson's former servant, who is the only surviving member of the expedition. Now that he is near the end of his life, he wants to set the record straight about the famous journey. The story is quite short, so it only gives us an interesting glimpse of this world and a brief interview with Joe Smith.

LONDRES AU XXIE SIÈCLE by James Lovegrove: This story purports to be the surviving fragments of an unpublished novel that Verne would have written at the end of his life, a sequel to Paris in the Twentieth Century, with the same main character but set many decades later. Lovegrove clearly has studied Paris in the Twentieth Century and gets the same tone just right, showing the dehumanization that society suffers in a time that has no place for art and where figures and profit are the only things that matters. Of course, having written this about a century and a half after the original allows Lovegrove to target his criticism and satire better at our own society. He even includes at the end some speculation about the relationship between Michel Verne and his father. Having read Paris in the Twentieth Century, I appreciated this sequel, which was well-done.

GIANT DWARFS by Ian Watson: Based on Journey to the Center of the Earth, this novelette features Jules Verne himself, who along with other characters goes on an exploration of a deep crevice that opens into the earth. The story has a pulpy feel, with ancient sea monsters, primitive humans, and even nazis... yes, nazis, which means time travel. Quite a lot of stuff, which, because it's short fiction, doesn't get explored or explained too much. I liked the feisty female main character, who narrates in first person, but the author made the weird decision to portray Verne as fiercely misogynist, for no reason I can think of. Anyway, fun story, but the fact that nothing much is done or explained with the time travel element weakens it a bit.

CLIFF RHODES AND THE MOST IMPORTANT JOURNEY by Peter Crowther: A novella about patrons in a bar exchanging stories, some mundane, some supernatural, culminating with one related to Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. Some of the storytellers have travelled to the bar for a purpose related to that novel. This story wasn't necessarily bad, but it was not my cup of tea. It had some nice points about the nature of stories, but it was rather un-Verne-like in storytelling style, rambling instead of direct and fantastic instead of believable.

THE TRUE STORY OF BARBICANE’S VOYAGE by Laurent Genefort: An elderly Captain Nicholl reveals the true story of what happened during the voyage to the Moon before returning to Earth. According to this tale, Barbicane, Nicholl and Michel Ardan did land on the Moon, but they had their reasons not to reveal what they found there. It's a less grounded tale than Verne's novel, inspired also by H. G. Well's The First Men on the Moon, but nevertheless it is more in line than the previous novella with what I expect from an anthology like this. It's a fine story, although, used as I am to novels, these short stories often feel like they could use more time to develop their plots and themes.

COLUMBIAD by Stephen Baxter: Another tale based on From the Earth to the Moon. In this case, the Moon being a barren world, Barbicane has gone on to make a solo attempt on another solar system planet. Relationships with Verne not being good, Michel Ardan goes to see another famous writer. Nice story, correcting some of the scientific impossibilities in Verne's novel and with a helping of the sense of wonder of the original, although at this point I'm not persuaded that the short form serves this kind of stories as well as the novel.

TABLEAUX by F. Gwynplaine Maclntyres: This story takes place during the trip Jules Verne and his brother made to the United States. There the Verne brothers visit New York and see P. T. Barnum's show. At the same time, Verne is seeing visions of the future. This is an interesting story because it's closely based on Verne's actual biography (except that the author depicts Verne as virulently antisemitic, which, as far as I know, is not true). It may be less interesting for people not familiar with Verne's life, though, and the whole concept of these visions of the future does not feel very "Vernian" and can get a bit tiresome at times.

THE SECRET OF THE NAUTILUS by Michael Mallory: In this one we learn about Captain Nemo's family. The Nautilus has been stolen as part of a plot to steal the research Nemo's father was doing before dying, and Nemo and his brother have to team up to stop the thieves. It also ties up with Robur the Conqueror. I thought this was an OK action story, although nothing special.

