When Professor Aronnax sets out on an expedition to find whatever strange object has been attacking ships and punching holes in them, he doesn't realize that it is the start of a life-changing adventure. The mysterious object turns out to be a submarine named the Nautilus and its crew is lead by the strange, secretive, moody Captain Nemo. In a sea-battle between the above- and below-sea ships, Aronnax, his companion Conseil and a firey-tempered harpooner by the name Ned Land are captured. For the next ten months the captives will see a side of the ocean they never imagined, assisted by Nemo's miraculous technology.

For me, the thing that stood out in this book were the many contrasts. Water and land. Calm seas and storms. Nemo's alternating irritable gloom and near euphoria. Ned's driven personality and Aronnax's passivity. Monsters and beautiful creatures. The past and the future, collided in one tale.

Much like Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, I found myself losing patience with the passive, reactive, unopinionated main character. I sometimes thought Aronnax was like a robot that did whatever he was last ordered to do, regardless of conflicts with previous orders or his own opinions.

Nemo was a puzzle, as he is meant to be. Even at the end of the book, I couldn't decide if I liked him or thought he was an untrustworthy, over-emotional, madman. I suppose that is the ultimate mark of a anti-hero.

This book is on its way to quietorchid in the Steampunk Bookbox.

I've read this one, so I'm leaving it in the box for someone else, but wanted to add my comments. [I do recommend it; it's certainly one of the foundation novels of SF in general, never mind of the steampunk genre!]

Verne was one of the fathers of science fiction, and while some aspects of his stories seem dated others are still intriguing; and of course his character Captain Nemo has become one of the great fictional characters of all time, showing up as a reference or sometimes in person in a great many other works. And despite all this literary heritage, it's still a ripping good yarn in its own right.

[For fun and trivia, there's an extensive TV Tropes page on the book, with some notes on the campy-but-fun 1954 film adaptation.]

The book enjoyed a brief stay in San Jose, California before continuing its travels in the Steampunk Bookbox!

--

I listened to an audio version of this book in October 2009, and wrote the following:

- OK, before this I had read one other Jules Verne novel - 'Journey to the Center of the Earth.' Does Verne always include a stoic, unflappable Scandinavian sidekick in his narratives? It's such a ridiculous caricature that it almost seems insulting. It certainly irritated me how the Aronnax always referred to Conseil as 'boy' when the man is already thirty years old - hardly a boy by any definition. How condescending.

I thought the reading was a bit tedious, to be honest. Verne would get rather technical in his descriptions of how things worked; conversations between Nemo and Aronnax often contained the pseudoscience needed to explain the existence of the Nautilas that bored me.

It's an interesting idea, and at the time this book would have been revolutionary. I can totally see *why* it's a classic. It's simply not my cup of tea.

This book came back to me in the Steampunk Bookbox, so before long I'll have to send it back out into the world for some new adventures.

Left on the book exchange shelf. Hopefully it will find a new reader from there.