Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

By: Jules Verne

Narrated by: Peter Husmann

Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Jules Verne’s classic underwater tale.

A mysterious sea monster, theorized by some to be a giant narwhal, is sighted by ships of several nations; an ocean liner is also damaged by the creature. The United States government finally assembles an expedition to track down and destroy the menace. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a noted French marine biologist and narrator of the story, master harpoonist Ned Land, and Aronnax's faithful assistant Conseil join the expedition.

After much fruitless searching, the monster is found, and the ship charges into battle. During the fight, the ship's steering is damaged, and the three men are thrown overboard. They find themselves stranded on the "hide" of the creature, only to discover to their surprise that it is a large metal construct. They are quickly captured and brought inside the vessel, where they meet its enigmatic creator and commander, Captain Nemo.

Public Domain (P)2012 Trout Lake Media

Timeless Classic - horrid reader!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Jules Verne is one of my all time favorite authors from his style to his subject matter and Capt. Nemo has always been one of my favorite characters.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?

Meeting Nemo

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The man's voice is monotone and dry as toast. He also misreads words quite often - for example: by his pronounciation, the words 'brazier' and 'brassiere' are the same...I dare say, lighting one's cigar from a 'brassiere' must be quite a trick!

Fantastic

This was my first audible book. It was well narrated and very exciting. I would highly recommend.

Outstanding!!!

An Old Favorite!!! Very Much Enjoyed!!! An Awsume Swim Through A Bright And Shinning Vision.

So detailed it's annoying.

This is a classic book but it seems the author was more interested in expressing his engineering and biology knowledge than writing the story. Most parts I zoned out on because it's just listing of a bunch of math stuff or classifying species. Story is good and the narrator was great but you could tell this whole story in about 2 hours if you took out all the filler.

More Political Than Sci-Fi

Narration was quite well done in this title. Peter Husmann was able to keep me engaged just enough to want to finish this "classic". While well written on the story end of this novel, I found the story to be more about politics and social issues than any kind of fantasy, although there is some to be found. The other half of this book reads more like a seventh grade text book with seemingly endless scientific, mathematical, historical and social facts and numbers that honestly don't really matter much to the story itself. Ultimately I was content with finishing this book but I wouldn't recommend it.

decent story

I enjoyed this book overall. i feel that the fish descriptions were a bit drawn out and too often. The story overall was great though.

Very well done

Narrator does very good job with multiple characters. I understand why this is a classic. Even though it is 19th century sci-fi Jules Verne was master story teller.

slow at times, but good

the language and style of this book are beautiful, but it is interrupted by drawn-out lists and catalogs. I found that I best enjoyed this book playing at 1.5x speed to keep up the pace a bit.

Loved it!

This was such fun to listen to! The reader was fantastic and engaging, even through some of the overly detailed scientific descriptions/classifications. Definitely recommended!

Great classic book to include in your library!

Where does Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This book doesn't rank very high. The story itself is great when you take away the many tedious classifications of fish and plant life included. The book could be shortened by a quarter without of the exhaustive listings. A bit of an uphill climb if you will.

What other book might you compare Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to and why?

The book would be a good comparison to Journey to the Center of the Earth. Jules Verne loves to include lots of classifications! Great story writer though!!

Which scene was your favorite?

Spoilers!!!

When the Captain was explaining the submarine functions to his captives. Even before that technology existed, much of it was prophesied by Jules Verne. Very exciting!

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Not really.