Vastralaya

Connor Harris

Evan Shively (Perseus271)

Edgar Colt

Vitor Miguel

Prisma Soulstorm

Serena

Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

A decent read.Starts out as a sort of mystery story, but evolves into more character-centric story.The downsides:  - The incessant scientific descriptions of the fauna. I mean seriously, telling me a fish's full scientific classification doesn't really do anything for me. - Pacing is a bit weird. - Ending felt abrupt and didn't really add to the story. It felt like Verne just got tired of writing and quickly thew together a "conclusion". - The book's protagonist is easily the second most boring character. - I really liked where he was going with Captain Nemo, but at the end he just...stopped. I wanted to know more about that enigmatic figure.The upsides: - The adventure was pleasantly more diverse than I had anticipated. - Captain Nemo was actually a pretty interesting character to me...although he wasn't fleshed out well enough, in my opinion. - Descriptions of the tools, technology, equipment, etc were always cool. Hello Steampunk! - I liked Ned Land. Dude wants to wreck some shit!(Listened to it via librivox.org)

It's really sad that people judge books from the 17th century from their 21st century politically-correct perspective. You don't have to agree with Defoe's worldview and religious beliefs to like the book. I'm repulsed by Homer's beliefs but I know his works deserve to be classics.People who think this book is boring probably think hikes through majestic mountains or quiet afternoons in a beautiful garden are boring. This book is slow at times. But the slowest parts are the best. Defoe is a master of detail. And the action is much more exciting when it comes after the calm. A book with only action would be boring to me (not to mention corny, e.g. Treasure Island). This is, hands down, my favorite novel of all time. Rich detail, gripping plot, profound character development, insightful meditations, and the meeting of two radically different worlds in Robinson and the cannibals. I never stop reading this book. When I finish I start again. I love Robinson and Friday as if they were a real life father and brother.BTW - There is an audio recording by Ron Keith that is spectacular. The publisher is Recorded Books.

This retrospective review is a real blast from my past, since I read this novel as a seven-year-old kid (I turned seven in 1959). Along with Stevenson's Treasure Island (which I read around the same time), it formed my lifelong liking for historical fiction, as well as a lifelong comfort with older, more formal diction patterns. (This was written in 1912 --and Gilbert actually employs an archaic, medieval-flavored style in the dialogue, and to a degree in the narration, which would have sounded very old-fashioned even back then.) It was also my first literary introduction to the whole Robin Hood mythos; I've read other novels about the forest-dwelling archer since then, but this one sort of became the mental template against which they're compared.Henry Gilbert (1868-1936) was a popular British author of adventure-oriented historical fiction who, as his preface here indicates, envisioned his audience as "healthy boys and girls," probably in their teens. (The view of him as primarily a boy's author comes from the sexist assumptions of the publishers who marketed his work.) I included the book on my "children's" shelf in deference to that background, and reprint editions continue to be marketed for kids and classified in those sections in many libraries. (The cover of the edition with the most linked reviews on Goodreads --and therefore the one that usually shows in a simple title search-- is actually a cartoonish one that makes the book seem intended for pre-schoolers; I think Gilbert would have found that one as disgusting as I do, and if he wasn't dead I suspect the publishers would have been sued.)However, in the Bluefield College library (where I was responsible for having the book ordered), I saw to it that it was classified in the regular, not the Juvenile, collection. IMO, it's a book that some teens and tweens today could read and enjoy; but it's not a "kiddie" book in the sense that most of us think of those. The diction takes some degree of reading skill, though it wouldn't daunt an adult or a serious kid; the characters are adults, and think and act like adults, and there's nothing about the plotting or action that's dumbed-down to small-child level. (Gilbert doesn't use foul language or interject sexual content; but adult authors in his day didn't either, and those elements aren't needed to make a work "adult.") I'd say the primary audience today would be readers of all ages, from about 11-12 on, who are serious fans of adventure-oriented medieval fiction. Though I read it at seven, I wouldn't recommend it for most kids quite that young; some terms were over my head --I didn't know what "October brewing" was, for instance, being totally ignorant of ale-making-- and the use of lethal force against the bad guys was morally challenging to me at the time, with a child's innate sensibilities (although it's something I was able to work through).Historical accuracy was a hallmark of Gilbert's writing, and he was thoroughly familiar with the whole corpus of about forty medieval ballads that constitute our primary sources for Robin's life. (The author was among those who believe the legends have a basis in fact, and that Robin was a real person, though the balladeers may have idealized him somewhat --but, as Gilbert observes, "that is what poets and writers are always expected to do.") Following the example of Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe, he locates Robin's prime in the late 1100s, making him a contemporary of Richard the Lion-Hearted and King John. He draws primarily on the oldest ballads for instances to re-tell, but he adds other events and characters of his own creation; all of these are handled very realistically, to give an authentic flavor of the time. There's a lively social and ethical awareness here; the injustices of feudalism are depicted quite clearly, and though Robin is an outlaw in an unjust legal system, he's an outlaw with a strong and genuine moral code. Maid Marian, who eventually becomes Robin's wife, is an important character, and the romance is one plot strand; but it doesn't overwhelm the other plot strands, and the treatment of it isn't bodice-ripping or sappy.Besides this book, I can also heartily recommend Gilbert's The Book of Pirates, a collection of well-researched fictionalized re-tellings of the careers of notable pirates from Roman times down to the early modern era (which I read when I was a few years older).

