Tag Archives: Jules Verne

Eighty Days – Day 2

Buon giorno, faithful readers and fellow blog travelers. We’ve reached Turin on our voyage Around the World in Eighty Days with Phileas Fogg and his servant, Passepartout. We’re commemorating their famous fictional trip of 150 years ago.

Mont Cenis Pass train

The book states Fogg and his party reached Turin “by Mont Cenis” on Friday, October 4, 1872, at 6:35 am. The Mont Cenis part seems unlikely. A railway had been operating there since 1868, but it closed in 1871 after the opening of the Fréjus Rail Tunnel. That tunnel proved a much better connection between France and Italy through the Alps. I’m guessing Verne wrote the novel a year or so ahead of when it appeared in print.

Fréjus Rail Tunnel

In any case, Fogg must have felt gratified, in his stoic way, to have traveled 736 miles since leaving London. That put him 3% of his way around the world in just 2.5% of the time. Good to be ahead of schedule so early in the trip.

Turin, in 1872, held a population of 208,000 and had served as the capital of Italy up until 11 years earlier. King Victor Emmanuel II then sat on the throne of the newly united Kingdom of Italy.

Turin today

In 2022, Turin’s population numbers 900,000. Sergio Mattarella serves as President of the country, and Mario Draghi is the Prime Minister.

Today’s traveler wouldn’t need 22 hours, as Fogg did, to reach Turin from Paris. You can fly between the two airports in about an hour and a half.

Speaking of flying, you might consider buying a copy of my book 80 Hours, a fictional tribute to Verne’s story.  You can get the ebook from Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Vivlio, Amazon, and Apple Books.

Tomorrow, we’re due in Brindisi. So far, all is going well for our party—Fogg, Passepartout, you, and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 4, 2022Permalink

Eighty Days – Day 1

Welcome to Paris! Today we’re continuing our trip Around the World in Eighty Days, following the fictional route taken by Phileas Fogg 150 years ago. I hope you remembered to turn off the heat in your room back in London. Passepartout forgot that.

He and Fogg left London the night before, took a train to Dover, a steamship to Calais, and a train to the French capital. Jules Verne spent few words describing this leg of the journey. Little wonder, since his readers knew this portion of the route well. Verne focused on character development here and introduced a major subplot, the pursuit of a bank robber by Detective Fix of Scotland Yard.

Passepartout regretted not spending more time in Paris, capital of his native country. He and Fogg rode in a carriage through the rain for an hour and forty minutes between two train stations.

At this point, Fogg had traversed some 294 miles, about 1.2% of the total distance, and he’d consumed 1.3% of his allotted time. On schedule with no mishaps or delays. The day before, when making the bet, he’d asserted, “The unforeseen does not exist.” So far, that had proved true.

“The Train” Claude Monet, 1872

In 1872, the population of Paris (minus outlying areas) numbered about 1.8 million. Adolphe Thiers served as the President of France, with Jules Armand Dufaure as President of the Council of Ministers.

Today, Paris claims a citizenry of 2.2 million. Emmanuel Macron is the President of the Republic, and the Prime Minister is Élisabeth Borne.

Had Fogg waited 150 years, he could have caught a flight directly from London to Paris with a flying time of one hour and twenty minutes. Truly, that unforeseen did not exist.

Trains, too, have changed. They no longer belch smoke like the one in Claude Monet’s 1872 painting, “The Train.” A traveler today can go by rail from London to Paris, through the Chunnel, in about two and a half hours.

If you’re enjoying this blog voyage, perhaps you’d like my latest story, 80 Hours, inspired by Verne’s tale, but updated to modern times. It’s available as an ebook from Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, Scribd, Tolino, Vivlio, and Amazon.

All aboard! Next stop—Turin. We should arrive there tomorrow, according to your conductor—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 3, 2022Permalink

Eighty Days – Day 0

150 years ago today, Phileas Fogg made his famous fictional wager and started his journey Around the World in Eighty Days. To commemorate the anniversary, let’s travel along with him for the next eighty days and find out how the world he circled has changed.

