Five Weeks in a Balloon
Apr 2020 · Open Road Media
3.0star
1 reviewreport
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148
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About this eBook
"A classic piece of French speculative fiction" from the author of Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth ( Los Angeles Review of Books).
The first book of Jules Verne's Extraordinary Voyages series, Five Weeks in a Balloon follows the adventures of English inventor Samuel Fergusson and the passengers on his magnificent hot air balloon: his dutiful assistant, Joe, and Scottish hunter Dick Kennedy. Hoping to explore lands yet undiscovered by others, they embark on a four-thousand-mile journey over Africa, from Zanzibar to Senegal.
"The sheer pace of the action keeps the reader travelling along with the balloon. . . . A rollicking adventure novel suffused with the spirit of the age of reason. A definite must-read for anyone who is either interested in the birth of science fiction, or those who enjoy tales of the dark heart of pre-colonial Africa a [sic] la Rider Haggard." — Snake Oil Review
"Both a travelogue and a picaresque series of adventures. . . . Verne writes geek fiction—filled, in this case, with details of a technical contraption and of a body of knowledge in which the reader is also caught up, by means of the fiction." — Strange Horizons
"Verne's first great commercial success, was one of his most enduringly popular novels . . . [An] entertaining, historically important, and complex breakthrough novel." — Los Angeles Review of Books
The first book of Jules Verne's Extraordinary Voyages series, Five Weeks in a Balloon follows the adventures of English inventor Samuel Fergusson and the passengers on his magnificent hot air balloon: his dutiful assistant, Joe, and Scottish hunter Dick Kennedy. Hoping to explore lands yet undiscovered by others, they embark on a four-thousand-mile journey over Africa, from Zanzibar to Senegal.
"The sheer pace of the action keeps the reader travelling along with the balloon. . . . A rollicking adventure novel suffused with the spirit of the age of reason. A definite must-read for anyone who is either interested in the birth of science fiction, or those who enjoy tales of the dark heart of pre-colonial Africa a [sic] la Rider Haggard." — Snake Oil Review
"Both a travelogue and a picaresque series of adventures. . . . Verne writes geek fiction—filled, in this case, with details of a technical contraption and of a body of knowledge in which the reader is also caught up, by means of the fiction." — Strange Horizons
"Verne's first great commercial success, was one of his most enduringly popular novels . . . [An] entertaining, historically important, and complex breakthrough novel." — Los Angeles Review of Books
Ratings and reviews
3.0
1 review
About the author
Jules Verne (1828–1905) was a French author best known for his tales of adventure, including Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Around the World in Eighty Days. A true visionary, Verne foresaw the skyscraper, the submarine, and the airplane, among many other inventions, and is now regarded as one of the fathers of science fiction.
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