DOCTOR BULL’S INTERVENTION by Keith Brooke: This one is inspired by the Verne short story Dr. Ox's Experiment. It's basically a retelling of the story but in a future setting. The original story is about a "crazy" scientist who alters the brain chemistry of the inhabitants of a very normal and anodyne town, making them behave in extraordinary ways. The original is a good story, and I think this retelling worked quite well. The idea of looking at the exaggeratedly passive and complacent citizens from the lens of a future dystopia was effective.

THE VERY FIRST AFFAIR by Johan Heliot: Here we get the "real" story behind Phileas Fogg's trip around the world. Fogg is a medium who can open portals to parallel universes, and Passepartout is a secret agent who is assigned to spy on him. It has influences of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Wold Newton family. Quite outlandish, but I found it intriguing and enjoyable.

EIGHTY LETTERS, PLUS ONE by Kevin J. Anderson & Sarah A. Hoyt: This one explores the story of Around the World in 80 Days from the point of view of Detective Fix, in the form of letters he sends home to his new wife. I thought it would make the character more sympathetic, but it doesn't really. It doesn't add anything new to the story but it's a nice alternative view.

THE ADVENTURERS’ LEAGUE by Justina Robson: This one is a story about a future where there are posthumans and regular humans, with uneasy coexistence. It's only vaguely inspired by Verne, and a couple of characters call themselves with names related to him or his stories. Quite interesting, although it suffers from a lot of it being exposition through a conversation.

HECTOR SERVADAC, FILS by Adam Roberts: Here the inspiration is Hector Servadac (published in English as Off on a Comet), which is Verne's most outlanding SF story (although The Secret of Wilhem Storitz is also outlandish). Normally, Verne's science fictional elements are plausible or at least sound plausible, like something that might be achieved with the scientific knowledge available at the time. Hector Servadac, however, features a totally implausible incident where a comet brushes the Earth and takes away a group of people and some terrain, without killing them. If you are able to accept the premise, it's an interesting story about a voyage around the Solar System. In this short story, the author explores the impossibility of Hector Servadac and turns it into a vision of a future event, that's supposed to happen now. I liked this story, as it is well crafted in the way it presents the main character. The author also does well to leave it somewhat undetermined whether the extraordinary event has actually happened or not.

THE MYSTERIOUS IOWANS by Paul Di Filippo: A reporter visits the small nation of Lincoln Island, founded by the other survivors of The Mysterious Island. Though small, it is a bastion of human progress and scientific advancement. The best minds of the world flock there. However there's a dark secret behind all the discoveries. It's a nice exploration of what Cyrus Smith and the others might achieve after Verne's books, although again a lot of the plot is revealed through dialogue.

OLD LIGHT by Tim Lebbon: Inspired by The Carpathian Castle. A descendant of the enigmatic inventor Orphanik receives as a legacy a tool that allows him to see how people are going to die. Not much to the story, but it has a nice ending twist.

THE SELENE GARDENING SOCIETY by Molly Brown: The New Park Ladies’ Gardening Society team up with the Baltimore Gun Club to terraform the Moon. This is a delightful little story, written tongue-in-cheek, as befits the crazy schemes of the Baltimore Gun Club.

A MATTER OF MATHEMATICS by Tony Ballantyne: This one was inspired by The Purchase of the North Pole, a novel detailing another crazy scheme by Baltimore Gun Club. The Gun Club had failed to alter the axial tilt of the Earth, but the project has been taken up by the British for their own purposes in this alt-history. The setting was interesting, the plot a bit silly, but then so it was for the novel it's based on.

THE SECRET OF THE SAHARA by Richard A. Lupoff: This is one of my favorites, not necessarily because of the plot itself, but because the writing style reminded me of Verne, with the formal way the characters spoke to each other. It's based on Invasion of the Sea, the last Verne novel published before his death. The novel is among Verne's weakest, but it has a very interesting premise, the project to flood the sections of the Sahara Desert below the sea level, in order to improve the Sahara's climate and allow trade and agriculture to flourish. In this story, that has already been done, but now, a particularly low tide will give a short opportunity to study the bottom of the new sea, where strange ruins have been detected.