The Reform Club, as it looked then

He made his bet and started his trip at the Reform Club. Jules Verne didn’t invent that club—it had existed for thirty-six years. A gentlemen’s club originally devoted to promoting the passage of the Reform Act of 1836, it conducted business in a building on Pall Mall Street in central London.

The Reform Club today

The club still exists today, but with some changes. Once political, it’s now mostly social. Once all-male, it admitted women in 1981.

In 1872, greater London boasted a population of 3.9 million. Queen Victoria sat on the throne of England, and William Ewart Gladstone of the Liberal Party served as Prime Minister. The 20th Parliament performed legislative duties.     

In October 2022, greater London’s population numbers 8.8 million. The monarch is King Charles III, and the Prime Minister is Liz Truss of the Conservative Party. They’re up to the 58th Parliament now.

The date of October 2 fell on a Wednesday in 1872. Fogg set a departure time of 8:45 pm, since he planned to take the train to Dover leaving at that time.

In 2022, the second day of October falls on a Sunday. Trains still run from London to Dover, and the trip takes less than two hours. You could also drive by car, rideshare with others, take a bus, or fly. Fogg lacked all of those latter options. 

In related news, I’m launching a new book today. Called 80 Hours, it’s a modern take on the Verne classic. You can buy it in ebook form at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, Tolino, and Vivlio.

Let’s agree to meet in Paris tomorrow, just Phileas Fogg, his servant Passepartout, you, and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 2, 2022Permalink

80 Hours—Available for Pre-order

Next Sunday, October 2, 2022 marks 150 years to the day after Phileas Fogg began his trip Around the World in Eighty Days. I’ll celebrate this fictional event in two ways:

  1. My story “80 Hours,” will be available for purchase, though you can pre-order it now.
  2. I’ll begin a series of blogposts on the days when Fogg and his companions arrived in each city on their trip.

To Jules Verne’s reading audience in 1872, it must have seemed astounding to think someone could circle the globe in as little as eighty days. Today, we’re accustomed to the space station and manned spacecraft orbiting the earth in a little over eighty minutes.

For the rest of us non-astronauts, imagine facing the challenge of circumnavigating the earth in eighty hours with no preparation and with unknown, promised obstacles along the way. That’s the problem confronting shy and sheltered Wendy Pegram in “80 Hours.”

You may pre-order “80 Hours” in ebook form now at Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Tolino, and Vivlio. Starting next Sunday, you’ll be able to get the book at those sites, and at Amazon, Scribd, and Rakuten Kobo.

If you’ve been itching to make the trip around our globe, you can do it for real. Or (far cheaper) you can read your way around the world by two different methods, courtesy of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 25, 2022Permalink

27 Ways to Celebrate Jules Verne’s Birthday

Just two more days until Jules Verne’s birthday on February 8th. He’ll turn 194. How will you celebrate?

I have a few ideas for you. For convenience, I’ll separate them into categories.

Low-Cost At-Home Activities

  • Read (or re-read) one of his books. Perhaps the best way to celebrate.
  • Join the North American Jules Verne Society.
  • Watch a movie inspired by one of Verne’s books. There are dozens to choose from, some available on the internet.
  • Toast to Verne with some French wine, and, as the wine takes effect, imagine taking an extraordinary voyage of adventure to some far-off, exotic location.
  • Play a game of whist with three fellow Verne enthusiasts. (Verne’s characters often played that game.)
  • Write your own fictional adventure story set in a place you’ve never been.
  • Imagine a trip back through time to meet Jules Verne. What would that conversation be like? What would you ask him? What might he ask you?
  • Do what Verne did in writing Paris in the 20st Century—imagine what your own city or town will look like a century from now, in the year 2122.
  • Find a globe or world map. Say you have to reach a specific location, but have only the latitude (as with The Children of Captain Grant), or just the longitude. Imagine the adventures you’d have as you searched along one line.
  • Imagine Verne time-travelled to 2022 and you could talk to him. What about our world would you show him first? What might fascinate him most?
  • Bake a birthday cake for Jules Verne. It could depict (or be in the shape of) a balloon, a submarine, a moon projectile, or anything else from his novels.
  • Compose, and sing, a birthday song for Jules Verne. For the lyrics, try to work in titles of his novels or character names.
  • Dress up as your favorite Verne character.
  • Write a poem in honor of Jules Verne
  • Write a letter to Jules Verne, wishing him a happy birthday.
  • Draw your own illustration of your favorite Verne character, vehicle, or scene.
  • Many people have their own version of what the Nautilus might have looked like. Pick your favorite from this website maintained by Michael & Karen Crisafulli, and draw your own.

