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    The Mysterious Island
    The Mysterious Island
    The Mysterious Island
    Audiobook22 hours

    The Mysterious Island

    Written by Jules Verne

    Narrated by Gene Engene

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    About this audiobook

    During the Civil War, five Union soldiers and a dog quietly escape from the clutches of the Confederate Army at Richmond, Virginia by hot air balloon. Their intention was to simply drift safely over to the Union lines and rejoin their own troops. Instead, while aloft, they were caught in a high wind and whisked hundreds of miles out to sea. The men carried no provisions for survival and had no idea where they were. Under those circumstances their future was bleak. Worse yet, the balloon was leaking air and slowly deflating. As the balloon made its slow descent from the sky, the men were fortunate to spot an island in the distance. As the balloon dropped lower and lower it also drifted closer to the island. When the basket hit the sea, the partially deflated balloon dragged it violently across the surface and scattered the men among the waves. The men were able to swim to their only refuge...The Mysterious Island. At first the island was accomodating, but then it became more mysterious as unusual and strange happenings occured. Something deep in the depths of the island seemed to have control...something mysterious and unidentifiable....
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBooks in Motion
    Release dateApr 20, 2014
    ISBN9781614535737
    Author

    Jules Verne

    Jules Verne (1828-1905) used a combination of scientific facts and his imagination to take readers on extraordinary imaginative journeys to fantastic places. In such books as Around the World in Eighty Days, From the Earth to the Moon, and Journey to the Center of the Earth, he predicted many technological advances of the twentieth century, including the invention of the automobile, telephone, and nuclear submarines, as well as atomic power and travel to the moon by rocket.

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    Reviews for The Mysterious Island

    4/5

    53 ratings32 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Originally published in 1875, this novel is noticeably dated, but it's still a good read.
    • 4/5
      This edition is unabridged, and has a lot more in it than I was previously aware.
    • 5/5
      This a book I'd recommend to just about anyone!
    • 4/5
      A tale replete with suspense, action, mystery, and fulfillment. I was very impressed at what this novel had to offer and I think it's among Verne's better portions of his work. There is a great surprise too, which I will not reveal for the reader. Overall, the plot was good, the characters likeable, and I felt a strong willingness to embark upon the journey and see it to it's end.3.75 stars- worth it!
    • 5/5
      Great book and great narration. Definitely going to listen to this narrator again
    • 4/5
      I obviously have not read enough Jules Verne. I was pleasantly surprised with this book. Now I have to start reading more of Verne's works. I like him better then H. G. Wells. Wells' stories were often more dreadful, hopeless and too "Victorian England". Verne writes with a timeless flavor of optimism and possibility.
    • 4/5
      The first half is REALLY slow, but then it gets more and more exciting. It's one of Verne's lesser-known works, worth investigating.
    • 5/5
      Just one of the greatest stories read by the greatest narrator. Brilliant!
    • 5/5
      Best version to listen to of this story! Gene Engene does another Jules Verne story its justice!
    • 4/5
      Imagine "Lost" written by a much better author.
    • 4/5
      A sequel to "20,000 Leagues..." the book postulates a long balloon ride from Libby Prison in Richmond (1865) to a south seas island. One character, an engineer, dominates/leads the others and they all create an idyllic life on a the island. Originally published in 1874, republished many times over, the amount of research to create pottery, nitroglycerine, build a boat, domesticate animals, etc., was amazing. The writing style also reflects the times as does the attitude toward slavery and class. As I missed the opportunity in high school, I'll read some more Jules Verne.
    • 5/5
      Great escape reading. Loved the imagery and adventure!
    • 4/5
      This is a great book and still very readable after all these years. It's totally unbelievable but good fun and adventurous anyway. 5 men and a dog are stranded on an unknown island and proceed to colonise it in, quite frankly, ingenious ways. There is also a 'mystery helper' who aids them in their times of strife. For those 'PC' people, I suppose the fact that there was a master and a 'slave' (who, incidentally loved and admired his 'master') didn't sit too well but this book is not to be taken seriously. In those days there were 'masters' and 'slaves' and the good old Brits didn't show up in a very good light either. It's a fantasy and an adventure, full stop.
    • 4/5
      This was my first tread into Jules Verne. I was rewarded with a good read. The only complaint was that there was a lot of detail put into all the different mechanisms they had to make. However, it was still interesting to learn such things from the way to build many things from raw resources to how to create makeshift items to help with survival.

