In the Year 2889

by Jules Verne, Michel Verne

Article purportedly by Jules Verne, but probably by his son. According to the editor's note at the beginning: "In the Year 2889_ was first published in the _Forum_, February, 1889; p. 262. It was published in France the next year. Although published under the name of Jules Verne, it is now believed to be chiefly if not entirely the work of Jules' son, Michel Verne. In any event, many of the topics in the article echo Verne's ideas."

Genres: Science Fiction, Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Ebooks, Dystopia, France

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1889

About the author

Novels of French writer Jules Gabriel Verne, considered the founder of modern science fiction, include Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).

This author who pioneered the genre. People best know him for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870).

Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before people invented navigable aircraft and practical submarines and devised any means of spacecraft. He ranks behind Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie as the second most translated author of all time. People made his prominent films. People often refer to Verne alongside Herbert George Wells as the "father of science fiction."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_V...

Reviews

[Montzalee Wittmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of my favorite of his

In the Year 2889 by Jules Verne has some great imagination for seeing into the future especially from the time in which he wrote this story. But the speech was still that of the period which really messed the story up.

[Adita ✨The Slumbering Insomniac✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

★★★★★★★☆☆☆[7/10]

Every one is familiar with Fritz Napoleon Smith's system—a system made possible by the enormous development of telephony during the last hundred years. Instead of being printed, the Earth Chronicle is every morning spoken to subscribers, who, in interesting conversations with reporters, statesmen, and scientists, learn the news of the day. Furthermore, each subscriber owns a phonograph, and to this instrument he leaves the task of gathering the news whenever he happens not to be in a mood to listen directly himself.

I highly admire your imagination and insight, Mr. Verne. However, you never imagined our species would be living only in 2016 to experience this enormous machine called Facebook, did you?

[Duane Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The most interesting aspect of this story wasn't the scientific or technological predictions for 2889, but the socio/political state of the world that Verne imagines. Frankly, I think he would be shocked by the technological achievements made in the 125 years since the book was written. This didn't feel like a Jules Verne story to me, so I think almost certainly his son Michael wrote this.

[Mahdi Lotfi · Rating 3 out of 5]

این داستان همچنین با پیشرفتهای اخیر داستان های علمی تخیلی وی که بنیانش را گذاشت فرق زیادی دارد.یک نویسنده معاصر مطمئنا توضیحاتی درمورد تغییرات بزرگ و ناگهانی در زمین که ورن از آن سخن میگوید ،می داد و احتمالا آن را به نتایج نامعلوم انفجار اتمی نسبت می داد.همچنین تکامل بیولوژیکی ای که ورن به آن اشاره می کند را نتیجه دگرگونی های حاصل از تشعشعات اتمی می دانست. یکی از جنبه های این فاجعه که ورن آن را نادیده گرفته است ،روابط عاطفی در جمعی است که از بیست و شش مرد و فقط چهار زن تشکیل شده است.
کتاب دنیای آینده آخرین اثر ژول ورن دانسته شده است و در حالی که مبتلا به آب مرواردید بود در بستر مرگ آن را دیکته کرد.

[Evelina | AvalinahsBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can now say that the internet must have been a hundred years in the making, if it was so easily predicted in Jules Verne's time (or that of his son, as this is believed to have been mostly written by him). As with any futurologist, parts of it are off, but a truly stunning amount of this is true of our times and you can but wonder at how the minds of the time could foresee or imagine it.

Kind of sad that they predicted space travel, the internet, the advent of news agencies that rule the world and much more, but... Not a woman that is nothing more than the owner of her extensive collection of hats. Or a world where collonialism doesn't reign supreme. Sigh. I guess you just can't see past certain limitations of the age. Must've been too wild to imagine.

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[Ibrahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

القصة لا تحتوى هدفا محددا أو مغزى جميل . الترجمة واضحة و إن كانت تخلو من أى أسلوب أدبى ولكنى شاكر جدا لتوافر نسخة باللغة العربية .
تم نشر هذه القصة القصيرة فى فبراير 1889 وتظهر فيها عبقرية وخيال جولز فيرن واطلاعه على العلوم الحديثة وبذلك استحق مكانته بين رواد أدب الخيال العلمى. وهذه بعض ما تنبأ / تكلم عنه فيرن مع توضيحى للتسلسل الزمنى للاختراعات.

