Captain Nemo

Rating:
Summary: A fun, fast, child-like adventure of the past
Review: "Captain Nemo...we're overloadin' the dilitheum crystals!"

"I need more power now, Mr. Harding."

"I can't give it to ya, sir!"

Fun. That's the best word to describe this novel. It's just flat-out fun. I'm hoping that some younger readers will pick up this book then, when they've finished it, will seek out the many book references to Jules Verne that accompany this story. I know that'd put a lot of smiles on English teachers faces.

So what's the big deal with yet ANOTHER story about Captain Nemo? Well, Mr. Anderson has taken that tale and put a bit of a twist into it; he's made Andre' Nemo a real-life friend of Jules Verne in which Verne uses in his literary works. And it's a fast enjoyable read.

Maybe too fast.

Years fly by with abandon and it is sometimes difficult to fathom the time scale that the author bounds through.

There're also a few basic problems that I encountered:

In the beginning, when Nemo is getting ready to become cabin boy to the Captain onboard a merchant vessel, he is accepted thanks to the family ties of the lovely Caroline (an adolescent love interest of both Nemo and Verne). Verne longs to go and decides to steal away with Nemo on the vessel. But there are no arrangements made with the Captain for Verne's acceptance onto the ship. He just shows up on the boat and is miraculously admitted into the Captain's favor as a 'second' cabin boy. Too convenient there. A Captain would always know who was sailing with him long before they left port and this was never addressed. A weak point in the story.

Also, I've got problems with the rehashing of old material in books. I've heard from multiple sources that Jean Auel's new book, 'Shelters of Stone,' does this terribly, and it seems to be a continuing trend. Is it the authors, I wonder? Or the editors requiring this? But telling us again and again and again about the Crimean War and how it affected Nemo got a bit tiresome. As did recapping all of Nemo's experiences in the last 30 pages of the book. I know this already. Don't preach it to me.

But all in all this was a breezy read. I whipped through the book in a few days and got caught up a few times in the story, remembering how much I'd loved Verne's '20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,' and all its nuances.

As I said earlier, I'm hoping this book will make a few younger readers seek out original Verne books and get a taste of some old literary works. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens. Mr. Anderson can smile about that, I'm sure.

Rating:
Summary: The World Through Another's Eyes...
Review: Anderson paints a wonderful picture of Verne and Nemo's lives, loves, and the characters that will eventually be added to Verne's tales. They are flesh-and-blood believable, even while experiencing outrageous things.

Having praised this feat, however, I have to admit being put off by the constant theme of Verne not being able to accomplish anything without a heavy Nemo crutch. Far from being one of the most imaginative authors of his time, he's shown bereft of creative thought. Reads more like a critique than an homage at times.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely disappointed
Review: As others have said, Anderson describes Verne as a no-talent hack unable to come up with any original ideas without his periodic letters from Nemo. I find this especially ironic since Anderson has done nothing himself but tell synopses of Verne's work with only the barest of cohesion to fit into his storyline.

The only redeeming virtue of this book s that it may inspire readers to explore Verne's orignal works for themselves.

Rating:
Summary: An Old Fashioned Scientific Romance
Review: Captain Nemo is a novel in the tradition of Farmer's The Other Log of Phileas Fogg and other tributes to science fiction pioneers. Andre Nemo is the son of a carpenter in the shipyards of Nantes. His friend Jules Verne is the son of a local lawyer. Together they dream of exploration and experiment with diving suits.

When Andre's father is killed in a ship fire, he becomes a cabin boy on the Coralie and sails on an exploratory mission. Jules tries to join Andre but is intercepted by his father and taken back to Nantes. After a long voyage, the Coralie is attacked by pirates and Andre is stranded on a mysterious island. He escapes underground, finds dinosaurs, and travels through the center of the earth. Later, he travels across Africa in a huge balloon and is involved in the building of a great undersea vessel by Robur, a Turkish general.

Meanwhile, Jules completes his training as a lawyer and dabbles in writing plays, with little success. As he receives news of Andre's exploits, Jules incorporates them into fictious adventures which become wildly successful. Eventually, Jules is reunited briefly with Andre aboard the Nautilus and gets an underwater tour.

Caroline Aronnax, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, is the friend and sweetheart of both boys, but is more attracted to Andre. After Andre goes to sea, Caroline is married to Captain Hatteras, who sails away to the Arctic Sea, never to return. In his absence, Caroline manages the Hatteras household and finances and, when her father dies, the family business as well. Although still loving Andre, she is determined to be true to her husband until he has been legally presumed dead. Andre can't stand the wait and goes off to the Crimean War.

Although bowing to the imagination of Jules Verne as an author, this novel suggests his many flaws and shortcomings as a man. Would Verne have written his great adventures if he had been more contented with his life? Maybe the greatest dreamers are never fully content.

Anderson has written a scientific romance of the old style, but with a thoroughly modern heroine. It is fun, but not the best that Anderson can produce.

Recommended to Anderson fans and anyone who enjoys a good retake of a classical SF story.

Rating:
Summary: An Old Fashioned Scientific Romance
Review: Captain Nemo is a novel in the tradition of Farmer's The Other Log of Phileas Fogg and other tributes to science fiction pioneers. Andre Nemo is the son of a carpenter in the shipyards of Nantes. His friend Jules Verne is the son of a local lawyer. Together they dream of exploration and experiment with diving suits.

