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wickedcestus's review
I love the way Verne gets his stories going so rapidly, and then immediately loses himself in the technical ephemera of whatever topic he is dealing with. In the same way that 20,000 Leagues is mostly descriptions of aquatic creatures that the main character observes through a window, this book is concerned primarily with the technical problems that accompany firing a projectile into space. But this is not to say that the book gets bogged down, because there are enough looney characters and funny discussions littered throughout to keep the book entertaining.
jeffmauch's review against another edition
4.0
Still trying to catch up on all the books I've read this past month or two during quarantine... This one falls under that category of Classics that I'm slowly checking off my "to-read" list. When you read a Jules Verne novel, especially one of his bigger, more well known ones, its very apparent why he's looked at as one of the pioneers of the science-fiction, fantasy, and adventure genres. While this book was written 150+ years ago, it still stands up, though some of the science has definitely proven some of the idea as wrong. The only problem I have here is I just didn't find the book to be all that engaging and exciting, but honestly, that's probably because sending men to the moon and outer space has happened, unlike when this book was written. I've read a number a Verne's novels and this one is far from my favorite, but it was clearly way ahead of it's time at publication. It's really interesting to see this point of view prior to the age of space travel. Verne's imagination was way ahead of it's time and it becomes more and more clear to me with each book of his I pick up. He has inspired millions of people and clearly influences the genres he wrote in to this day.
runeclausen's review against another edition
2.0
In times of peace following the great war of indepence and revolution for the united states, what is a Gun Club to do with itself, when not needed to build ever bigger and more destructive guns and cannons?
Well obviously they build a giant 900 feet long cannon to launch a projectile to the moon. What else could they possible do?
This book is a classical Jules Verne story in which he builds up the story carefully and makes sure to detail all the scientific details as precisely as possible (surprisingly well for a book about space-travel written in the 19th century), and does all to make the case that this could actually have happend.
The president of said gun club, Barbicane, has a rivalry with a certain Captain Nicholl who disputes the possibility of this endeavour ever being able to succeed. Nicholl even goes as far as launching 5 bets about wheter certain milestones of the journey will fail or not, for a grand total of $15,000 for all 5 bets. Barbicane takes him up on his offer.
When an excentric french man, Michel Ardane, enters the scene and says that he is ready to venture on a spacecraft to the moon, instead of just sending a hollow metal-cage, Barbicane and Nicholl gets a common friend that makes peace between them, and they all 3 decide to go on this one-way trip to the moon together.
The story finished just after the take-off, which goes well, except that they end up not hitting the moon but missing it ever so slightly and get caught up in orbit around the moon instead with limited oxygen and food. There is still a chance that they will plunge down to the surface as their orbit is elliptical.
The actual exploration of the moon will no doubt be detailed in the sequel "Around the Moon".
All in all this is not a very interesting story, but just getting all the science down that could legitimize all the moon-exploration-action that i suspect will go down in the next book, because this book is poor in action, but rich in outdated science. Thus it will only get 2 stars, even though it is very well written.
Well obviously they build a giant 900 feet long cannon to launch a projectile to the moon. What else could they possible do?
This book is a classical Jules Verne story in which he builds up the story carefully and makes sure to detail all the scientific details as precisely as possible (surprisingly well for a book about space-travel written in the 19th century), and does all to make the case that this could actually have happend.
The president of said gun club, Barbicane, has a rivalry with a certain Captain Nicholl who disputes the possibility of this endeavour ever being able to succeed. Nicholl even goes as far as launching 5 bets about wheter certain milestones of the journey will fail or not, for a grand total of $15,000 for all 5 bets. Barbicane takes him up on his offer.
When an excentric french man, Michel Ardane, enters the scene and says that he is ready to venture on a spacecraft to the moon, instead of just sending a hollow metal-cage, Barbicane and Nicholl gets a common friend that makes peace between them, and they all 3 decide to go on this one-way trip to the moon together.
The story finished just after the take-off, which goes well, except that they end up not hitting the moon but missing it ever so slightly and get caught up in orbit around the moon instead with limited oxygen and food. There is still a chance that they will plunge down to the surface as their orbit is elliptical.
The actual exploration of the moon will no doubt be detailed in the sequel "Around the Moon".
All in all this is not a very interesting story, but just getting all the science down that could legitimize all the moon-exploration-action that i suspect will go down in the next book, because this book is poor in action, but rich in outdated science. Thus it will only get 2 stars, even though it is very well written.
kmas2002's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
It dragged on and on. The first part of the book seemed unnecessarily long and could just have easily been 1/4th of the length. Not a lot of exciting things happened. One upside that I enjoyed about the book was the banter between the three main characters. Other than that it was boring, but not a horrible read, and I don't regret reading it. But it bored me a lot of the time I spent with it.
thurminator's review
4.0
7/10.
Actually quite enjoyable. I listened to the free LibriVox version of this, and the narrator was so talented that it turned what might have been a long and dry book into a very engaging story with entertaining and varied characters. The justification for the premise comes across today as highly satirical of American gun culture. Essentially the members of the Baltimore Gun Club are bored after the US civil war, and, despite most of them now lacking arms and/or legs of varying degrees from combat, they bemoan the inability to continue to develop and make use of their weaponry. The various members try to come up with ideas to start another war sometime soon, but can't come up with any good ideas. The president of the Gun Club concludes that they should make the largest gun of all time and launch a projectile onto the moon. The entire world enters a joyous frenzy over this plan and donates over a million dollars to make it happen. Hilarious.
The long descriptions of the science behind the "projectile" were quite thorough (and not everything was totally off base surprisingly) if a bit boring, but the book still held my attention for the duration and compelled me to start the sequel right after. The eloquent language Jules Verne wrote in is good for some personal vocabulary extension as well. I imagine it would have been far more difficult to read than to listen to, but as I said, the narrator, Mark Smith, did a fantastic job of bringing the book to life.
Actually quite enjoyable. I listened to the free LibriVox version of this, and the narrator was so talented that it turned what might have been a long and dry book into a very engaging story with entertaining and varied characters. The justification for the premise comes across today as highly satirical of American gun culture. Essentially the members of the Baltimore Gun Club are bored after the US civil war, and, despite most of them now lacking arms and/or legs of varying degrees from combat, they bemoan the inability to continue to develop and make use of their weaponry. The various members try to come up with ideas to start another war sometime soon, but can't come up with any good ideas. The president of the Gun Club concludes that they should make the largest gun of all time and launch a projectile onto the moon. The entire world enters a joyous frenzy over this plan and donates over a million dollars to make it happen. Hilarious.
The long descriptions of the science behind the "projectile" were quite thorough (and not everything was totally off base surprisingly) if a bit boring, but the book still held my attention for the duration and compelled me to start the sequel right after. The eloquent language Jules Verne wrote in is good for some personal vocabulary extension as well. I imagine it would have been far more difficult to read than to listen to, but as I said, the narrator, Mark Smith, did a fantastic job of bringing the book to life.
marta0r's review against another edition
3.0
I got into this book without knowing much other than its title and was a bit taken aback when it started explaining all about the Gun Club and its members at the beginning. However, once they started focusing on the topic of the moon I really enjoyed all of their discussions to get to their objective.
nick_latanick's review against another edition
2.0
A long way to go for an only slightly amusing punchline of an ending.
h_andreanne's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
osteele98's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
A little boring but a very novel concept that's executed well and very amusingly