Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

ISBN-13: 9781536992151 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 266 str.

Jules Verne; Lewis Page Mercier

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During the year 1866, ships of several nations spot a mysterious sea monster, which some suggest to be a giant narwhal. The United States government assembles an expedition in New York City to find and destroy the monster. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a French marine biologist and narrator of the story, who happens to be in New York at the time, receives a last-minute invitation to join the expedition which he accepts. Canadian whaler and master harpoonist Ned Land and Aronnax's faithful servant Conseil are also brought aboard.

The expedition departs Brooklyn aboard the United States Navy frigate Abraham Lincoln and travels south around Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean. The ship finds the monster after a long search and then attacks the beast, which damages the ship's rudder. The three protagonists are then hurled into the water and grasp hold of the "hide" of the creature, which they find, to their surprise, to be a submarine very far ahead of its era. They are quickly captured and brought inside the vessel, where they meet its enigmatic creator and commander, Captain Nemo.

The rest of the story follows the adventures of the protagonists aboard the creature-the submarine, the Nautilus-which was built in secrecy and now roams the seas free from any land-based government.

They visit many places under the oceans, some real-life places, others completely fictional. Thus, the travelers witness the real corals of the Red Sea, the wrecks of the battle of Vigo Bay, the Antarctic ice shelves, the Transatlantic telegraph cable and the fictional submerged land of Atlantis. The travelers also use diving suits to hunt sharks and other marine life with air-guns and have an underwater funeral for a crew member who died when an accident occurred under mysterious-and unknown to the reader-conditions inside the Nautilus.

There was also a subtle humour. One part is when Aronnax is in one of his underwater walks with Nemo, and it starts to rain. He thinks to himself that he'll get wet, forgetting that is he underwater, and his realisation catches him off-guard.

This is the birth of steampunk and science fantasy. This is the book that most people point to, not that there aren't others, as one of the earliest purely science fiction stories. And, more importantly, this is loaded with hard science.

It's this meticulous attention to detail that seems to serve as a blueprint for modern science fiction. Verne's detailed catalog of the sea included mythical creatures like the famous Giant Squids, or devil fish, and what may have been the last saltwater manatee.

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