Books with title Jules Verne - The Master of the World

"The Master of the World" by Jules Verne. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

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Jules Verne, author of such works as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days, is recognized as one of the masters of the golden age of science fiction. In The Master of the World, a series of catastrophes strike the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States, and an intrepid investigator postulates that they might all be connected to a mysterious mad scientist who is sequestered in a compound in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Chapter 1 WHAT HAPPENED IN THE MOUNTAINS If I speak of myself in this story, it is because I have been deeply involved in its startling events, events doubtless among the most extraordinary which this twentieth century will witness. Sometimes I even ask myself if all this has really happened, if its pictures dwell in truth in my memory, and not merely in my imagination. In my position as head inspector in the federal police department at Washington, urged on moreover by the desire, which has always been very strong in me, to investigate and understand everything which is mysterious, I naturally became much interested in these remarkable occurrences. And as I have been employed by the government in various important affairs and secret missions since I was a mere lad, it also happened very naturally that the head of my department placed In my charge this astonishing investigation, wherein I found myself wrestling with so many impenetrable mysteries. In the remarkable passages of the recital, it is important that you should believe my word. For some of the facts I can bring no other testimony than my own. If you do not wish to believe me, so be it. I can scarce believe it all myself. The strange occurrences began in the western part of our great American State of North Carolina. There, deep amid the Blueridge Mountains rises the crest called the Great Eyrie. Its huge rounded form is distinctly seen from the little town of Morganton on the Catawba River, and still more clearly as one approaches the mountains by way of the village of Pleasant Garden. Why the name of Great Eyrie was originally given this mountain by the people of the surrounding region, I am not quite Sure It rises rocky and grim and inaccessible, and under certain atmospheric conditions has a peculiarly blue and distant effect.

If I speak of myself in this story, it is because I have been deeply involved in its startling events, events doubtless among the most extraordinary which this twentieth century will witness. Sometimes I even ask myself if all this has really happened, if its pictures dwell in truth in my memory, and not merely in my imagination. In my position as head inspector in the federal police department at Washington, urged on moreover by the desire, which has always been very strong in me, to investigate and understand everything which is mysterious, I naturally became much interested in these remarkable occurrences. And as I have been employed by the government in various important affairs and secret missions since I was a mere lad, it also happened very naturally that the head of my department placed In my charge this astonishing investigation, wherein I found myself wrestling with so many impenetrable mysteries.In the remarkable passages of the recital, it is important that you should believe my word. For some of the facts I can bring no other testimony than my own. If you do not wish to believe me, so be it. I can scarce believe it all myself.

Strange events are occurring around the world, involving lights, sounds and flags that are hung in seemingly impossible to get to locations. At the meeting of the Weldon Institute in Philadelphia, Uncle Prudent (President) and Phil Evans (Secretary) and the membership debate about whether their balloon the Goahead, should have its directional screw located in the front or the back. A man called Robur interrupts and takes over their meeting; he insists that to master the skies, a flying vehicle must be heavier than air. His remarks infuriate the balloonists and after their meeting, Uncle Prudent and Phil are kidnapped and taken on an around the world trip in the Albatross, Robur’s heavier than air “Clipper of the Clouds.”

Master of the World (French: Maître du monde), published in 1904, is one of the last novels by French pioneer science fiction writer, Jules Verne. It is a sequel to Robur the Conqueror. At the time wrote the novel, his health was failing. Master of the World is a "black novel," filled with foreboding and fear of the rise of tyrants such as the novel's villain, Robur, and totalitarianism.Plot outlineSet in the summer of 1903, a series of unexplained events occur across the Eastern United States, caused by objects moving with such great speed that they are nearly invisible. The first-person narrator, John Strock, 'Head inspector in the federal police department' in Washington, DC, travels to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to investigate. He discovers that all the phenomena are being caused by Robur, a brilliant inventor. (He was previously featured as a character in Verne's Robur the Conqueror.)Robur has perfected a new machine, which he has dubbed the Terror. It is a ten-meter long vehicle, capable of operating as a speedboat, submarine, automobile, or aircraft. It can travel at the (then) unheard of speed of 150 miles per hour on land and at more than 200 mph when flying.Strock tries to capture the Terror but instead is captured himself. Robur drives the strange craft to elude his pursuers, heading to the Caribbean and into a thunderstorm. The Terror is struck by lightning, breaks apart, and falls into the ocean. Strock is rescued from the vehicle's wreckage, but Robur's body is never found. The reader is left to decide whether or not he has died.

Strange events are occurring around the world, involving lights, sounds and flags that are hung in seemingly impossible to get to locations. At the meeting of the Weldon Institute in Philadelphia, Uncle Prudent (President) and Phil Evans (Secretary) and the membership debate about whether their balloon the Goahead, should have its directional screw located in the front or the back. A man called Robur interrupts and takes over their meeting; he insists that to master the skies, a flying vehicle must be heavier than air. His remarks infuriate the balloonists and after their meeting, Uncle Prudent and Phil are kidnapped and taken on an around the world trip in the Albatross, Robur’s heavier than air “Clipper of the Clouds.”

Set in the summer of 1903, a series of unexplained events occur across the eastern United States, caused by objects moving with such great speed that they are nearly invisible. The first-person narrator John Strock, 'Head inspector in the federal police department' in Washington, DC, travels to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to investigate. He discovers that all the phenomena are being caused by Robur, a brilliant inventor. (He was previously featured as a character in Verne's Robur the Conqueror.)Robur has perfected a new machine, which he has dubbed the Terror. It is ten-meter long vehicle, capable of operating as a speedboat, submarine, automobile, or aircraft.