"الأخبار المسموعة"
كان المذياع ما يزال فكرة قيد التنفيذ فى تلك الفترة حيث :
عام 1860: ماكسويل يتنبأ بوجود موجات كهرومغناطيسية "EM"
عام 1870-1880: هيوز يجري تجربة نقل الاشارات الكهرومغناطيسية وطلاب هيرتز يجرون أبحاث تؤكد نظرية ماكسويل
عام 1890: بانلي يجري تجربة على موجات مستقبل الراديو. ووليام كوكس يقترح بأن موجات هيرتز يمكن استخدامها في النقل للتلغرافات لاسلكيًا. تيسلا يجري اختبارات تخص نقل الطاقة بدون اسلاك..
عام 1900: بروني ينقل موجات الراديو على مسافة 42 كيلومتر. ماركوني يطور عملية النقل بموجات الراديو للأصوات. وبعد ذلك يتم انشاء اذاعة ماركوني في كندا ويرسل اول رسالة عبر المحيط الاطلنطي. فيسيدين ينقل الصوت ( عبر موجات الراديو) خلال مسافة تقدر بـ 11 ميل اي 18 كيلومتر.
عام 1910: برون وماروني يحصلان على جائزة نوبل في الفيزياء في مساهمتهم في تطوير التلغراف اللاسلكي.

"توصلنا اليوم إلى خاصية تعتمد على نقل الصور عن طريق مرايا حساسة موصلة بأسلاك."

الكاميرا الديجتال والألياف الضوئية optical fibers
لم تكن فكرة آلة التصوير حديثة فهى معروفة من عصر أرسطو ثم ابن الهيثم ودافنشى حتى توصل لاختراعها داجير فى 1837
ولكن لم يتم استخدام الألياف الضوئية فى الاتصالات سوى فى عام 1963 بناء على فكرة اليابانى جون اتشى .

"كان العلماء يعملون على حواسيب كهربائية والتى تجرى عمليات حسابية تفوق الخبرة البشرية".

كان الحاسوب أيضا فكرة بدائية فى ذلك الوقت و أول ما يمكن اعتباره كومبيوتر هو ما اخترعه وليام أوغترد عام 1622 والذى اقتصر دوره على العمليات الحسابية .أما أقرب شئ للكومبيوتر الحالى هو الجهاز التحليلي الذي صممه عالم الرياضيات البريطاني تشارلز باباج بين عام 1833 و 1871

"إنه من الممتع تناول وجبة الافطار وجها لوجه مع شخص يبعد عنك آلاف الأميال"
يقصد الفيديوكونفرانس videoconference والذى كان أبعد ما يكون عن التصديق فى ذلك الوقت
و أساسه التلفاز واشارات اللاسلكى فى المراحل التالية :
مورس اخترع التلغراف فى 1835
فى 1884 الألمانى بول نبيكوف اخترع جهاز يستطيع ارسال الصور مسافات قصيرة
فى 1922 الأمريكى فيلو فارنزورث طور نظام مسح اليكترونى.
جون لوجى بيرد الاسكتلندى فى 1926 اخترع جهاز يعرض 5 صور رمادية متتابعة فى الثانية .

"أصبح البشر يتغذون على الأطعمة المصنعة وفقا للمبادئ العلمية"
"يتنفس البشر الآن هواء خالى من الكائنات الحية الدقيقة التى كان يعج بها فى الماضى"


ما أخطأ به فيرن :
قدر فيرن أن ثروة امدير تحرير الصحيفة تصل الى عشرة مليارات فقط واعتبرها رقما مهولا بالنسبة لرئيس أكبر مجموعة شركات يمتد نشاطها الى وسائل الاعلام والأبحاث العلمية فى جميع المجالات بل وأنشطة سياسية أيضا , فى حين أن أقل تقدير لها فى الوقت الحالى سيتخطى ثلاث مئة مليار.
أخطأ فيرن أيضا فى توقعه أن العالم سيتوحد فى أربعة امبراطوريات كبيرة , فالعالم الحالى مازالت دوله تنقسم إلى دويلات باستمرار.