THE GOLDEN QUEST by Sharan Newman: We get now to the posthumous Verne novels, and this story is inspired by The Chase of the Golden Meteor. In Verne's novel the meteor was purposely sunk into the sea, but in this story, the son of one of the characters wishes to use H. G. Wells time machine to go back and change the ending, since he believes it was the cause of some of the worst wars of the early 20th century. Quite short time travel story, somewhat weakened by the failure to make clear why the main character was convinced that changing the ending of the novel would improve world's history.

THE TRUE STORY OF WILHELM STORITZ by Michel Pagel: Another story that mixes H. G. Wells' novels with Verne's. In this case the novel Verne in question is The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz, and this short story tells how the secret of invisibility fell into Storitz's hands. Another time travel story, which I enjoyed, although it might confuse those who are unfamiliar with the novels that inspired it.

THE SHOAL by Liz Williams: And we finish with another time travel story, this one celebrating the inspiration that Verne provided for many of his readers, and revealing more about one of his characters, here a representative from an advanced ancient civilization. Very short, so it only gives us a glimpse.

Looking back at the whole anthology, I found it an enjoyable and competent (although not truly outstanding) revisit of many of Verne's stories. It doesn't just concentrate on the best-known ones, so perhaps it's more suitable for Verne readers who, like me, have read all or most of his work. Most readers, however, probably will only be familiar with a few of his most popular novels, so they might be less interested in the stories inspired by stories they do not know.

I liked how the stories are ordered chronologically relative to Verne's life and work. One thing I didn't like is that, among Verne's lesser-known work, the editor was very dismissive of the most adventure-oriented novels, while appreciating only the ones with speculative elements. Perhaps understandable given that this is by science fiction writers, but still a rather skewed view. Also, the editor subscribed to the popular idea that Verne got more wary about technological progress later in his life, without taking into account that he wrote something like Paris in the XXth Century very early on.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a big fan of the works of Jules Verne, and having read all of his major works, I have been looking for an anthology like this for quite some time. The 23 stories in this collection are all tributes in one way or another to Verne. They are arranged logically, i.e. the stories that relate to “20,000 leagues Under the Sea” are grouped together and the same for all of the other major Jules Verne stories. Whether the subject is Captain Nemo, Phileas Fogg, Cyrus Smith, Professor Otto Lidenbrock, or dozens more, it’s always great fun to revisit their stories from different perspectives. Each story in the collection is accompanied by a very short introduction which I found to be a nice bonus as they never failed to provide additional insight on Verne himself or on the backgrounds of some of his lesser known stories.

What I didn’t expect but relished, was to find virtually every one of these stories to be so enjoyable. Only a few of these authors have I have encountered before (or even heard of) many of them being French writers. In fact several of these stories are English translations and that authenticity seemed to reflect in the stories. After all, I imagine Mr. Jules Verne is beloved and celebrated in France to an even higher degree than throughout the rest of the world even though I consider him to belong to all of us. This short story collection is a pleasant discovery indeed.

[Matthew Kresal · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing collection of short stories, originally published to mark the centenary of Verne's death. The stories cover much of Verne's writings including lesser known works which make for some of the best stories in the anthology as well as stories that play on events in Verne's life. There's also tie-ins to the better known Verne novels which often produce mixed results ranging from Stephen Baxter's excellent Columbiad to the disappointing Secret Of The Nautilus by Michael Mallory. Readers will also spot cameos and tie-ins with a number of other author's works as well, sometimes in surprising places. Overall it's an enjoyable, if often hit and miss, collection of Verne inspired tales that should make his fans happy.

[Trisha Brookbank · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is really great if you like Jules Verne. It is full of stories written by people who have been inspired by jules verne, and use his stories as a jumping off point.

[Angel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I barely gave it the second star. For details, you can read my review over in my personal blog. Link: http://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.co...