Hector Servadac [Paperback]

Hector Servadac is an one of the most interesting of Verne's major works. Written in 1877, it is so well done that something scientifically impossible seems quite plausible. French captain Hector Servadac and Russian count Wassili Timascheff have arranged to fight a duel on New Year's Eve at a spot in Algeria. Overnight, the Captain, along with his orderly Ben Zoof, are suddenly hurled to the ground in their home. The following day, they notice the sun is rising in the west and is moving through the sky in the space of a 12-hour day. Gravity has lessened, and a mysterious sea appears, replacing the nearby Chelif River. They also find that the Count has failed to show for the challenge with the Captain. Hector makes an exploration, surveying the new domain, and they find that they are now on an island. Ben Zoof, meanwhile, watches in vain for a ship to pick them up off the island. The Earth is also approaching the sun, for the temperature has risen. Venus, in perilous proximity, nearly managed to smash the earth into bits. The Count now meets up with Servadac, and hostilities are suspended. Captain Hector tours the Mediterranean (the Orderly left to tend to matters on the island) with the Count and his sidekick, Lieutenant Procopius, and six other sailors. On the way, they find some discoveries: St. Louis's Tomb (in Tunis), a fragment of Gibraltar (Spain) after the Captain and Count were sailing east, the residuum of Provence (France), and a speck of Maddelena Island (Italy). They pick up a young girl at Maddelena who is named Nina. They also find 13 English soldiers at Gibraltar who want nothing to do with everyone else. In addition, they recover two cases from the sea talking about the existence of a new asteroid that was presumably blown off the earth and is now called Gallia. Sadly, they found no astronomer to go with the notices. Getting back to the last bit of Algeria, it is discovered a secret of Ben Zoof's: there are now a population of 11 Spaniards and one German Jewish trader, Isaac Hakhabut. (Nobody likes Dutch Isaac much, so there is a hint of anti-Semitism here). The weather is now cold, but the people find a volcano in full eruption and live there. The place is called Terre Chaude (Hot Land), and the winter quarters are called Nina's Hive, in honor of the pretty Italian. At Terre Chaude, they get one last hint of Gallia from the mysterious astronomer, and the Captain and the Lieutenant rush to the astronomer's aid at Formentera (Balearic Archipelago, Spain). The man,99% dead, is taken to Terre Chaude and nursed back to health. To Servadac's surprise, the astronomer, the thirty-sixth and most important Gallian, is none other than Professor Palmyrin Rosette, the Captain's college professor. They never liked each other much. The Professor explains to them that the Earth was grazed by a comet on New Year's Day, and he discovered it,named it Gallia, and they are riding on the back of that very Comet! Much more comes of this, such as the weighing of the Comet, the eruption stopping, the Professor's miscalculations, the Comet exploding, and the Comet's contact with Earth after two years.

Undoubtedly this is one of Verne's greatest works, if not the greatest, and definitely deserves to be read much more. But, you can form your opinions too---if you read the book.

Although not as well known as many of other Verne's novels, this one ranks as one of the best. It is the story of a group of people torn from the Earth by a passing comet, and their story of survival on the comet as it makes one orbit of the sun.

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