[Constantine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.0/5.0

A short novella that should be appreciated for its future predictions! This was published in 1889 and talks about the world in 2889, means it was predicting what will happen 1000 years from that time. Some of those predictions we have them today under different names like the internet or social networks. One of the predictions is the space invasion which is interesting and also the shape of politics in future.
This could have been a much interesting read if it was more elaborated and a full novel instead of a very short story.

[Fatemeh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Little though they seem to think of it, the people of this twenty-ninth century live continually in fairyland.

I first heard about Jules Verne and his amazing imagination when I was eight years old. Since then, I've always wanted to read his works and see for myself, the things he had imagined of the future. Although it seems like this book had been written by Jules Verne's son, Michel, it still lived up to my expectations.

'In the Year 2889', quoting from the book, is 'the history of one day in the life of the editor of the Earth Chronicle'.And as one days go, this one happened to be a particularly special one. A day, in which a great science experience takes place, that may change a great deal of things for humanity. it doesn't

[Mimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

You just have to admire Jules Verne for his earily good predictions of the future... In this novella, amongst other things, he predicts the existance of videophone and global news coverage by a form of on-demand and live television.
It's quite mindblowing how right he's got it, except for the timeline, all these things developed quite a bit earlier than when he predicts...

[Диана · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this story today. It must be the first sci-fi story that I found particularly unimpressive. To be certain, the story isn't set out to be anything like a fully fledged work of fiction, or an ambitious or too elaborate picture of the world in 2889 - it is just a hasty sketch, a quick snapshot of a particular view of the future that the author entertained, as if during a short break from doing something else. Having said this it must be clear why I haven't given the story a lower rating - it is because for the kind of work it is, it just doesn't make sense to compare it to a fully fledged work of fiction, it must be evaluated by other standards.

Now the interesting point. The way that in 1889 Verne imagined the world of 2889 would be like seems to us today not particularly advanced. In fact, we have already invented better versions of most of the things mentioned in the story. There is in the story a relatively very small number of inventions to which we don't yet have an analogue (advertisements projected on clouds in the sky being a - particularly undesirable - example). Yet the point is that humanity is doing better than Verne thought it would do.

But again, one might say - clearly Verne wasn't thinking of his hasty sketch, which doesn't even have a proper plot, to be anything like a prediction of the actual year in which the inventions he talks about would have already been invented. That's fair enough, but truth remains that the shift in people's mindsets that has taken place for the past 100 or so years since Verne wrote, is pretty remarkable. Because for a person today a thousand years seems long enough period to say the invention of pretty much anything thinkable and important would have already taken place by then. IOW, if someone (it is to be hoped) writes a short sketch today, describing the daily life of the editor of the future equivalent of a newspaper, they would definitely not say it will happen in a whole Thousand (1000!) years in the future. Perhaps they would assign to this picture a Much sooner date - or, more likely, they would think it pretty naive to talk about an 'editor' of anything like a 'newspaper' to be still existing in far future in the first place. This is very (perhaps even 'objectively') different from what a person, even one as imaginative as Verne, would have done 100 years ago.

Humanity has, (or at least I hope so) matured enough to realize that technologically projecting its current condition to even centuries in the future is akin to naiveté. The what I'd dub 'hardcore sci-fi' as seen in the works of late 19th/early 20th century writers such as Verne or Belyaev doesn't (corrections here will be very welcome) seem to be any more. Maybe humanity has become at least dimly conscious of the fact that it is - as it always has been - able to surprise itself, progress often reaching beyond predictions. Or am I wrong? Maybe the contemporary version of Verne is not among people writing sci-fi today; maybe it is someone whose ideas seem so distant that even people today would think them unlikely to be actualized in the coming millennium? So has there been 'objectively' any change in the way we think about the future? Dunno.

