A Fun Scientific What-If Story: Journey to the Interior of the Earth, by Jules Verne

There is more to Jules Verne's famous book about traveling into the Earth than I thought! This is what I learned when I went back to the second issue of Amazing Stories and saw the first part serialized there.

The original was published in French in 1864, then re-published in an expanded version in 1867. Then, the first English version was released in 1871, but here's the kicker: that first English version was drastically altered from what a straightforward translation would have been! The character names were changed, which may have been forgivable, but the structure of the story was actually pretty different, too. That "localized" English version was Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Jules Verne Falling Flat? Say it Isn't So!

In the first issue of Amazing Stories, from all the way back in 1926, we have the first half of a lesser-known novel by Jules Verne! Originally published in 1877, it's called Off on a Comet, or Hector Servadac, and it's the story of a French military officer working in northern Africa who, in the middle of preparing for a duel over a woman, is knocked over by an ear-shattering explosion!

He, as well as a sizeable chunk of the Mediterranean coast, has been captured by a comet that hit Earth with a glancing blow and continued off on its irregular orbit.