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A fairly solid romp on the seas with Jules Verne at the helm. This novel was about a shipwreck and the journey of its crew, and passengers. It was short, succinct, and to the point. I feel this is a decent work, but maybe not the best that Verne has to offer.

3 stars. ( )

I may have actually liked this book had I been able to read the print copy. Unfortunately I will never know. I was stuck listening to the audiobook narrated by John Bolen, as it was all my library had. What a terrible narrator! He kept slipping in and out of accents, which were god awful anyway. On top of that, I've seen people do the thorazine shuffle with more enthusiasm than Bolen could muster in his narration. At least it was short.

( )

An amazingly gripping, dramatic and in places quite horrific and even, towards the end, occasionally disgusting story of the survivors of a ship stranded on a raft after their ship sinks. This is not one of Verne's better known stories, but for me it is way up there with his most famous works in terms of dramatic tension, and miles better than other of his less celebrated efforts I have read recently, such as Black Diamonds, Hunt for the Meteor, To the Sun/Off on a Comet or Carpathian Castle. ( )

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