Reviews

From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne

ianl1963's review against another edition

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2.0

List of facts and sucking up to the US!

nrikuik's review against another edition

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3.0

Sobre el final, sin contexto. Yo sabia que de este libro existe una continuacióntitulada "Al rededor de la luna", pero nunca me imagine que fuera tan literal. Realmente despues del final tengo toda la intención de buscar esa segunda parte.

Hay dos cosas que puedo destacar de Verne, sobre todo en este libro:

Primero, los personajes; sabe darle a sus personajes una personalidad bien definida, sus personajes son de lo mejor de este libro. Eso y la forma en la qué describe a los gringos como bélicosos. Quiero decir, la trama básicamente es: "Una vez un grupo de gringos se reunieron y se les ocurrió qué como ya no había guerra seria genial poder mandar una bala a la luna".

Segundo, tiene una sencilles para dar explicaciones complejas con gran facilidad y tiene la capacidad de dar argumentos para convencerte de que lo que te dice es cierto, quiero decir; si me dice que en la luna hay aire, le creo.

Ahora, una vez Issac Asimov dijo que lo que tienen los escritores dd ciencia ficción (más que en cualquier otro genero) es que puedes tener la satisfacción de ver que lograste predecir el futuro pero también siempre cabe la posibilidad de descubrir qué tus predicciones resultaron ser "ridiculamente inexactas.

En el caso de esta novela en una mezcla sorprendente de ambas, por que las similitudes qué tiene con el lanzamiento de el Apolo 11 son asombrosas y al mismo tiempo la ciencia ha avanzado lo suficiente como para que uno como lector diga "No puedes mandar algo a la luna solo con un enorme cañon y pólvora". Sin embargo uno está dispuesto a dejar pasar esos detalles y simplemente disfrutar la lectura.

Ahora, este último detalles es cosa mía, pero a pesar de la sencilles de la narración las partes en donde se describe el proceso de construcción del cañon me resultan aburridas. Por un momento pensé que la trama seria, lanzan la bala a la luna y fin hasta que llegó Michel Ardan y cambió las cosas.

vingilot's review against another edition

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5.0

Space travel prior to the invention of powered flight? Jules Verne was a visionary!

What do you get when you combine the american love of artillery, with the french spirit of exploration? A literal moonshot is what! Join our crew as they make their way to the moon!

If you had asked me if this story would work I would have doubted it. The principle characters are basically stuck ion a bullet for the most significant part of the story. Yet it is compelling from beginning to end. Verne shows his predictive chops again, and while a lot of the science here is just plane wrong, he did think about it.

I find it fascinating to see him think about the technology of his time, and how it could be used to go further than they ever considered before.

luisalawliet's review against another edition

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3.0

La primera obra de Verne que leo. Me parece interesante la historia, aunque creo que sí tiene bastantes detalles que la hacen un poco pesada. El final no lo esperaba, pero me gustó.

colorfulleo92's review against another edition

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3.0

I either end up really enjoying Jules Verne's books or feeling rather underwhelmed by them? The premise always draws me in but the content don't always end up being as exciting. They are well written but my mind tends to wander around while reading. But when I read a winner by him it's all worth the dudds. However this wasn't a winner. But I'll keep trying

cherry14's review against another edition

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1.0

Literalmente la única razón por la que le doy una estrella a esta cosa es porque al final los tres idiotas se quedan en su estupido proyectil flotando alrededor de la luna, y bien merecido por imbeciles

telpi's review against another edition

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4.0

Hat mir gut gefallen, das Ende war für mich sehr überraschend, damit habe ich nicht gerechnet.

wickedcestus's review

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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

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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

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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.