As I was finishing up 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I got the hankerin' to pull this one off the shelf. This is the fifth book in Simon Hawke's Time Wars series, in which time travelers have adventures in the points in "history" which inspired some of Western civilization's great tales of wonder or heroism. In this case, the Temporal Corps, allied with science fiction writer Jules Verne and whaler Ned Land, have to stop a villain who has stolen a nuclear sub and is hiding out in the waters of the mid-19th Century. Mr. Hawke starts off paralleling 20,000 Leagues fairly closely, substituting Jules Verne for Verne's character Aronnax, but once they encounter the Nautilus, the story ventures far afield as the characters travel to 1807 to encounter pirate Jean Lafitte and finally ends up in a climax reminiscent of a James Bond movie. It is still an enjoyable read and I enjoy Mr. Hawke's characters, but the Ned Land and Captain Drakov of The Nautilus Sanction can't really compare to the "real" Ned Land and Captain Nemo. All in all, it's entertaining waiting room material.
--J. ( )