Rating: 
Summary: Good Fun
Review: Looking for a book you and your young teens will enjoy. Give this one a try. Reads very much like a 1950/1960 Science Fiction movie.Lots of adventure and no sex.
Rating:
Summary: Good Fun
Review: Looking for a book you and your young teens will enjoy. Give this one a try. Reads very much like a 1950/1960 Science Fiction movie. Lots of adventure and no sex.
Rating: 
Summary: Clever Ideas, Spotty Execution
Review: OK, you've read the previous rants and raves. I wasn't insulted by the implication that Verne was a wanna-be adventurer with few original ideas-- the book isn't supposed to be Verne's biography. The idea that Nemo was real and that his life story inspired some of Verne's most famous novels is neat, and the way they're threaded together is nifty. But the first half of the book is slow and awkward, peppered with awkward writing (Verne is nearly always referred to as 'Jules Verne', guess his friends didn't want to get too informal), bad science (Nemo dives to a sinking ship using unpressurized air-- he's not going to go far!), implausible bits (a hang glider built from DaVinci's notebooks while marooned!), and laughable moments (a timely volcanic eruption releases an even more timely dinosaur). The second half of the book seems better written, almost as though the book was started very early in the author's career and finished much later. I finished the book, but it was maddening at times-- a bit like reading Philip Jose Farmer.
Rating:
Summary: Like rediscovering an old friend
Review: Reading the novels makes me want to re-read the original Verne novels. Anderson does a masterful job of emulating the original in style and prose. My only issue is that Verne seems to be such a whining whimp, but then again, he needed to be for the story to work. A nice PG rated read suitable for younger readers as well as us "old fogeies". Recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: The pot calls the kettle black
Review: So: Jules Verne, one of the founding fathers of Science Fiction, is revealed to be a bad writer who relies on a severely bastardized Captain Nemo to supply him with ideas. This is just beautiful! I find it fitting that this premise is conceived of by Kevin J. Anderson, a writer who has relied on other writer's ideas for his career (Star Wars, Dune, X-Files, etc.). Please, if you have any respect for Jules Verne or classic literature in general, do NOT bother with this book. Nemo, as envisioned by Anderson, bears almost no resemblance to the character depicted in 20,000 LUTS and Mysterious Island. I checked it out of the library, so at least I didn't have to pay; however, that's 4 nights of reading time that I can never reclaim.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but could be better
Review: Taken as a whole, the book Captain Nemo sounds interesting.
The premise of a real person being the inspiration for Jules Verne sounded promising unfotunatly, it is a bit of a letdown.
Verne is portrayed as a milqtoast, afraid of his own shadow and his overbearing father, without an original thought in his entire life.
The titles of the chapters are taken from Verne books such as 20,000 Leagues,Five Weeks in a balloon, Mysterious Island, even though they may or may not be the same story line that ran through his books.
For me though is the love the two men shared. Verne, afraid to tell her that he loves her, loses her. Nemo himself is unable to be with her because she has an arranged marriage. So with one year left before she can declare her missing husband dead, he goes off. Not to America or someother place where he can be safe and away from her for the year so he isn't tempted to scandalize her, but into the middle of the Crimean War where he is held captive by a caliph, forced to marry her daughter and build the submarine Nautilus.
Excuse me but if I had to be away from the one I loved for a year, I would have gone away to safety, not into the middle of the war and I would have done everything I could have to escape, not stay a captive for 5 years.
The most exciting part of the book is where Nemo is lost at sea and faces pirates and dinosaurs and other monsters in a lost world reminiscent of Pellucidar. Once he returns to civilization, the book starts to run out of steam. Verne is protrayed more and more infrequently almost as an afterthought and a pitiful figure when he makes a "guest" appearance.
The book is great for about 150 pages. The next 150 are tedious. Read a real Jules Verne book and learn from the master.
Rating:
Summary: Captain Nemo(The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius)
Review: The novel was amusing enough to complete but nothing great. It struck me as a sort of Disney version of Verne's characters and would probably make a fairly decent film for them. I haven't read the Jules Verne novels in years so I can't compare K.J. Anderson's story line to the Verne novels accurately. What this novel did do was spark an interest in me to go back to the original stories and reread them. For that alone I think the novel was worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad
Review: This book is nice and imaginative. I imagine I would appreciate it more if I was more familiar with Jules Verne.
Rating: 
Summary: I thought that it was real- right up to the dinosaur....
Review: This book is so authentic in tone and detail that I actually thought what I was reading was the truth. I actually thought that Mr. Anderson had based this story on some new historical research that not only showed that an adventurer named Andre Nemo existed, but that he grew up with Jules Verne. Without reservation I continued to believe that this was the case- right up to when the dinosaur came out of the cave....
Upon reflection, this just shows how convincing a yarn Anderson can weave. I had read most of Vern's books and I was familiar with the details of his real life. Anderson inserts his Nemo into the real Vern's life in such a way that it is completely believable. I'd still believe it, if he had used Komodo dragons instead of a T-rex.
This is the best old-fashioned adventure yarn that I've read in years. It not only reminds me of Vern's stories, but also of Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Rating:
Summary: Skip this book
Review: This book stitches together reinterpreted samplings of Verne's classics via a Nemo character along with an alternative bio of Verne. There is no question that the author researched a bit before writing the book. I see a couple problems here. The first is that the book does not stand on it's own without the material it has 'borrowed' from all of Verne's writings. The second is that Anderson doesn't seem to understand Nemo or Verne. The way he presents Nemo is rediculous compared to how Verne characterized him. Other reviews here have presented how this is more admirally than I can. In addition, The way he presents Verne is silly. He has taken a few isolated facts about Verne's life (for ex, Verne's lack of travelling) and developed an entire false persona around these. If you want to know about Verne and his characters, read his own books instead of this.
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