Off on a Comet

Written by Jules Verne

Narrated by LibriVox Community

The story starts with a comet that touches the Earth in its flight and collects a few small chunks of it. Some forty people of various nations and ages are condemned to a two-year-long journey on the comet. They form a mini-society and cope with the hostile environment of the comet (mostly the cold). The size of the 'comet' is about 2300 kilometers in diameter - far larger than any comet or asteroid that actually exists. (Summary by Wikipedia)

• Language: English
• Publisher: LibriVox
• Release date: Aug 25, 2014

Jules Verne

Jules Gabriel Verne was born in the seaport of Nantes, France, in 1828 and was destined to follow his father into the legal profession. In Paris to train for the bar, he took more readily to literary life, befriending Alexander Dumas and Victor Hugo, and living by theatre managing and libretto-writing. His first science-based novel, Five Weeks in a Balloon, was issued by the influential publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel in 1862, and made him famous. Verne and Hetzel collaborated to write dozens more such adventures, including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1869 and Around the World in 80 Days in 1872. In later life Verne entered local politics at Amiens, where had had a home. He also kept a house in Paris, in the street now named Boulevard Jules Verne, and a beloved yacht, the Saint Michel, named after his son. He died in 1905.

Reviews for Off on a Comet

[Katie · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Entertaining as a adventure and survival story, but the ending is a flop and Verne's generalizations and slights against various nationalities are grating and offensive. Also the lack of a admirable central hero imparts little investment by the reader. The amalgamation of world view that Verne portrays renders his philosophical musings confusing and arbitrary, then his science is so outdated as to be useless for education and only serve as an amusing look at what a novice once perceived as the order of things and to slow down the plot.