# Master of the World by Jules Verne (1904)



## AE35Unit (Sep 26, 2010)

"Let  no one  attempt to seize or stop me. It is, and will be, utterly  impossible.  Whatever injury anyone attempts against me, I will return a   hundredfold.As to the money which is offered me, I despise it! I have no   need of it. Moreover, on the day when it pleases me to have millions,   or billions, I have but to reach out my hand and take them. Let both  the  Old and the New World realize this: They can accomplish nothing  against  me; I can accomplish anything against them. I sign this letter:  The  Master of the World."

Another   good read from Verne! This one was his final novel written in 1904 and  is actually a  sequel to an earlier novel called The Clipper of the  Clouds (aka Robur  the Conqueror). I only discovered this when part way  through I found out  the name of the antagonist-Robur! The great  inventor Robur zooms across the Americas in first a car that can travel  at least 150 miles per hour, putting the current speed of about 80 m.p.h  to shame in a car race! Then an equally fast boat is seen; later still a  submarine, and then an airplane! The protagonist of this story, Strock,  a police investigator, soon gets the idea that these 3 vehicles are one  and the same.
  In the previous story, Robur determined to show to the world that  heavier-than-air craft was the way forward, and during an exposition in  which a great air balloon was shown to the world, Robur produced his  offering, a dirigible type craft propelled not by lighter-than-air gas  but by engines with propellers (air screws), and with this he overtook  the balloon causing its occupants to crash to the ground. This event is  alluded to in this later work as a kind of re-cap. Not having read the  earlier book it was a bit of a surprise but having said that I didnt  feel that I should need to have read that earlier work-the work stands  alone!
Anyway I found the book quite entertaining  and fast paced  and is my third Verne novel so far.
My review of 20,000 Leagues under the sea is here


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