More Involved Activities

  • Build a model of one of his vehicles. A search of the internet will give you many to choose from.
  • Build and launch a balloon made from a garbage bag, safely following instructions on this site, or this one. Imagine you’re aboard it, floating high in the air, for five weeks.
  • Use a 3D printer to print a Verne-inspired vehicle, or hire someone to print it for you.
  • Find a suitable cave and go on your own journey to the center of the Earth, (or as close as you can get).
  • Join a local model rocketry club. (Not the same as launching a manned projectile from a cannon, but it’s cheaper and safer.)
  • Visit the nearest submarine museum and tour its featured submarine. Note the differences between it and the Nautilus.

Activities for the Truly Dedicated

  • Jules Verne often set his stories on islands. Plan and take your own trip to an island somewhere.
  • Visit Verne’s birthplace and museum in Nante, France.
  • Visit Verne’s gravesite in Amiens, France.
  • Make a bet with some friends about how fast you can travel around the world, then win the bet.  

Later this year, the North American Jules Verne Society will have an anthology published under the title of Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. Among the millions of people eagerly awaiting that event are you and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 6, 2022Permalink

Can You Skip the Suffering Part?

Many great writers suffered early in life and during their writing careers. Of these, a good number wrote from a place of suffering, capturing that pain and creating timeless novels.

Did their suffering lead to classic writing? If so, would these authors have written so well if not for their suffering? In other words, is personal suffering necessary to produce great art?

Brian Feinblum explored this topic in a blogpost, and that’s what inspired my post today.

What about those of us who have led relatively happy and disease-free lives? Do we lack the necessary ingredients to produce great fiction?

The list of writers who suffered from health ailments alone (never mind other sorts of problems) is long. Here’s a partial list: 

  • John Milton—likely a detached retina leading to blindness
  • Jonathan Swift—Ménière’s Disease leading to vertigo and tinnitus, obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • The Brontë Sisters—tuberculosis and depression; one may have had Asperger’s Syndrome.
  • Herman Melville—pains in joints, back, and eyes due to Ankylosing Spondylitis which brought on depression
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky—epilepsy, gambling addiction, severe depression
  • Jules Verne—stomach cramps from colitis, painful facial paralysis from Bell’s Palsy
  • Edith Wharton—typhoid fever, asthma
  • Jack London—bipolar disorder, scurvy, alcoholism, leg ulcers
  • Virginia Woolf—depression, mood swings, hallucinations
  • James Joyce—eye problems after gonorrhea treatments
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald—heavy drinking, heart disease
  • Ernest Hemingway—depression, alcoholism, electroshock treatments
  • George Orwell—damaged bronchial tubes after childhood bacterial infection, tuberculosis
  • Tennessee Williams—depression, drug and alcohol addiction
  • Sylvia Plath—depression; shock therapy; several suicide attempts

Perhaps your life doesn’t include any ailments nearly as severe as any on that list. Does that eliminate you from contention on some future list of great authors?

Fiction revolves around conflict, and therefore fictional characters must suffer. That’s necessary so readers can believe in them, identify with them, and root for them during their struggles.

Writers with health problems may have an edge here. They can write out of their own painful experiences. They’ve gazed into the abyss themselves, and garner instant credibility.

