Written almost a century before the daring flights of the astronauts, Jules Verne’s prophetic novel of man’s race to the stars is a classic adventure tale enlivened by broad satire and scientific acumen.
When the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club find themselves lacking any urgent assignments at the close of the Civil War, their president, Impey Barbicane, proposes that they build a gun big enough to launch a rocket to the moon. But when Barbicane’s adversary places a huge wager that the project will fail and a daring volunteer elevates the mission to a “manned” flight, one man’s dream turns into an international space race.
A story of rip-roaring action, humor, and wild imagination, From the Earth to the Moon is as uncanny in its accuracy and as filled with authentic detail and startling immediacy as Verne’s timeless masterpieces 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days. *
*
**
Like much classic science fiction and fantasy writing, Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon seems comically anachronistic: a group of Civil War vets, who are still wistful about the glories of battle, devise a giant space gun to blast a manned capsule to the moon. But for as old-timey as it seems, much of the author's speculation actually matches the realities of the Apollo program a hundred years later, such as the name of the gun, the Columbiad, and the location of the launch site in Florida. Who knows whether they named the rocket after the gun, but it's interesting to ponder. More examples of how life imitates art, or how art predicts reality, can be gleaned from Verne's book From the Earth to the Moon. Witness people today who long for the good old days, such as the copper and leather fashions of the Steampunks. And secondly, how his book predicts the US Military Industrial Complex. Spooky!
FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON follows three wealthy members of a post-Civil War gun club who design and build an enormous space gun--and ride a projectile fired from it all the way to the moon. This edition also includes 'Around the Moon,' which describes the adventures that follow the launch.
Description:
Written almost a century before the daring flights of the astronauts, Jules Verne’s prophetic novel of man’s race to the stars is a classic adventure tale enlivened by broad satire and scientific acumen.
When the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club find themselves lacking any urgent assignments at the close of the Civil War, their president, Impey Barbicane, proposes that they build a gun big enough to launch a rocket to the moon. But when Barbicane’s adversary places a huge wager that the project will fail and a daring volunteer elevates the mission to a “manned” flight, one man’s dream turns into an international space race.
A story of rip-roaring action, humor, and wild imagination, From the Earth to the Moon is as uncanny in its accuracy and as filled with authentic detail and startling immediacy as Verne’s timeless masterpieces 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days. *
*
**
Like much classic science fiction and fantasy writing, Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon seems comically anachronistic: a group of Civil War vets, who are still wistful about the glories of battle, devise a giant space gun to blast a manned capsule to the moon. But for as old-timey as it seems, much of the author's speculation actually matches the realities of the Apollo program a hundred years later, such as the name of the gun, the Columbiad, and the location of the launch site in Florida. Who knows whether they named the rocket after the gun, but it's interesting to ponder. More examples of how life imitates art, or how art predicts reality, can be gleaned from Verne's book From the Earth to the Moon. Witness people today who long for the good old days, such as the copper and leather fashions of the Steampunks. And secondly, how his book predicts the US Military Industrial Complex. Spooky!
FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON follows three wealthy members of a post-Civil War gun club who design and build an enormous space gun--and ride a projectile fired from it all the way to the moon. This edition also includes 'Around the Moon,' which describes the adventures that follow the launch.