The Underground City

By: Jules Verne

Narrated by: John Bolen

Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

How can humans survive and prosper 1,500 feet below the earth's surface? Jules Verne successfully weaves a dark yet magnificent story into this equally dark world. The story takes place in a revived and now prosperous coal mine. Amazingly, life in the mine has everything that one desires, including a lake, fish and attractive homes. Yet there lurks an evil presence. Unexplainable, malicious, and life-threatening occurrences begin. But why? The evil force could destroy the underground world and everyone in it!

©2000 Tantor Media Incorporated

It's okay.

Not my favorite Verne story, but it's okay. The voice actor was the real issue. Very distracting. It felt like this was an American both making fun of the Scottish accent, think lucky charms, and trying out a bad British one. They even blended at times. I normally like it when they adopt the real accents of the characters, but this time he should have stuck with his native accent.

Suspensful story line

This was an enjoyable reading about a coal mine located near Edinburgh, Scotland. Having traveled extensively throughout Scotland, I was saddened to hear the narrator consistently mispronounce the word Edinburgh using instead the American rendering of Edinburg. Other than this mispronunciation, the story line proved to be most intriguing. I would recommend this book to others.

A bit too bogged down with detail

If you want a story that is 80% details about coal mining practices and 20% about the actual characters, this is for you! I didn't hate it, but it wasn't a great story. The mining practices were somewhat interesting, but I was more interested in the formation of the underground city, and they spent little time on that.

Wonderful book, great performance

Superb book taking us back to another time, full of innocence and optimism. Verne displays a deep knowledge of his time, culture, geography and the science of his time. The narrator does an excellent job at keeping us following the story

Not What I Expected

I expected something completely different than what I got. The story at times was interesting but not too often. The dialogue was also strange.

The narrator's voice was nasally and made it hard to understand some of the conversations. It also made the already strange dialogues even more strange with how he would draw out names or say certain words (Harry sounds like Hai-wee). I was glad when this book was over. I won't be revisiting it.

A classic but I didn’t care for it

Listened to this bk via Audible in the hopes of staying awake while driving. It was NOT very helpful. The reader’s voice drones on. Unfortunately, the details/explanations of the story are repeated a few times throughout the book & I realized I could’ve started the bk halfway through & spared myself the monotony of the entire bk & would’ve still known the plot. It did make it nice though, when I dozed off a few times my husband could sum up pretty quickly what I’d missed. Maybe older people might enjoy, 65+, possibly??

Great story

I really enjoyed the story - the reader is good but not great (intonation and beginnings/ endings could have been better).

Awful narrator

I quit listening after 20 minutes. The narrator eas absolutely awful and killed every sentence.

Prosaic story. Annoying narration.

This is one of Jules Verne's lesser-known stories, and with good reason; it lacks the drama and vivid imagery of his classic adventure tales. It would nevertheless be a pleasant read were it not for the annoying narration.
John Bolen has a clear, distinct voice but he chooses to speak with a patrician, pedantic air of disdain for the unwashed masses of his audience. His pacing is reminiscent of a skipping record (younger readers can ask their parents to explain that), and his attempts at dialectical voice characterizations range from comical to absurd (the old miner reminded me of Long John Silver).

Awesome story. Amazing voice.

This book was not what I was expecting. A love story at the bottom of a hole. The reader was amazing. different voices for each character made following along with the story very enjoyable. I loved it. I wish I had read this book earlier.