Today I did a one-shelf challenge. That means I pick a random shelf and choose a book from only that shelf. This type of challenge will have me picking up books I forgot about, and also mood reading what I want.
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| Courtesy of labirint.ru |
This one-shelf challenge is a new thing for me. I saw Emily Fox do it and I liked the idea. I like a lot of her ideas. She's awesome. Look her up and you'll see her cats, too. I want to give credit where it is due. This was not an original idea.
Onto the actual book, I spun a wheel and picked a bookcase with one shelf on it. No extra spins were necessary. In my case, the only unread books on the shelf were a few mysteries, my Jules Verne set (only some unread), and some Peter Pan adaptations. I picked out From The Earth To The Moon by Jules Verne. It was short. That was part of the appeal. His stuff isn't actually that long (unless you read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea). They come across like travel journals. I highly recommend his books. The set I have is a boxed set with pretty covers.
The Review
The plot of this one is a bunch of bored dudes (because war ended) looking for something to do instead of testing firearms. They decide to put a projectile on the moon and that's our plot. It's so much science and space information that I can't tell what is actual science (provable and real) or made up science. People have asked that question already. You can Google it yourself.
My first thought was that it was quite melodramatic, but that's all his books. This one is short, yet, it took longer to read the miles of science jargon that are in the first 50 pages. It's not my favorite. I only heard of the book after buying the set. It is so full of science explanations in the first 50 pages that I had a hard time paying attention to it. That is until it gets past those pages.
If you can wade through all the science, you'll find the story compelling. After they put the cannon together (yes, blasting a huge cannon toward space to project a cannonball onto the moon), you meet a dingbat of a man who wants to get in the ball and go to space. He invites himself to the party, on top of that. He intends to go up there and never come back. He's an idiot. But nobody is stopping him from doing this. My husband commented that he'd never have to worry about air in real life - because the velocity of the huge cannon would kill him (which someone does actually comment on). But this is Jules Verne...so this is fiction. The book leaves it open whether this man and the other two are alive. There is a sequel called Around The Moon, which is what the astronauts see.
President Barbicane and his rival then have a duel, a rifle duel. This is after chapter 19. Maston runs to stop it with the dingbat astronaut. They do stop the duel and the astronaut suggests they come with him to the moon. They agree to it. Basically, the two men who don't agree about the results now put their life in danger with the dingbat. As a result, no duel happens. Maston tried to join them, but was told no because it couldn't hold him. They tested it with a squirrel and cat (to make sure they wouldn't die at takeoff). The animals lived, but the squirrel was eaten by the cat. Barbicane was going to take two animals up - both dogs - with the three of them. They do take off and the book leaves everything at a cliffhanger. They are in the moon's orbit, but not on the moon.
Overall Thoughts
This was good, once you got past being firehosed with scientific information. It's a 3.5 stars for me. I will read the sequel (I have it). It's a fun book and I do think it's worth reading. It's a little less than 200 pages. You can read it in a day or two. There are no trigger warnings to know about. You have one half of an adventure and you have to read the other half to know if they succeeded or not. You don't know what they found until you open the next book. Knowing Jules Verne, it's probably space sheep or something.
I will do this challenge again. It was a fun time. I have these challenges spread out within my TBR (To Be Read) list. You'll see more, assuming I get to them by the end of the year. For now, there are more books to read and more reviews to write. Cheers!
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