Verne's 1865 tale of a trip to the moon is (as you'd expect from Verne) great fun, even if bits of it now seem, in retrospect, a little strange. Our rocket ship gets shot out of a cannon? To the moon? Goodness! But in other ways it's full of eerie bits of business that turned out to be very near reality: he had the cost, when you adjust for inflation, almost exactly right. There are other similarities, too. Verne's cannon was named the Columbiad; the Apollo 11 command module was named Columbia. Apollo 11 had a three-person crew, just as Verne's did; and both blasted off from the American state of Florida. Even the return to earth happened in more-or-less the same place. Coincidence -- or fact!? We say you'll have to read this story yourself to judge.

When an unidentified “monster” threatens international shipping, French oceanographer Pierre Aronnax and his unflappable assistant Conseil join an expedition organized by the US Navy to hunt down and destroy the menace. After months of fruitless searching, they finally grapple with their quarry, but Aronnax, Conseil, and the brash Canadian harpooner Ned Land are thrown overboard in the attack, only to find that the “monster” is actually a futuristic submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by a shadowy, mystical, preternaturally imposing man who calls himself Captain Nemo. Thus begins a journey of 20,000 leagues—nearly 50,000 miles—that will take Captain Nemo, his crew, and these three adventurers on a journey of discovery through undersea forests, coral graveyards, miles-deep trenches, and even the sunken ruins of Atlantis. Jules Verne’s novel of undersea exploration has been captivating readers ever since its first publication in 1870, and Frederick Paul Walter’s reader-friendly, scientifically meticulous translation of this visionary science fiction classic is complete and unabridged down to the smallest substantive detail.

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It is 1942, America has entered World War II, and sickly but determined Steve Rogers is frustrated at being rejected yet again for military service. Everything changes when Dr. Erskine recruits him for the secret Project Rebirth. Proving his extraordinary courage, wits and conscience, Rogers undergoes the experiment and his weak body is suddenly enhanced into the maximum human potential. When Dr. Erskine is then immediately assassinated by an agent of Nazi Germany's secret HYDRA research department (headed by Johann Schmidt, a.k.a. the Red Skull), Rogers is left as a unique man who is initially misused as a propaganda mascot; however, when his comrades need him, Rogers goes on a successful adventure that truly makes him Captain America, and his war against Schmidt begins.

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