I'd never read any Jules Verne, but like almost anyone else on the planet, I'm familiar with his works, or at least the remakes of his books into movies. Something inspired me to finally decided to read From the Earth to the Moon. It was only after I finished the 141 pages of the first book, did I realize there was a second book in my version.

Both books were very interesting, although reading the book 140 years after it was written provided some humor which certainly not there when it was first penned. Verne also explains some truths of the human-animal, that being that it is not happy without a war somewhere to feed the "military-industrial complex, as we call it today.

I was also intrigued by the "science" Verne includes. I was tempted, but resisted, to find the state of the understanding of the nature of space. Keep in mind, this was written before the US Civil war. It was only five years after the laying of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. Every time I read stories about history, I'm amazed.

There are technical problems that are mentioned, and solutions implemented that would never have worked. Anyway, the books are full of examples of problems and incidents that are interesting to imagine with our 'more advanced' understandings.

I think this is a book well worth reading.

Calificación: 4/5

La literatura de Verne no suele ser de personajes. Si bien los 4 personajes del libro llaman la atención, no llegan a ser muy profundos, y en cambio se desvive en describir minuciosamente cada detalle técnico, hasta el punto que puede llegar a ser un poco agobiante.
Llega a tener unos pocos momentos interesantes, aunque la mayor parte de la narración es pausada, si quitarle maestría a los momentos que son más literarios y menos técnicos. El final es abierto, según sé, conecta con otra obra "Alrededor de la luna"

‘From the Earth to the Moon’ is the foremost representative of a Jules Verne novel!

Jules Verne tries very hard to use the actual science facts known in his lifetime to solve speculative science-fiction problems in his novels. In this book, ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ he tackles the tasks of getting a capsule to the moon from earth! The movies that have been made based on this book are truly fun, but the novel itself is written like it’s a work journal a team of engineers wrote about building an extra challenging, never-been-done-before-bridge across a large chasm. The result is more of an automotive-repair textbook than a science fiction novel.

Verne adds into his textbook-novel attractive characters to explain the science and to entertain the reader. Unfortunately, the story is primarily about the blueprints, math and engineering. The main characters are eccentrics and thus very funny, but the solving of the engineering challenges are what they talk about 99% of the time.

This edition has hand-drawn illustrations which I liked a lot. I believe it is two books in one volume. The two parts seem like they may not have been published in one volume originally.

Cuando leí por primera vez a Julio Verne era un infante, y libros como *La vuelta al mundo en 80 días* o *Viaje al centro de la tierra* me emocionaban, era de mis primeros acercamientos a los géneros de aventura-ciencia ficción. Con esto no quiero decir que *Julio Verne* no genere este tipo de aventura. Sin embargo, esta novela, le di lectura por motivos de curiosidad acerca de la percepción sci-fi del siglo XIX, ya que, en pleno siglo de la industrialización, escritores optimistas que se permitían soñar más allá de las concepciones de ese tiempo era Verne.


Sucesos como el **Imperialismo** se encontraban en auge, y corrientes como el **Nacionalismo** se empezaban a manifestar, esto quedá evidente en el desarrollo del cañón Columbia y todo el proyecto alrededor del misil que pretendía cumplir tal hallazgo. La empresa que lidera principalmente este proyecto es un grupo de estadunidenses con ilusiones de patriotas de superación ante el resto mundial. No obstante, cabe mencionar que parte de este séquito existe un francés, guiño de patriotismo de Verne y que repetiría en sus siguientes novelas.


Me parece que como novela, compendio de todos los capítulos publicados puede carecer de cierta armonía, en cambio, en formato de escrito semanal publicado vía un *daily* resulta más apetitosa —Formato que como originalmente fue publicada— resultaría fascinante esperar semanalmente la publicación sobre las aventuras y porvenires anacrónicos que deparaba a J. T. Maston y su séquito.


Por último, es curioso hacer mención que esta novela tiene una secuela. **Alrededor de la tierra,** cuestión que descubrí al finalizar la novela. Y con el porvenir de pocas páginas vislumbraba.