If you're new here, why not subscribe to our email updates or follow us on Facebook? You can also add us to your Google Reader. Thanks for visiting!   If theres one thing that Ive learned from watching American TV, its that Americans really do like their guns. Or really, anything that makes other stuff go boom. If Jules Vernes...

Over the past few months RIASS has revisited the work of Jules Verne and its fair to say that weve enjoyed the voyage immensely. Over this period weve reviewed a handful of his best-known titles, with more to come in the not-so-distant future, and spent a good deal of time musing on Vernes endless optimism, his desire to explore as...

My recent foray into the oeuvre of Jules Verne has been enlightening in a number of ways. Ive learned how its possible to write multiple books using a cast that varies between books only by name, and how its possible to arrange for said character to escape whatever end-of-the-world situation in which they find themselves by manipulating the...

  Ostensibly an oceanic travelogue, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea'involves rather less travel than it does log: comprising for the most part long, hideously boring lists of marine life and scientific definitions and discussions of the same, its a lengthy Wikipedia entry without a moderator swinging by to do a clean-up. While at least these lists can...

Update: for an overview of the plot/science of Journey to the Centre of the Earth, you might want to check out this infographic!   Having recently ventured around the world with Mr Verne, I decided that a journey into its depths with the same author might be in order. After all, Around the World in 80 Days, while flawed in many ways, was an immense amount...