      The story begins with 5 prisoners; an engineer, a sailor, a reporter, a servant, and a young man along with a very bright dog; traveling in a hot air balloon to escape imprisonment during the Civil War. They are thrown onto an island that isn't listed on any maps and well out of the way for any ships in the Pacific to go by. They even go on a short trip to a close but un-useful island to help a castaway. For four long years these escapees have to start from nothing to make themselves a civilized dwelling. They create everything from a house in granite rock and a garden and an animal farm to any mechanism they might need to create something to survive with. They spend their days working and building and creating all the necessities as well as some wants. They build two ships and at the last second when they fear death, they are saved. There are references to 20,000 leagues under the seas and captain Nemo as well as historical things.

      The story is long but with all the details you learn not only to feel like you know the islanders but also enough to see their surroundings and feel their anxieties. There is adventure, camaraderie, pirates, survival, and many other things all wrapped up in this amazing classic.
    • 3/5
      This is a 2001 translation of the book published first in 1874. To the extent that the book is science fiction or fantasy the book disappoints. But much of the book tells of the stranded group on the island working out their existence, a la Robinson Crusoe, and that part of the book is fairly fun reading. Most of the time things work out very well, and most of the efforts of the group dropped on the Pacific island succeed and when they are really up against it a deus ex machina comes to their aid. This is the fifth Jules Verne book I have read and I think I have read as much of his work as I need to.
    • 3/5
      This was a very entertaining adventure novel, even if Verne's castaways were implausibly gifted with just the right skills and knowledge necessary to survive.
    • 3/5
      in 1865 5 men and a dog attempt a desparate escape during the american civil war by balloon. they become stranded on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. Their incredible resourcefulness, ingenuity and teamwork help them to colonize what they later rename as Lincoln Island. Verne can be tedious in his description of the engineering and metallurgic techinques but they are interesting all the same. Ending was quite far fetched and disappointing.
    • 4/5
      Some very cool ideas, an incredible optimism about what intelligent people could accomplish.
    • 5/5
      Mr. Verne did a wonderous job with this adventure (given some slight date discrepancies between this book and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea")! Dealing with a party of 5 lead by first-class engineer Captain Harding (english translation), they make a hasty escape from their fate as American Civil War POW's to the siege in 1865 upon Richmond, Virginia, in a balloon, which soon finds itself lost and in a tempest. The 5 come to find themselves marooned on an island in the South Pacific. Awesomeness ensues. The highly inventive engineer soon sets his party to work upon making the desolate island somewhat technologically evolved. This inventiveness manifests itself in various machine makings and the such, and along with the strange happenings on the island and the soon to be found-out Captain Nemo, well, this makes this book quite unforgettable and a delightful read!
    • 4/5
      The adventure novel written by Jules Verne depicting the survival techniques employed by ordinary men who beat back nature and held themselves in semblances of civilization reminiscent of a world they had lost. However climatic and enticing, this page-turner’s plot was woefully boring unlike many of Verne’s other books. The exploits of Cyrus Harding and the other men on Lincoln Island were sheer, unadulterated adventure yet achievable by any other men placed on the same island with naught but companions. That was perhaps the underlying intrigue of the book to me as I have spent many an hour contemplating the means I would need to accomplish to survive in the wilderness. Ultimately, I was dismayed by the lack of wit and mental acuity that Verne often imparts to her other characters. I found the verbal bantering and conversations dull and lacking in even the most simple of intellect. If I was to survive among such fellows whose chief concerns where often superfluous goods like tobacco, I would almost undoubtedly go insane just for sheer want of solitude. Perhaps that is where Harding succeeded and I would not.Perhaps the most disappointing part of the book was the end. Not wishing to discourage those who are yet reading from finishing rather warning them of impending disappoint. I thought there was some higher purpose to the almost magical happenings of the Mysterious Island, yet the climax’s lack of substance enraged me to the point that I was ready to fly in balloon to my own island intent in providing a better explanation of the mysteries of the island than Verne’s advertising campaign that filled the last pages of a disappointing work of literature.
