Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

When a mysterious sea monster terrorises global shipping lanes, marine biologist Professor Aronnax joins a naval expedition to hunt it down. The hunt ends catastrophically: Aronnax, his servant Conseil, and the harpooner Ned Land are thrown overboard and taken prisoner aboard the Nautilus — a technologically impossible submarine commanded by the brilliant, tormented Captain Nemo. What follows is a compulsive ten-month journey through every ocean on Earth: from the coral forests of the Pacific to the ruins of Atlantis, the pearl beds of Ceylon, and the ice of the South Pole. Nemo is simultaneously Aronnax's captor, patron, and mystery. His contempt for nations, his generosity toward the oppressed, and his capacity for cold-blooded vengeance leave Aronnax — and the reader — unable to fully condemn him.