However, not all people who’ve suffered end up as successful novelists. Further, not all great writers suffered from anything more severe than the typical pains of a normal life.

I think what matters more is your ability to identify deeply with a suffering character you’ve created, and to convey that suffering to readers with your words. That strong empathy will come through, and distinguish your writing.

You needn’t have endured intense personal suffering to create great fiction. Make your protagonist suffer, though, and convince your readers to care about that character.

Hellen Keller knew something about the subject, and wrote, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

You may not have suffered as she did, but you can write. On the journey toward great fiction writing, whether you’ve suffered or not, you’re free to join—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 3, 2021Permalink

Happy Birthday, Jules Verne!

He’s looking good, for a 193-year-old.

That’s the thing about great writers of the past, they still speak to us. In a sense, they live forever.

Would you expect there’d be an active fan club devoted to you, in a foreign country, 116 years after your death? In Verne’s case, there are several. The one I’m most familiar with is the North American Jules Verne Society.

A couple of months ago, I mentioned the NAJVS is sponsoring an anthology of short fiction, the first of those it’s ever done. The working title for the anthology is Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. I’m fortunate enough to be part of the editing team.

That call for submissions is still active and NAJVS will be accepting stories (and artwork) until April 30. For more details, click here.

So far, we’ve received some good story submissions. However, we could use more stories based on the full range of Verne’s oeuvre. To start creative fluids coursing through your veins, allow me to mention that Jules Verne wrote about:

  • A 35-day balloon trip over Africa (Five Weeks in a Balloon)
  • A voyage to the North Pole with a mutiny, an ice palace, and a volcano (The Adventures of Captain Hatteras)
  • A hike many miles underground, encountering a subterranean ocean and prehistoric animals (Journey to the Center of the Earth)
  • A journey to the Moon aboard a projectile launched from a cannon (From the Earth to the Moon)
  • A globe-girdling quest for a lost father, knowing only his geographic latitude (In Search of the Castaways)
  • A trek across Russia by courier who can’t see where he’s going (Michael Strogoff)
  • A comet slicing off a chunk of the Earth, with people and animals still on it (Off on a Comet)
  • A family living underground for a decade (The Child of the Cavern)
  • Two men using their halves of an inheritance to establish rival utopian cities (The Begum’s Fortune)
  • A steam-powered mechanical elephant marching across India (The Steam House)
  • A ship-sized helicopter operated by a mad scientist (Robur the Conqueror)
  • An attempt to alter the Earth’s axis (The Purchase of the North Pole)
  • A mysterious Count in a Transylvanian castle, that might have inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula (The Carpathian Castle)
  • A man-made, propeller-driven island (Propeller Island)
  • A vehicle that operates on land, on and beneath the water, and in the air (Master of the World)
  • A plan to flood the Sahara Desert to create an inland sea in North Africa (Invasion of the Sea)
  • A description of Paris nearly 100 years in Verne’s future. (Paris in the Twentieth Century)

Oh, yeah. Verne also wrote a book about a submarine (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea). In fact, the above list is way, way incomplete.

Still, something on that list should nudge a neuron in your noggin, move your muse to murmuring, and cause you to commence clacking on your keyboard.

Today, his birthday, is a fine day to channel your inner Verne. Allow him to inspire you to write a great story, or create a cover image. Send it in. Eagerly waiting to read your tale or view your art is a group of NAJVS editors, who happen to include—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 8, 2021Permalink

Call for Submissions — an Upcoming Anthology

What an opportunity for you fellow writers! The North American Jules Verne Society is sponsoring its first anthology of new fiction, and the group wants to see a story (and artwork) from you.

The anthology is titled Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne. NAJVS is looking for fictional short stories inspired by the works of Jules Verne. Your submission can be an original story; it can be a reprint. It can be set in any time or place. It can use characters from Verne’s tales (they’re all in the public domain) or you can make up your own.

