After joining an expedition to hunt down the mysterious "monster" that is destroying ships around the world, Professor Arronax is shocked to discover that the creature is instead a submarine piloted by the unpredictable Captain Nemo, a man who has made the sea his home. When Nemo sinks the ship they're traveling on, Arronax, his servant Conseil, and Canadian whaler Ned Land are taken aboard Nemo's Nautilus, with no hope of escape. But Nemo does give them a grand tour of the world's oceans, exploring and interacting with thousands of sea creatures and geological formations.
Let's face it: everyone is familiar with this book, and anyone who knows anything about it knows there's a giant squid attack (heck, it's depicted on the cover!). But the squid attack happens REALLY late in the book, after way too much scientific description of every type of fish, mollusk, sea mammal, and coral in the ocean. I appreciate the role this book (originally published in 1870) played in introducing people to the oceanic realms, and the role it played in helping establish the science fiction genre. However, I really could have done without the lists of scientific names, as well as the gleeful slaughter of various sea creatures and the depiction of any non-white people as "savages." So this one gets a "meh" from me.
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