Master Of The World: Maître du monde
Written by Jules Verne
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“Master Of The World: Maître du monde” is one of Jules Verne’s last novels published in 1904. The French novelist Jules Verne along with the likes of H.G. Wells, Mary Shelley and a few others are considered the parents of the sci-fi genre for the revolutionary, visionary ideas in their works. Although the technology in the story is outdated in comparison with the advances today the story is very good and the themes of tyranny through technology and totalitarianism still have relevance today.

Master Of The World Goodreads webpage

“Master Of The World” is a kind of classic in its own sense and is the story of Head Inspector of the Federal Police in Washington, D.C., John Strock who investigates strange occurrences namely on the East Coast of the US. The Blue Ridge Mountains in N.C. showed signs of a possible volcanic eruption even though the peaks was dormant. There were rumbling sounds with smoke and ash but no lava or volcanic eruption. Sightings of an unidentified flying object moving at very high speeds (Speeds of about 200mph which was dizzying for the time.) were next seen followed by a boat moving at very high speeds. The story is the investigation into such strange events and sightings.

Federal Investigator John Strock eventually meets the person behind the strange goings-on. It is the captain of the craft called The Terror who calls himself Robur The Conqueror. The Terror is able to move on land, in the sea, on the water and fly in the sky like a bird. His craft is not run on any combustion engine technology and John assumes that it runs on electricity. The technology is a far cleaner and more powerful energy source than anything they had at that time. If Robur is anything he can honestly call himself a brilliant inventor. There are discussions what a valuable asset that technology would be for war and how it would give the country’s war efforts a huge advantage.

Now it is true that the technology in this story is outdated. We all have cars that can reach 150mph even though we don’t need them to. We travel in planes that fly many times faster than the 200 mph that The Terror does and I’m pretty sure that the submarines of the world today can dive deeper and swim faster than anything Robur could conceive. But for the time of 1903 Jules Verne’s vision of cutting edge technology was very much cutting edge technology. And any country that had that kind of technology at that time could rule the World. That is definitely true. So the description of that kind of technology at that time must have been a little worrying for people. It must have sent their imaginations at work of doomsday scenarios like some websites online do today.

What makes this such a good novel besides the travel back to the XXth century and the look at their way of life but the themes that are still relevant today. The captain of The Terror called himself ‘Master of the World’ which meant that he could do whatever he pleased and he did. Have the many subject to the whim of a person or the few is tyranny and that is a very relevant theme even today. We have fears of being under the thumb of technology today with the emergence of A.I. and powerful computers but the threat of tyranny by one person is still real.

I liked the way the author wrote the story, displayed his themes through an investigation by John Strock. That was a great tool to tell the story. As a side note I need to say some of the sources online state that at the end of the story when The Terror is destroyed Robur perishes with it but that is not the case. At the end of the story The Terror is destroyed but we do not know what happened to Robur The Conqueror. It can be inferred that resourceful and clever Robur survived the disaster and is alive and kicking somewhere else. This story could have had a part 2. I like that idea.

So definitely read this great novel that Jules Verne has gifted us because you will not be disappointed. I really liked it.

Written by John Ink2Quill

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