In addition, the Society is seeking illustrators to come up with the cover image for the anthology and also some internal images to go with each story.

You can find out all the details here.

I have the honor of being a member of the editorial team working on this anthology, and I’m looking forward to reading your story.

So, get writing, Jules Verne fans! I know you can create a story that will absolutely thrill—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 13, 2020Permalink

20,000 Reasons This is the Perfect Holiday Gift

Still looking for gift ideas for the holidays? You’ve surfed to the right site. If someone on your list is a fan of science fiction, submarines, steampunk, or just plain adventure, I’ve got the perfect gift you can give.

It’s called 20,000 Leagues Remembered. This isn’t the Jules Verne classic (though that would make a fine accompanying gift). This is an anthology of new stories written by today’s authors, all in commemoration of Verne’s masterwork.

Inside, your recipient will find adventure, mystery, exotic locales, danger, excitement, wonder, and some humor. It’s the kind of gift that earns you multiple thanks—once when the gift is received, once after its read, and time after time after it gets re-read. How thoughtful and perceptive of you!

Moreover, it’s easy to get. You can order the ebook or paperback version (or both) from multiple sources, including Amazon, Apple ibooks, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.

Fun fact: this year, 2020, marks 150 years since Verne had his undersea adventure novel published. There’s still time for you to get the book in this sesquicentennial year.

Oh, yeah—this could be the perfect gift to give yourself, too!

Suggesting great gift ideas is just one more service provided to you for free by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 6, 2020Permalink

Is Science Ruining SciFi?

Fantasy fiction writers have an advantage over science fiction writers—no scientist will come along and say the fantasy writer depicted her dragons incorrectly or that she botched a description of werewolves.

But scifi relies on facts about a field that’s frequently upending previous conclusions, so new scientific discoveries can invalidate your fiction at any time.

Still, do those discoveries render the affected novel unreadable? That is, just because your story, written before 2006, discusses the ‘planet’ Pluto, does the body’s new designation as a ‘dwarf planet’ make your novel passé, or so retro as to be unworthy of reading?

The pair writing under the name James S.A. Corey wrote an open letter to NASA about such an occurrence. Their novel Leviathan Wakes portrayed a human population on the asteroid Ceres as being so desperate for water that they obtained it from Saturn’s rings.

In 2015, a NASA mission to Ceres showed that it has plenty of water, easily enough for the millions of people living there in the novel.

Oops.

Does that mean nobody should read Leviathan Wakes or watch The Expanse?

In my opinion, it doesn’t mean that at all. As Corey points out in their letter, there’s a supportive feedback mechanism at work, a mutual admiration society. SciFi writers respect scientists, follow every discovery, and cheer them on. For their part, many scientists were inspired to pursue their passion by science fiction writers.

Many scifi short stories and novels will not endure; their fate will be to gather dust and remain unread. But, that’s not because scientific discoveries rendered them obsolete. It’s because those stories aren’t good fiction.

In other words, classic scifi becomes classic because of its high quality, not because it anticipates new advances in knowledge.

To take my favorite novel as an example, Jules Verne strove to keep Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as accurate as the known science of 1870 would permit. Today, however, we know:

  • A riveted steel submarine could not safely dive as deeply as the Nautilus;
  • A sodium/mercury battery would not propel a submarine at fifty knots (without taking up its entire internal volume);
  • No spot in the ocean is 16,000 meters deep;
  • Sharks do not need to turn upside down just prior to attacking;

…among many other errors. Does that mean you can’t read and enjoy the novel today? Of course you can.

Editors should do their best to provide footnotes or forwards that state where subsequent discoveries have made parts of a fictional work implausible. However, even if they don’t, most readers don’t turn to fiction for the latest scientific facts. Readers understand that scifi authors use the best-known science of their time…and then sometimes stretch that for the sake of a great story.

Science doesn’t ruin scifi. If anything, they reciprocally support each other. In that conclusion, I think James S.A. Corey would agree with—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 18, 2020Permalink