20,000 Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne ebook - The novel that made Captain Nemo and the Nautilus icons of science fiction literature.
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But no sooner had I peered into the eyepiece than the instrument was snatched from my hands.
I spun around. Captain Nemo was standing before me, but I almost didn’t recognize him. His facial features were transfigured. Gleaming with dark fire, his eyes had shrunk beneath his frowning brow. His teeth were half bared. His rigid body, clenched fists, and head drawn between his shoulders, all attested to a fierce hate breathing from every pore. He didn’t move. My spyglass fell from his hand and rolled at his feet.
Had I accidentally caused these symptoms of anger? Did this incomprehensible individual think I had detected some secret forbidden to guests on the Nautilus?
No! I wasn’t the subject of his hate because he wasn’t even looking at me; his eyes stayed stubbornly focused on that inscrutable point of the horizon.
Finally Captain Nemo regained his self-control. His facial appearance, so profoundly changed, now resumed its usual calm. He addressed a few words to his chief officer in their strange language, then he turned to me:
“Professor Aronnax,” he told me in a tone of some urgency, “I ask that you now honor one of the binding agreements between us.”
“Which one, captain?”
“You and your companions must be placed in confinement until I see fit to set you free.”
-- from 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas
Jules Verne's masterpiece remains unrivaled for its vision and scope as it reveals the underwater realm that dominates our planet but remains largely a mystery to this day. As a first person narrative, 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas is told by the French Professor Aronnax whose intellect is greatly stimulated and challenged by the view of the world shown him by Captain Nemo. But Aronnax remains a prisoner of Nemo all the same. The Professor was among those men sent to hunt a mysterious terror of the high seas that had been sinking ships. Initially the Professor had thought that the terror was a rogue whale, and his expertise in the realm of marine biology got him recruited on the mission to discover and destroy the menace. However, the supposed biological threat turned out to be mechanical. The Nautilus attacks the frigate upon which Aronnax, his manservant Conseil, and the harpooner Ned Land were sailing. All three men are thrown overboard in the attack and rescued by the crew of the Nautilus. The rescue turns out to be a capture. The mercy of Captain Nemo means that instead of dying at sea, the three men must remain on the Nautilus forever because Nemo and his crew exist in total secrecy.
A seemingly lifelong voyage beneath the oceans of the world ensues. Although prisoners, the three men are granted extensive freedom aboard the Nautilus that is powered entirely by electricity, an extraordinary concept at the time of the novel's writing. The wonders revealed by Captain Nemo on the underwater tour greatly distract the prisoners as they see ocean life up close and walk on the sea floor. The amazing opportunities extended by Captain Nemo, however, do not entirely mitigate the prisoners' discomfort with their situation or worries about the mysterious and eccentric man who plays a pipe organ and insists on a complete divorce from the terrestrial world.
Trapped in Nemo's water world, the men have no chance to escape. Ned Land, who serves as a charming literary foil to the intellectuals of Aronnax and Conseil, ceaselessly dreams of escape. His craving for terrestrial food prompts him to ask if he can go hunting on an island. He wants meat, but also hopes to escape as well. Surprisingly Nemo grants the request. Ned's hunt is successful, but he and his companions retreat gratefully to the Nautilus when beset by hordes of island cannibals.
Equipped with compelling characters, 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas creates a marvelous reading experience. Coral reefs, underwater caves, vast schools of fish, banks of pearl oysters, and beds of delicate sponges will vividly populate your imagination. This novel reads like watching Jacques Cousteau. Like the heroes, you'll even sometimes forget your creeping unease about Captain Nemo because the wonders of the ocean are so alien and fascinating.
To read a brilliant masterwork of one of science fiction's original writers, choose 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne. Although a long novel, it is well paced, navigating you willingly from one chapter to the next. Extraordinary attention to detail builds a fully realized world that truly makes you ponder the smallness of our terrestrial existence. Available in many ebook formats free of DRM (no digital rights management), this version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas has had its author notes repositioned right next to the references to better suit the unpaged flow of digital reading, unlike the free dumps of text you'll find online. Created to be of a quality suitable for storing in your library, 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas can be downloaded for free. Take the journey that Jules Verne has gifted to the readers of the world.
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