Riviere Blanche :: Sept: THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF A RUSSIAN SCIENTIST

JM Lofficier · Posté le: Mar Sep 01, 2009 9:46 am Sujet du message:

The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System is an ambitious Vernian cosmic saga written between 1888 and 1896 by Georges Le Faure and Henri de Graffigny. Where Verne had limited his hero Hector Servadac to traveling on a comet, Le Faure and de Graffigny tell the detailed story of the exploration of the Solar System -- and beyond.

In the first volume, the amazing Professor Mikhail Ossipoff of the Scientific Institute of St. Petersburg launches a spaceship from a canon built inside a volcano. The crew, consisting of Ossipoff, his daughter Selena, her fiancé Gontran de Flammermont, French polymath Alcide Fricoulet and American tycoon Jonathan Farenheit, travel to the Moon where they encounter an amazing ancient civilization.

When Selena is taken prisoner by the evil Fedor Sharp, who has stolen Ossipoff's secrets and reached the Moon before they did, the heroes pursue him in a jet-propelled craft to Venus, then in a solar-powered ship to Mercury. After many adventures on the Inner Planets, they embark on a comet and reach Mars, where new dangers threaten…

In the second volume, Professor Ossipoff and his fearless crew, after their harrowing adventures on Mars, pursue their rival Fedor Sharp through the storms of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. Then, chancing upon a mean of faster-than-light propulsion, after a tour of Uranus and Neptune, they embark on the first-ever journey out of the Solar System, to Alpha Centauri and beyond… Meanwhile, thanks to Tuttle's Comet, the insidious Sharp manages to return to Earth, where he plans to steal Ossipoff's discoveries…

The two covers are by Canadian artist JP Normand: