Jules Verne

The Beginning of the Age of Wonder - which has marvelous steampunk value today. Epic explorations and lovable (for the most part) characters. Truly "Voyages Extraordinaires"! ---------------------------------------------- Jules Verne "Off On A Comet!" (Also as "Hector Servadac", "The Career Of A Comet", "To The Sun!") (Voyages Extraordinaires Series) © 1877, Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation Amazing Stories, Apr 1926 (First Issue!) --/ cool apocalyptic sf novel --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ idea award --/ steampunk award --/ awesome scale A feast of wonders, indeed, a fitting opening for the first issue of Amazing Stories (the first truly science fiction magazine), opening up the the Glorious Age of Wonder. The apocalyptic passages are rather subdued, but there is a case to be made that a truly titanic change might not even be perceived as such by those most closely affected by it. Thus our heroes (launched into outer space on a piece of Earth, or a "Splinter", like in a later Adam Roberts' tribute novel) have not a slightest idea what happened, even though they are wandering now amid surrealistic Salvador Dali-like landscapes and Biblical-like perturbations of their environment. Jules Verne does masterfully the subtle atmosphere of dark wonder in the first half of the novel, and in the second part we are treated to some memorable steampunk scenes: Tolkien-like lava cave "city", Moorcock-like "The Ice Schooner" voyage across the frozen ocean, Bob Show-like ("The Wooden Spaceships" and "Ragged Astronauts") impossible retro-tech flights, and even a glorious scene of skating under the rings of Saturn (lovingly depicted on the cover of this Amazing Stories issue). I did not enjoy characters' interactions quite as much (they are more than jarring in places, though cultural clashes between British, French, and Russian can be somewhat enjoyed (with better translation) - but the miserable depiction of a German Jew is so full of Anti-Semitism as to be despicable: aparently Jules Verne wanted to remove or downplay these sentiments himself (prevalent in Europe at the time of writing), but left it to his editor, who later... conveniently forgot to do it.) The original draft also did not have an air balloon journey between the two atmospheres (more than dubious in its science) with heroes perishing without any sort of a happy ending; but I am glad the novel concludes with this incredible sheer-fantasy imagery of an air baloon between worlds (the tedious science lecturing in Part Two made it hard to otherwise maintain interest). Some memorable images stick in the mind after reading this lovingly obsolete Voyage Extraordinaire, and provide a great springboard for the whole science fiction genre to emerge later in the pages of various pulp magazines. review: 5-Mar-21 (read in 2019) ----------------------------------------------

Click to go to "Dark Roasted Blend" site