Synopses & Reviews
“The female of the species vanished on the afternoon of the second Tuesday of February at four minutes and fifty-two seconds past four o'clock, Eastern Standard Time. The event occurred universally at the same instant, without regard to time belts, and was followed by such phenomena as might be expected after happenings of that nature.” On a lazy, quiet afternoon, in the blink of an eye, our world shatters into two parallel universes as men vanish from women and women from men. After families and loved ones separate from one another, life continues in very different ways for men and women, boys and girls. An explosion of violence sweeps one world that still operates technologically; social stability and peace in the other are offset by famine and a widespread breakdown in machinery and science. And as we learn from the fascinating parallel stories of a brilliant couple, Bill and Paula Gaunt, the foundations of relationships, love, and sex are scrutinized, tested, and sometimes redefined in both worlds. The radically divergent trajectories of the gendered histories reveal stark truths about the rigidly defined expectations placed on men and women and their sexual relationships and make clear how much society depends on interconnection between the sexes. Written over a half century ago yet brimming with insight and unsettling in its relevance today, The Disappearance is a masterpiece of modern speculative fiction.
Review
"[W]e're in the midst of a Verne renaissance brought on by new manuscripts, improved translations, and scholarly reassessments. . . . Thanks to efforts such as Mr. Butcher's . . . it's now possible for the rest of us to see Verne more clearly than ever before.”—John J. Miller, Wall Street Journal
Review
"Lighthouse at the End of the World might be best read under the covers, after bedtime, by flashlight. It is a wondrous, old-fashioned adventure story, likely to bring out the little boy, the castaway, the pirate and the lighthouse-keeper in every reader."—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review
Review
“Its a cracking good novel, and William Butchers commentary is superb.”—
SFRA ReviewReview
“William Butchers text has an easy, graceful rhythm; it preserves the allusive complexity of the original prose.” —Michael Crichton
Review
“A lively modern translation of one of Vernes tensest, tautest thrillers, a lean, ferocious, breakneck yarn readers will devour in a single evening. William Butcher renders action scenes with great color and dash, dialogues with sparkling fluency. . . . His research, commentaries, and analyses are riveting new contributions to our understanding of this Protean novelist. Outstanding entertainment, admirable scholarship.”—Frederick Paul Walter, Verne translator and specialist
Review
“This book is a psychological thriller. . . . Butchers translation is thankfully the inverse of his last name, preserving Vernes voice: concise and clear scenes that follow a compelling narrative, a prose that may be old-fashioned but with many hints of elegance. For long-time fans of Vernes work, Butcher has also strengthened the text with supplemental research, literary analysis on word choice and an introduction showing how the book fits into the Verne canon. . . . Lighthouse is yet another reminder that here is an author who has stood the test of time.”—BookReview.com.
Review
“One of the most harrowing chronicles of disaster that our age of anxiety has produced.”—New York Times Book Review
Review
“Its spiked with ‘gold fever and an insatiable lust for difficult travel that should make todays Lonely Planeteers take notice.”—Publishers Weekly
Review
“Proof that the Frenchmans fiction never disappoints, this version is the first authentic English translation of Vernes original manuscript and restores the story as he originally wrote it. . . . Full of adventure and action, the novel also succeeds in providing social commentary on the evils of greed and debauchery. The differences between Vernes manuscript and his sons are highlighted in the preface and demonstrate how his sons unfortunate rewrites completely altered a wonderful story that includes fascinating depictions of the arctic wilderness and the hardships of living there.”—Erica Swenson, Library Journal
Review
“Baxters new annotated text of The Golden Volcano has a twofold value: its the first to be based on Jules Vernes original manuscript, plus it provides a clear, modern rendering of a first-rate action thriller. It echoes Bret Hartes westerns while anticipating Jack Londons arctic sagas, and some of the scene painting here is horrifyingly naturalistic—see, for instance, the scenes of desolation and death along Chilkoot Pass. The Golden Volcano is a work of exceptional power and interest.”—Frederick Paul Walter, Verne translator and trustee of the North American Jules Verne Society
Review
“The Golden Volcano is a beautifully written and elegantly translated adventure tale with a biting social commentary. It is a page-turner as well as a piece of literary history—a truly stirring and unusual work.”—Peter Schulman, translator of Vernes The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz
Review
"The rousing conclusion of The Golden Volcano offers Verne at his best, integrating social satire, imaginative but plausible science, and rousing adventure."—Brian Taves, Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) Review
Synopsis
In
The End of the Dream, venerated science-fiction author Philip Wylie trains his sights on the ultimate catastrophe—the destruction of the world through human beings unheeding and willful poisoning of the atmosphere, the land, the seas and rivers, and finally of the human race itself.
The End of the Dream describes a horrific future when toxic chemicals, mutated creatures, and noxious gases all contribute to the eventual death of the human race and of the earth itself through a choking, painful, and pitiless exposure to foul air, disease, and the eruptions of outraged nature.
Shortly before his death in 1971, Wylie wrote this warning on the dangers of pollution in the hope that constructive action against environmental disasters might yet be possible. Although many positive changes have taken place in the intervening forty years, Wylies haunting tale still points out many unaddressed abuses—abuses that still have the potential to cause enormous damage to the ecosystem and humanity. The End of the Dream is still relevant today—its dire tableau highlights now as earlier the problems and choices we continue to face.
Synopsis
At the extreme tip of South America, Staten Island has piercing Antarctic winds, lonely coasts assaulted by breakers, and sailors lost as their vessels smash on the dark rocks. Now that civilization dares to rule here, a lighthouse penetrates the last and wildest place of all. But Vasquez, the guardian of the sacred light, has not reckoned with the vicious, desperate Kongre gang, who murder his two friends and force him out into the wilderness. Alone, without resources, can he foil their cruel plans? A gripping tale of passion and perseverance, Vernes testament novel paints a compelling picture of intrigue and heroism, schemes and calamities. The master storyteller returns here to the theme of civilization against its two oldest enemies: pitiless nature and men's savagery.
Synopsis
The Golden Volcano thrusts two Canadian cousins—unexpectedly bequeathed a mining claim in the Klondike—into the middle of the gold rush, where they encounter disease, disaster, extremes of weather, and human nature twisted by a passion for gold. A deathbed confidence sends the two searching for a fabulous gold-filled volcano on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. But nature, both human and physical, hasnt finished with them, and their story plays out with the nail-biting adventure of an action thriller and the moral and emotional force of high drama. Like many of the works left unpublished when Jules Verne died, The Golden Volcano was altered and edited by his son, Michel. This first translation from the original manuscript allows readers of English to rediscover the pleasures of Vernes storytelling in its original form—and to enjoy a virtually unknown gem of action, adventure, and style from a master of French literature.
About the Author
Jules Verne (1828-1905), the most translated author in the world, wrote The Meteor Hunt (Nebraska 2006). In this first-ever publication in English of Vernes original manuscript, leading Verne scholar William Butcher not only translates magisterially but provides a full critical edition with penetrating literary analysis and revealing annotation. Amongst Butchers many publications are Jules Verne: The Definitive Biography and editions of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas and Around the World in Eighty Days.