    • 4/5
      Verne's second Nemo novel isn't as satisfying as the first, mostly due to it's pacing, but it's a grand adventure in it's own right: exciting, supense, with a large does of humor.
    • 2/5
      I was quite disappointed in this work.First of all, the book is too long. Verne may be many things, but "concise" is surely not one of them, at least as far as this work goes. Next, while the basic story line is excellent (castaways on an unknown island), Verne's characters are incredibly formulaic and shallow. So to with their various adventures on the island and their inevitable escapes from peril. While some aspects of the book show Verne's effort at displaying his wide ranging scientific knowledge of the day, many aspects of the ending are simply ridiculous. An excellent book for children or young adults. However, if you are looking for depth of character or any degree of sophistication, better go elsewhere.
    • 2/5
      I listened to the audio version of this book on a road trip. And while interesting and entertaining. it was just so dang long. Not as good as Jules Vern's Journey to the Center of the Earth. I know long and wordy was the style back 150 years ago when this was originally written as there were few other choices for entertainment, and I have to say some of the vocabulary was quite interesting and educational. How these colonists managed all this time on this Mysterious Island while never once having an argument is the true mystery of the story to me.
    • 5/5
      Great fun, although it's really more of a mildy curious than a mysterious island. Still, really readable. A group of balloonists land on an island miles from anywhere, and through superiour engineer knowledge build the best island ever from scratch, like characters in the computer game Civilisation. Mildly unexplainable events happen.
    • 4/5
      Mildly entertaining, but there was much wrong with the book.... wrong science (but tis ok as it was the science of the time), but mostly the writing style. It seems that Verne has certain phrases he will use ad nauseum until the reader wants to throw the book at his grave. That really was the issue with me. Bad chronology as well that could have been easily fixed by eliminating certain dates. Enjoyable, but ponderous.
    • 3/5
      Sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I think I liked it even better, but its been a long time. Must read again
    • 3/5
      Two men and a boy arrived on a strange island. Mysterious things happened to them there. Will they see their homes again?I was surprised at the end. I thought they were strong people.
    • 5/5
      I'm reading this one to my seven year old daughter at bedtime; it's great for her, and for me as well, as when I was young I read this book again and again. It's still my favorite Verne.
    • 4/5
      Most of the time you are not aware that this book was first published in 1874. That is how well it was written. In the end you kind of miss having the characters around. Nonetheless it is quite interesting how a small island, midway between South America and Australia, is so rich in plants, animals and minerals. The “colonizers” are able to make nitroglycerin (remembering we are in a deserted island in 1800´s), iron-wires and a telegraph. They find all sorts of plants, medicinal herbs and even tobacco. Not to mention the fauna, jaguars, kangaroos, orangutans (one is tamed!), and even a freshwater dugong. How did it get there? Mystery. Leaving that aside, this book made me wonder how dependent we are on technology and how ignorant we are about it. Most engineers today would not be able to construct what Cyrus Smith was able, only with bare hands and with the knowledge in his head (without books, internet or specialized tools).
    • 3/5
      This book starts out with Verne's usual endearing absurdity (the men have crashlanded after stealing a hot air balloon to escape the American Civil War), but quickly becomes pretty boring. It took me a long time to plow through this, mostly because the plot moves so slowly. The mystery of the island is pretty disappointing, although I did like the final scene very much.