I read this story today in the airport, waiting to board my plane. Flying - it seems like the most usual thing today; and so it was awkward to read a story about such esoteric inventions as the 'air-train'. And awkward it was to look through the descriptions of the capable of transmitting pictures 'phonograph', while someone next to me would possibly get slightly impatient at a slow internet connection on their humble smartphones.

People we get used to changes quickly, and so even an unremarkable story as Verne's 2889 is in this sense an eye-opener. I am giving it a 3-star, instead of a 2-star rating, because in being an imaginative story attempting to envisage the future, I think it has an important function to play; I would feel bad to even guilty if I ranked low one's enthusiastic thoughts on the possibilities our future will offer to us.

[Frank Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The very last paragraph tells you exactly what we have here:

"Such, for this year of grace 2889, is the history of one day in the life of the editor of the Earth Chronicle."

But it doesn't tell you just how rich with ideas this story is. There are some interesting territorial changes:

"Though, by a just turn-about of things here below, Great Britain has become a colony of the United States, the English are not yet reconciled to the situation."

There are some fun new tech bits, like this futuristic calcamulator:

"Thanks to the Piano Electro-Reckoner, the most complex calculations can be made in a few seconds."

Some things are indeed automagical:

"Why, Doctor, as you well know, everything is done by machinery here. It is not for me to go to the bath; the bath will come to me."

And some things apparently never change, hurry up ladies:

"She is late! Woman's punctuality! Progress everywhere except there!" muttered Mr. Smith

This next quote nearly hits a few marks but ultimately misses. Still pretty good for a late 19th century understanding of science:

"Nay, so early as ten centuries ago it was known that the differences between the several chemical and physical forces depend on the mode of vibration of the etheric particles, which is for each specifically different."

And I guess, extrapolating the error with a bogus analogy is how we get the "piano-calculator" mentioned above, from the following:

"When at last the kinship of all these forces was discovered, it is simply astounding that 500 years should still have to elapse before men could analyze and describe the several modes of vibration that constitute these differences."

It's a fun little snapshot of a future almost nine hundred years away, imagined over a hundred years ago. If you have the opportunity, you should check out this very quick read. It's available for free on the Gutenberg Project site.

[Amr Mohamed · Rating 2 out of 5]

قصة قصيرة عن تخيل الكاتب ليوم في اواخر القرن التاسع والعشرين
مع ان القصة كتبت عام 1899 ولكن كان الكاتب موفق في خياله في لعدة اختراعات حدثت بالفعل
ولكن طبعا توقعه ان يكون رجل لديه ثروة ضخمة جدا تقدر بعشر مليارات دولار غير موفق بالمرة
اذا كان زوجة صاحب امازون دلوقتي في القرن الواحد والعشرين نهبت بس سبعة وستين مليار دولار
يعني كان المفروض يقول ان الغني ده يكون عنده مينمم تسع الاف تريليون لان العشرة مليار دولار بعد 800 سنة اخرك هتجيب بيها طلبات من سعودي وانت مروح

[Bosibori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read where through Jules Verne( or Michel Verne's) imagination we see how the 29th century will look like. This whole post is a spoiler.

In the year 2889, people "consume food that is compounded and prepared according to scientific principles, and they breathe an atmosphere freed from the micro-organisms that formerly used to swarm in it; hence they live longer than their forefathers and know nothing of the innumerable diseases of olden times.". Rumours has it that nutritive air is yet to be discovered.

They have mechanical dressers.

They receive communications from Mercury, Venus and Mar via phototelegrams(this book was written in the era of photographs and telegraphs. No cell phones, no Skype, no IMS, no Facetime and etc). Apparently, these planets are inhabited.

Some new planets sre still being discovered, such as the 'Olympus'. It is said to be a "great planet gravitates beyond Neptune at the mean distance of 11,400,799,642 miles from the sun, and to traverse its vast orbit takes 1311 years, 294 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes, 9 seconds."

In the event of a cloudless sky, the scientist could create artificial clouds. Even rains when they felt it necessary.

They seem to have solutions to housing problems and the problem of existence reduced to it simplest terms, eg, "instead of the endless suites of apartments of the olden time, one room fitted with ingenious mechanical contrivances is enough. Here a person sleeps, takes his meals, in short, lives."

