From the Earth to the Moon (1865)

What a quirky little book! The synopsis sounds ridiculous by today's standards; design a 900 foot cannon to shoot a huge ball to the moon using cotton impreganted with some highly flammable substance as 'fuel' (called Pyroxite)
And yet the book is laced with good sound science that one would expect to find in a modern hard SF book! The distance to the moon is known as is its orbital velocity and details such as the apogee and perigee of the moon are figured into the itineray. Its all jolly good fun with a mild poke at the Americans-even though the main characters are American and it reads as if written by an American, at times one detects the odd poke at the 'Yankees' as Verne's character refers to his colleagues.

A group called the Gun Club form with the intention of making bigger and better arms, but when peace is declared its members feel somehow deprived of an enemy to fight and so must look elsewhere. Then up pops the idea of a huge gun, bigger than anything they have seen before, and it will be used to fire a cannon at the moon to gain relations with the selenites up there (i.e. colonise!) and plant the American flag declaring the world theirs! But thats how people thought back in the day, and bear in mind this was written over 100 years before the 1969 moon landing!

All in all quite incredible and great fun! ( )

Verne was as visionary as any of the early science fiction writers, as he showed in spades in this novel about a rocket launch to the Moon. ( )

A very quaint period piece with some satire and hyperbole thrown in for fun. ( )

Whoa, thank goodness I didn't read the back cover of the book, or else several fun surprises would be spoiled.

Holy Verne, it's been so long since my last fix of his work. Two years perhaps. From the Earth to the Moon is light but still well written. This book was published in 1865, more than a hundred years (!) prior to the first successful moon landing by the men of Apollo 11.

I'm not able to prove all the scientific calculation and details described so eloquently here, but they're sure as hell convincing enough. Again, Verne never ceases to amaze me with his knack of making technical details to be interesting.

He actually made some correct predictions, such as:
1. the country who successfully sent a manned mission to the moon is the US. Well, he did manage to include a French guy to join the mission - nationalistic interest perhaps?
2. the two states contesting to be the launch site were Florida and Texas. Yep, and Florida won too in real life.
3. the shape of the capsule and there were three people on board. Remember Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins?

Verne did see far into the future. And he complemented all of those with wisecracking humor in between. Je vous adore beaucoup, monsieur!

Distance is an empty word, distance does not exist!
Believe in the power of imagination and let it flow, because you'll never know what the future holds. ( )

While the science about the moon is certainly dated, this adventure is still chockful of enthusiastic suppositions about what might be on the moon. There were several sections which were dry calculations, but the chapters were short and the story kept moving. In fact, there were some assumptions Verne made which are very close to fact, and the troubles which the trio encounter in their projectile mirrored some of those of Apollo 13, many years later--and the characters prefigure some of the resolutions (think about the problems with oxygen). All in all, I enjoyed the read. ( )