Jules Verne was a veritable prophet. Before automobiles hit the road, he imagined electric submarines, journeys to the moon, global communication, television, and dozens of other zany advances. But his greatest creation has got to be Captain Nemo, a hero for both the 19th and 21st centuries. The courageous captain of the Nautilus, Nemo is an anti-imperialist who creates a sustainable underwater community, his blue and green paradise away from the gray industrial revolution (The Nautilus, it has been said, was a zero emission, VOC-free vehicle). Nemo is a vengeful self-exiling cynic, irrevocably heartbroken and purely ingenious. In other words, Literary Perfection. But best of all, he is his own master, removed from our messy, nefarious, landlubbing world.

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