They have done away with the domestic kitchens. Here, a person could subscribe to a company named Grand Alimentation Company, "which sends through a great network of tubes to subscribers' residences all sorts of dishes, as a varied assortment is always in readiness. A subscription costs money, to be sure, but the cuisine is of the best."

There are air coaches that wait for you by the window and transports you to whichever part of the world that you please.

All seasons have been made same.

But in all the progresses that the have made, they have not yet changed the woman. She still doesn't keep time.

[LaCitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un inno alla scienza e al progresso viste senza chiaroscuri, ma solo in senso positivo.
Per Verne l'umanità nel 2890 starà meglio, si avvarrà di incredibili strumenti tecnologici (alcuni dei quali già inventati ai giorni nostri: le videochiamate, gli aerei, ilo sfruttamento dell'energia solare, eolica o idroelettrica, ecc.) e l'unica cosa non ancora possibile sarà l'ibernazione.
Agli occhi del lettore moderno, è una visione della realtà semplificata e stereotipata, pure è un racconto grazioso, reso simpatico anche dal buffo finale con vasca da bagno semovente.

[Abdel ilah · Rating 2 out of 5]

مرة اخرى ترجمة دار إبهار تدعو إلى العار.
يا اخي أليس لديكم مترجمين أكفاء؟؟ أليس لديكم مراجع؟؟
لو كانت الترجمة من غوغل كانت لتكون احسن

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

The review from afar – No. 5

Revised forward to these overseas reviews:

Since I am cycling back-and-forth from the US to Asia like a piece of string in search of a yo-yo, I have forgone the usual joy of slugging 8-12 paperbacks along with me and taken a previously unused Kindle 3G along instead. It is to the fine folks at Project Gutenberg that I tip my hat: virtually every title I have or will be reading comes from their worthwhile endeavors (or endeavours, when in a former British colony.)


In the Year 2889 is a piece of short, speculative writing that relies not so much on a mystery, or plot, or characters, but on the fertile imagination of its author. That it follows and builds upon the science and predictions implicit in Jules Verne’s novels there can be no doubt. Whether this work was written by Verne pater or fils is a question that is apparently much debated.

I do not know which of the two or how much by each this was created. Nor do I care, except in some abstract, “gee it would be good to know that”, kind of way. What matters are the intellect and the genius of these ideas. Is this a perfect realization of what the world might become 1,000 years out? Of course not.

Writers of fiction, including the best Science Fiction writers take ideas, current trends, and even historical trends to synthesize their future universes. When they look out only a short time they have often been stunningly accurate (atom bobs and rockets back in the early 20th century), but usually because they were riding the cutting edge of current technology. Nowadays unless they keep to the biological or computational sciences, they are seen as dreamers because we cannot design a star-drive that isn’t a reaction-drive of some kind.

The best thing about this is that they took the time to predict how much future man had. 1,000 years out when we were just getting good a mechanized death machines? That’s optimism, if you ask me!

Three (3.0) Stars to be fair to other readers. But in my heart I think it’s more like a 4-4.5 on sheer audacity and faith in mankind.

You can get it free in a variety of formats at the Project Gutenberg site.

[Filip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won't get into the controversy about who wrote this essay/short story. Suffice to say, we'll never know. What we do know is that, like any other work by Verne (or Verne family in this case), this is work of a visionary.

There is no plot. There is no get-to-know period for the few featured characters. For all we know, Mr. Smith could be either a good guy or a mean son of a bitch mogul, but it doesn't matter.

The goodies? Uncannily exact predictions about the future.

Skyscrapers/overpopulation:

How much fairer they would find our modern towns, with populations exceeding 10,000,000 souls; steets 300 feet wide, houses 100 feet high; with a constant temperature in all seasons; and lines of aerial locomotion crossing the sky in all directions!

Videoconferencing:

Here is another great triumph of modern science. The transmission of speech is an old story; the transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by wires is a thing but of yesterday. A valuable invention indeed; Mr. Smith this morning is full of blessings for the inventor, when by its aid he is able distinctly to see his wife despite her great distance.

