Like The Ocean
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Captain Nemo, volume 1)
By Jules Verne
13 Oct, 2024
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
Jules Verne’s 1869 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, originally published as Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, is one of Vernes’ series of Voyages extraordinaires, or in the Anglophone vernacular, Awesome Trips. In modern terms, it could be described as a proto-technothriller or possibly a proto-hard-SF novel.
Repeated encounters with a mysterious oceanic phenomenon inflame public interest and alarm. Whatever the object is, its range is global, its size prodigious. The American government dispatches the frigate Abraham Lincoln to investigate.
Chance puts esteemed natural historian Professor Pierre Aronnax and his faithful assistant Conseil in New York at the same time Abraham Lincoln is in Brooklyn. Aronnax cannot turn down the invitation to join the expedition.
Aronnax’s suspicion is that the mysterious entity could be an immense narwhal. Aronnax’s educated guess is entirely wrong.