When Andre's father is killed in a ship fire, he becomes a cabin boy on the Coralie and sails on an exploratory mission. Jules tries to join Andre but is intercepted by his father and taken back to Nantes. After a long voyage, the Coralie is attacked by pirates and Andre is stranded on a mysterious island. He escapes underground, finds dinosaurs, and travels through the center of the earth. Later, he travels across Africa in a huge balloon and is involved in the building of a great undersea vessel by Robur, a Turkish general.

Meanwhile, Jules completes his training as a lawyer and dabbles in writing plays, with little success. As he receives news of Andre's exploits, Jules incorporates them into fictious adventures which become wildly successful. Eventually, Jules is reunited briefly with Andre aboard the Nautilus and gets an underwater tour.

Caroline Aronnax, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, is the friend and sweetheart of both boys, but is more attracted to Andre. After Andre goes to sea, Caroline is married to Captain Hatteras, who sails away to the Arctic Sea, never to return. In his absence, Caroline manages the Hatteras household and finances and, when her father dies, the family business as well. Although still loving Andre, she is determined to be true to her husband until he has been legally presumed dead. Andre can't stand the wait and goes off to the Crimean War.

Although bowing to the imagination of Jules Verne as an author, this novel suggests his many flaws and shortcomings as a man. Would Verne have written his great adventures if he had been more contented with his life? Maybe the greatest dreamers are never fully content.

Anderson has written a scientific romance of the old style, but with a thoroughly modern heroine. It is fun, but not the best that Anderson can produce.

Recommended to Anderson fans and anyone who enjoys a good retake of a classical SF story.

Rating:
Summary: Really, really good
Review: I liked this book a lot. It was a little slow moving in parts, but that was okay, because it made up for it with a lot of adventure. I defy anyone to find a book that packs more adventure into 350 pages.

Rating:
Summary: No Mo' Nemo.
Review: I think the thing that bothers me most about this novel is the novelist. Had Anderson actually read any of the Verne's work, he might have understood how patently ridiculous the idea of a novel based on the "real" Captain Nemo is.

Why? Well, "Nemo" is a pseudonym, for one. It comes from The Odyssey. When Odysseus blinds the Cyclops, the creature roars out a demand for the name of the man who has done this to him. The answer is "Nemo", or "No man", which is how Odysseus tricks the Cyclops into lying to his brethren. "Who did this to you?" they ask. "Nobody. Nobody did this to me."

So, Verne has his unnamed Captain adopt the name "Nemo" to show that he has separated from the world of men, and their greed and abuse. The idea that it is a true surname is absurd.

At the end of "The Mysterious Island", Verne reveals that Nemo is an expatriate Indian, which makes it even more unlikely that he would be around to befriend the boyhood version of Verne.

Of course, Verne could have made that bit up.

Tie it all to dull writing and a drab storyline and what you get is a dreary, dreary book that will make your blood boil with annoyance.

Rating:
Summary: Worst Writing Style Since Robin Cook!
Review: I'm a sci-fi and fantasy fan(atic) of over 50 years, devouring 2 to 3 genre books a week plus magazines like F&SF, but curiously, I hadn't run across Kevin Anderson before picking up CAPTAIN NEMO in a bookstore. Just lucky, I guess.

The reviews sprinkled on the back cover were selected to impress suckers (like me), and although the novel's premise sounded like fun, believe me, it wasn't. If you are looking for a dull, plodding story with nonsensical science, ungrammatical English, zero-dimensional characters, switching (and confusing) viewpoints, embarrassing name-dropping from Jules Verne's stories, contextually meaningless action scenes, and every other amateur mistake a writer could make, then read CAPTAIN NEMO. As a kid, I read pulp magazine space-opera better written than this!

Anderson should either go to writers' school or retire. There are so many truly outstanding sci-fi/fantasy writers to choose from -- contemporaries like Charles Sheffield, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card, Gene Wolfe, Octavia Butler, Greg Bear, and Ursula LeGuin; older ones like Alfred Bester, Bob Heinlein, Fredric Brown, Sprague DeCamp, Jack Vance, Samuel Delaney, J.R.R. Tolkien, etc., etc., including of course Jules Verne. Why should anyone bother with drivel like CAPTAIN NEMO? You're much better off spending your money to see the cartoon movie about a little fish named Nemo.

Rating:
Summary: It came from the bottom of the sea....
Review: I'm not going to mince words, this book is horrible...

It's a pastiche of Verne's life, intercut with the adventures of "Andre Nemo" who wanders around the world, involving himself with incident after incident drawn from the pages of Verne's novels, and minor character, after minor character named after Verne's characters

My biggest gripe however is the vision of Nemo presented, this is not the mysterious stranger of the 20,000 leagues under the sea, or the technocratic Indian Prince, driven from his home after a failed rebellion against colonial masters as presented in Mysterious Island. Having all the works of Verne to draw from, and KJ Anderson, instead chose to draw his Nemo from the wide screen, he has drawn his "Dark Genius" from the vision of Walt Disney, and Harper Goff

The result is what you expect, a poor adaptation of an adaptation, true neither to the original, or the film.

Rating:
Summary: Great story
Review: If you are a Verne's fan then you have to read this book. I really don't like to analyze the style of the author or if the events make sense or not because this is the type of book that you just live the adventure. If you can visualize a story while you are reading (I love to do this with all of Verne's stories) then you have to read this book.