En esta ocasión, Julio Verne recupera la institución presentada en otra de sus novelas más famosas, el Gun Club de Baltimore, patrocinador de la construcción del cohete de “De la Tierra a la Luna” (1865). A la cabeza del mismo se encuentra su miembro más insigne, Impey Barbicane, quien fuera uno de los “astronautas” de Verne en la mencionada novela. Es su En esta ocasión, Julio Verne recupera la institución presentada en otra de sus novelas más famosas, el Gun Club de Baltimore, patrocinador de la construcción del cohete de “De la Tierra a la Luna” (1865). A la cabeza del mismo se encuentra su miembro más insigne, Impey Barbicane, quien fuera uno de los “astronautas” de Verne en la mencionada novela. Es su miembro más pintoresco, sin embargo, J.T. Maston, científico y matemático de carácter apasionado, el que realiza los cálculos del proyecto que pretenden acometer, un plan infinitamente más osado que el del viaje a nuestro satélite: cambiar el clima del planeta.

I was annoyed that Ms. Scorbitt couldn't possibly understand the math, but her money was good enough to accept.

I enjoyed how every one is in a panicky about the plan to change the earth's rotation.

I loved how it ended. It made me laugh. ( )

I found this book to be lacking in effort and determination. Although the idea is not bad in itself, its execution is dubious and the characters felt more like cutouts rather than fully fledged ones. Overall, I do not recommend this book. Even Verne enthusiasts would be hard pressed to really enjoy this one.

2 stars. ( )

The cover design of this book snagged me as I was browsing at the Strand. It's practically everything I want in a book -- striking cover, small format, French flaps! I mean, it is Jules Verne, who I always feel I should like, but still I'd never managed to successfully finish reading one of his books. But I'd never heard of this one. Then I looked at the synopsis, and it sounded like polar fiction to me! Of course I had to buy it.

As the main characters of the story are the Gun Club of Baltimore, who, when we last saw them, managed to send men to the moon and back using a giant cannon, it seemed at first that we should be rooting for them. But also, from the very beginning, the story felt like a cautionary tale against unrestrained capitalism. The Gun Club buys the North Pole, which they expect to be a treasure trove of coal, if only one could mine it. But, of course, they have a plan -- to use even large cannons this time, to turn the entire Earth and give it a new axis of rotation.

Other than one section where I gave myself a headache trying to envision the result of their little adjustment (picturing 3D rotations not being my strong suit), for a good portion of the book what I most wanted was to hunt down all the members of the Gun Club and shake them within an inch of their lives. Because they can do this thing, and it will benefit them, there's never any question of whether they should do it, even when they predict that large inhabited areas of the earth will then be underwater. That's somebody else's problem. Especially since this whole thing is a scheme to get more coal, it's easy to image this all as a modern climate change allegory. There, to, there's a few people I'd like to see rounded up and put in jail.

Anyway, for all that, the book was surprisingly enjoyable. Pushed through the dry parts (Oh, Verne has some dry parts!) just fine. Maybe now it's time to retry some of the more classic Verne stories? ( )

It had an interesting steampunk-esque feel to the story. I enjoyed the "logical" arguments why there was coal-rich land under the Arctic snow/ice!? I was shocked by the callousness shown to people in regions affected by their plans. ( )