Jules Verne, Five Weeks in a Balloon
Product Details
- Format: Kindle Edition
- File Size: 390 KB
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
- Language: English
- ASIN: B004TP35I6
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars (6 reviews)
- Price: $0.00
1. Short review:
2. Long review:
2.1. What I liked: Not a lot. Decent writing.
Roller-coaster or walk-in-the-park? Roller coaster, but a kiddie roller coaster.
The book is free. There are versions on Kindle that cost money. Get the free version.
I read the Gutenberg Project version.
2.2. What I did not like: Five Weeks in a Balloon is more a travelogue than an adventure tale. There are points where Verne wants us to believe the aeronauts are in mortal danger, but we know they are not.
2.3. Who I think is the audience: Jules Verne fans.
2.4. Is the book appropriate for children to read? Yes. No worries.
2.5. On the basis of reading this book, will I buy the author's next book? Yes, but I shall not read Verne again for a long time.
2.6. Other: I saw the movie Five Weeks in a Balloon (starring Red Buttons, Fabian, and Barbara Eden) when I was a kid. The movie gave them a reason to cross Africa in a balloon -- to keep slavers from claiming the territory. In the book, two Englishmen and a Scot cross the continent for the glory of it. The movie was better than the book.
Verne's 19th century geography is much in error. As is his zoology; he places tigers in Africa.
Verne had no concept of speed. He has his aeronauts flying along at 20 miles an hour overtaking men on galloping horses. At the end, he states that horsemen are two miles away and will arrive in 20 minutes. Yeah, if they dismount and walk their horses.
Five Weeks in a Balloon reads like it was first published as a serial in a newspaper -- as was Around the World in 80 Days -- but I can find no evidence of such.
2.7. Links: Gutenberg Project download
2.8. Buy the book: Five Weeks in a Balloon
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