Book Review: Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a science-fiction adventure book. If you are a science-fiction fan like me, then you are in for a treat reading this book.

I really loved this book and the narration. It started as a simple story but quickly turned into an adventure plot, and before I realized it, excellent science was mixed into every element of this fictitious story. It has references to Fourier and Poisson, calculations for measuring distances based on sound lag, adventures of an Icelandic hiker, a cave explorer, a climber, and even biologists encountering a trilobite! Yes, a trilobite! You will also find all the pre-historic animals and references to famous explorers, biologists, and taxonomists—all present in a single story.

When I chose the book and read the plot, I wondered, "How is this possible?" But when I read it, I was taken on a real adventure by the author.

I read this book in the "Kindle-In-Motion" format, and the illustrator, Killian Eng, is in a class of his own. He did excellent work and did justice to Jules Verne's timeless work.

Here are some of my notes and highlights from this book:

Here is something about Fourier:

Was it not always believed until Fourier that the temperature of the interplanetary spaces decreased perpetually?

About Poisson:

“Well, I will tell you that true savants, among them Poisson, have demonstrated that if a heat of 360,000 degrees existed in the interior of the globe.”

A Trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three-lobed entities") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. One of the earliest groups of arthropods to appear in the fossil record, trilobites were among the most successful of all early animals, existing in oceans for almost 270 million years, with over 22,000 species having been described. Because trilobites had wide diversity and an easily fossilized mineralised exoskeleton made of calcite, they left an extensive fossil record. The study of their fossils has facilitated important contributions to biostratigraphy, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and plate tectonics. Trilobites are placed within the clade Artiopoda, which includes many organisms that are morphologically similar to trilobites, but are largely unmineralised. The relationship of Artiopoda to other arthropods is uncertain. !

"Very well," said he quietly, "it is the shell of a crustacean, of an extinct species called a trilobite. Nothing more."

All these pre-historic animals:

leptotheria, mericotheria, lophiodia, anoplotheria, megatheria, mastodons, protopitheci, pterodactyls, and all sorts of extinct monsters here assembled together for his special satisfaction.

And the adventurers:

"Mr. Milne-Edwards! Ah! Mr. de Quatrefages, how I wish you were standing here at the side of Otto Liedenbrock!"

This book was a thorough adventure, with so many references to explore further!