Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

By: Jules Verne

Narrated by: Bill Homewood

The most exciting underwater adventure ever!

In 1866 a mysterious giant whale savagely attacks ships in international seas. A famous French marine biologist, Pierre Aronnax, joins the hunt to track down and incapacitate the creature. With him are his loyal servant, Conseil, and redoubtable Canadian harpooner Ned Land. They soon find that their enemy is no sea beast but a brilliantly designed submarine. They are captured and imprisoned by its master, the sinister Captain Nemo. The story is relentlessly thrilling while containing beautifully written observations of underwater life.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea has been hugely influential on popular culture, having inspired several stage and film adaptations, including a Walt Disney film with Kirk Douglas. Captain Nemo also appears as a main character in the graphic novel and film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Bill Homewood's distinctive voice is perfect for the French classics: He has previously read The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Three Musketeers for Naxos AudioBooks and is "...a narrator so perfectly matched to his material that you can't help but smile" (The Times).

Download the accompanying reference guide.Public Domain (P)2016 Naxos AudioBooks

A journey

If you are like me and pondering whether or not you like the voice for the demo to listen through. Choose this book. I listened to multiple other trials before I settled on this voice to read me this story. Honestly at first I was just going to ride it out but now I don’t know if I can ever listen to it by anyone else. The voices are now part of my journey and I’m very happy with both the book and the reader. Ned felt like my favorite voice and a perfect fit!

Great story and educational!

I really liked the book. The only parts that lagged a bit were when the Dr described the fish and coral with their scientific names. But it did cause me look up several and they were beautiful. I can see where this would be difficult to make into a movie because there just so much to put in! The performance by Bill Homewood was great. I was never confused about which character was speaking. He made the action sequences really pop!

A monotonous yet moving marvel

Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues is quite the novel. It can bore you to tears with classification of marine life (unless you enjoy that kind of thing) and then thrill you with terrifying or impressive drama. Bill Homewood does a remarkable job keeping the listener engaged, and indeed breathless as you imagine the crew about to perish from asphyxiation. Overall an enjoyable experience.

Great narration but meh story

Hope you really want to learn about oceanic life. Cuz you will. Overall story is decent but far too much time is taken by classifying and explaining the nuances of marine life. Glad I did this by audio book... never would have made it through. All in all worth a listen.

Best Science fiction of all time

this is so often forgotten in the genre of science fiction, but it is, in my opinion, one of the first, and best.