Master Of The World by Jules Verne
Like Lighthouse at the End of the World, Master of the World was one of Verne’s last works; it was published not long before his death in 1905. Unlike Lighthouse, it’s not very good. I don’t know any of the details regarding the writing of this story, or about the English translation available on Project Gutenberg, but Verne clearly wasn’t testing his abilities with this Voyage Extraordinaire. A sequel to Robur the Conqueror, it is flimsier that that already lighthearted work, with little to recommend it beyond a sketch of a fantastical vehicle, named the Terror, capable of high-speed travel on land, on and under water, and in the air.
Strock, the narrator, is the only character of any dimension at all, and even he is toneless, serving only to relate the tale - his one defining trait appears to be a marked dimness. There are basic errors, and not just with the scientific underpinnings of the technology, such as the misnaming of Robur’s right-hand man, called Tom Turner in Robur the Conqueror, renamed John in Master of the World, a mistake apparently present in the original and therefore not attributable to shoddy translation (although my French isn’t up to much so I may have misread the relevant passage). Robur is even less complicated than in his first incarnation, impressing the reader as little more than an trapezoidal lunatic with a fancy mode of transport. Verne even gives away Robur’s identity, hidden from the reader in the actual prose, in a chapter title, so the main potential twist is dropped on the floor on the contents page, a decision which gives the measure of the effort made by the author for this particular novel.