Alternative energy

Some of these absorb and condense the living force contained in the sun's rays; others, the electricity stored in our globe; others again, energy from whatever source: waterfalls, streams, wind, etc.

...and lots of other gems.

This vision of future isn't bleak or dystopian like most writings on this subject. It's optimistic and stated matter-of-factly. It does get into some power struggle between the most prominent countries in the world, but even the reference of weapons of mass destruction seems lighthearted and trivial.

[F.R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course we all enjoyed those articles about ‘Back to the Future part 2’ because it’s fun to see how inaccurate its thirty years into the future predictions were. But what if an artist was more ambitious in his predictions? What if a writer predicted a thousand years into the future, and we were able to somehow look at those predictions – say one hundred and twenty five years later – to try and work out how accurate they’re likely to be.

Step forward, Mr Jules Verne, or perhaps it’s his son, Michel.

In the year 2889 the most successful newspapers will be those whose subscribers can ring up and talk to the reporters who tell them the news, while other subscribers get their news from the phonograph record. It will be a world where medicine has advanced to such a point it allows men to live to the grand old age of fifty-two. Britain is now a colony of America and not very happy with it, while the entire of Africa is a colony of France and everyone seems to be fine with that. Oh, and women are still habitually late.

To be fair though, he does get right clean energy and face-timing (even if his version of the computer is something called the piano electro-reckoner).

One reads this kind of thing with wry amusement. Okay, it isn’t anywhere near the year 2889, but from this vantage point, I’m sure a lot of these predictions are going to be very wrong. What we have here is a fun historical artefact, one which makes us smile as it shows off its Victorian obsessions with advancing technology and colonialism.

I hope though that Mrs Verne – whether she was in the habit of keeping the writer late or not – gave him a good old fashioned reprimand for one of those pieces of precognition.

[Ratnesh Neema · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't expect anything, and the story may turn out just fine. The imagination really feels lacking though, as the progress and inventions described should well be available by 2089, rather that 2889.

That's how hard it is, to predict the future, huh.

[Raven Cain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this old bit of sci-fi. I think the most remarkable thing about it is that for all of his imagination and creativity, Mr. Verne could not picture a wireless world. Nonetheless, it's a classic. A review would be pointless. I enjoyed it very much and highly recommend it.

[Ele0n0ra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decir lo que sea sobre esta obra tan cortita seria spoilear a quien desee leerla pero no hay mayor spoiler que la realidad 😉
Maravillada por la genialidad de Julio Verne.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

An extremely short story, interesting as a curiosity.

[Vanu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This WAS SO CUTE TO READ. Awww look at these people (almost accurately, though) predict what the future must look like!
I found it particularly fascinating that, even in their wildest of dreams, no one could even imagine what the internet is today, even if they did get quite close. Also, advertisements on clouds? Melting the poles to make more room for human habitation? Wow, the imagination required for this thing. We are still far away from any adverts being projected on clouds (billboards are the closest thing, right? Or if we start to advertise on planes, maybe? Oh wait, we do that) and yet more further away from just ONE room being able to accommodate all our needs (bed disappearing to reveal a dining table, for example) and lol there's not way we're EVER going to melt the poles, but still!
It also fascinates me that Jules Verne (or Michel, his son. Whoever did write this book) could not imagine satellites (a mile and a half telescope is what he imagined instead!) or travelling to the moon as a reality ("What if we turned the moon around to see what's on the other side?") but everything else is, scarily enough, totally possible in this century right now.
*Also, the media does have immense power, but not that much. Not yet, anyway.*

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not usually one for sci-fi books, but since this is such a short story and I had some time on my hands... Simply said: why the hell not?

First of all I should say that I think the world mister Verne imagined we will live in almost 900 years from now has some really believable elements that I think could just be realized.

On the other hand there are some things that I find a bit weird, like the telephone-newspaper? I mean, sure, there weren't any tablets yet in 1889, but wouldn't a little device on which you could read the newspaper or just the articles you liked be way more efficient than a huge hall of reporters answering calls from people all day? Where do they find the time to actually make their reports if they have to be on the phone 24/7? It strange to imagine such things were inimaginable, even for the likes of Jules Verne, just over a hundred years ago.

Secondly, there really was no story to it. We were just taken on this small tour of the future, following this man who hardly sleeps and is practically married to his work, and that's it.

I might be alone in this, but a short story without a storyline just doesn't do much for me.

[Icy-Cobwebs-Crossing-SpaceTime · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enterprising view of the far future composed in 1889, this short essay is said to have been the product of Jules Verne, the famous author of futuristic fiction, but is more likely to have been written by his son Michel Verne. It is interesting now, 123 years after publication, to consider what the Vernes, pere et fils, viewed for 1000 years into the future.

One fine example is a newspaper, published for thirty generations, in America, which is transmitted daily to subscribers in spoken or recorded format. Too, the U. S. now has 100 states, and a new capital, Centropolis; but it still possesses billionaires, men of centralized power.

Rather surprising today when humans live into the 80’s and 90’s, and some even surpass 100, is the Verne’s supposition that in one thousand years, the lifespan will have increased only from an average of 37 to an average of 52! Less surprisingly is mankind’s colonization of several other planets in our solar system.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The future was closer than Verne thought. 877 years ahead of schedule, we already have Skype, iPods, online newspapers, a life expectancy that is beyond 37 (or even the projected 52), and scientifically created food. However, we do not have a self-renewing energy source and have not found alien life forms within our solar system. Read this novella to experience a day in the life of a man from 2889.

[Seth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a strange piece of early utopian fiction - a curiosity to the modern reader. We're told that people lead fairy tale lives, but the tour we get exclusively focuses on the life of a billionaire who controls the media and the government and funds major scientific research - clearly a representative citizen from whom we can extrapolate to the rest of society, who must of course benefit from such extreme centralization of power. The imagined tech developments range from unambitious in hindsight (television and phonographs) to dubious even from a modern perspective (global climate control). Claims that this story predicted the Internet are greatly exaggerated. There's no kind of large decentralized network; just TV, radio, conference calls, and video calls. Some of the R&D projects are absurdly ill-conceived: melting the polar ice caps to create more habitable land (rising ocean levels would have the opposite effect) and a guy who developed something like cryosleep and went straight to testing it on himself for a hundred years, no sensible short-duration testing first (and apparently nobody's been working on the technology for the whole century since this test started?).

[حيدر العبدلي · Rating 3 out of 5]

في العام ١٨٨٩ يتصور جول فيرن كيف سيكون العالم في العام 2889، أمر مثير للأهتمام دائما ان نعرف كيف كان يتصور الماضون المستقبل.
الخيال هو أساس العلم فلولا وجوده لما اخترع العلم شيئا. أغلب التصورات التي ذكرها جول فيرن موجودة في الخيال البشري منذ القدم وقد أضاف لمسته وتصوراته عليها.
القصة بسيطة وتصف يوم كامل من حياة ملياردير مالك لمؤسسة إعلامية في العام ٢٨٨٩ ويصف فيها الاختراعات التي توصلت لها البشرية في المستقبل.

[Ishak Al Mamun Rohan · Rating 4 out of 5]

অনেকের মতে জুলভার্ন অন্য জগতের মানুষ ছিলেন। আমারো মাঝেমধ্যে তাই'ই মনে হয়।নইলে কি ভাবে একটা মানুষের চিন্তাভাবনা এতোটা সুদুরপ্রসারি হয়? চাঁদে যাওয়ার ১০০ বছর আগে তিনি সায়েন্স ফিকশন লিখেছিলেন। পরবর্তীতে মানুষ ঠিকই বিশ্ব জয় করে চাঁদে তাদের প্রতিপত্ত স্থাপন করেছে। হয়তো অদুর ভবিষৎ এ এই বইয়ের গল্পও সত্যি হবে। এই মানুষটার ডাই হার্ড ফ্যান হতে সবসময়ই বাধ্য করে।

[Mehedi Shafi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't really find the usual Jules Verne feeling while reading this.