In the Year 2889

Certainly a better read 75 or 100 years a ago and if you forget the modern world as you read, it would be quite visionary for it's time. Only 3 stars because, though a quick read, also difficult to keep it in context with its era with the what is now clearly antiquated terminology. And also that it appears Jules did not write the story.

I love Jules Verne, but this one is pretty doggone good. Somehow he just did not get the year exactly right--2014 is right on target for some of the idiotic situations portrayed. Even so, he had some wonderful foresight and insight into the nature of the beast--man!

who was this man...was he a seer, a time traveler, who had to write about the future as fiction to get it publish.I love all his since i was a kid and as an adult i now understand the richness of his books and how we can have a new golden age.. if we just dare to take it, because nothing is given for free, that cannot be taken back by the giver.

Not sure why people are getting up set because this is a short story rather than a novel. They should take that up with the author. I had never read this before but really enjoyed the "look" into the future. Its not long, it is a short story after all, but absolutely worth reading.

The only interesting thing is seeing what he got right about future inventions. He was close with news broadcasts. And out ability to use our phones for video chat? Who knew that someone would think of that in 1887.

While it is fascinating to read what Jules Verne predicted what 2289 would be like and some of the predictions were scarily accurate if not a little late. His characters are boring and the story doesn't really go anywhere or do anything.

not to crazy about this book. it is somewhat a decent read if you have a half hour to get rid of. i see it as an aston martin lagonda, a really old idea trying to appear way ahead of its time and failing!!! im glad it was free on kindle....

The good news is that this was likely written by Jules's son, Michel. As I admire Jules Verne's body of work, I find it comforting to know this is probably not part of it.

I find two major (and insuperable) faults in this book - ignoring the fact that they take money for something I believe to be in the public domain. First, as Utopias go, this has that uniform glow of happiness that usually means the author hasn't thought things through very clearly. Any ideal world is ideal only for some. One way or another fatally oppressive to some group. Hiding the dark side of any society just casts a pall on the rest. In this case, the doings of the fabulously wealthy center of attention just leave us wondering about the peonage struggling on whose backs they ride so high. Then, there's that far-distant future, a millennium advanced of the author's 1889. The science fabulists' ongoing nightmare is how quickly the future comes. In this case,just about every 'marvel' foretold here appeared in our homes within a century - leaving 900 more years without further advancement to get to Michel's 2889.

Amusing, if you find it free, but not worth paying money for.

-- wiredweird

A pretty funny look at a predicted future. Funny because Verne was looking 1000 years forward, and less than 150 years later, we've achieved all he predicted and more. There's an early conception of the Internet, most notably. We also see video conferencing. And, most heartening, Verne predicts that man's lifespan will be extended to the unheard of age of...52! WOW!

Really, the story gives me hope. All the predictions of Verne were so farfetched, and yet we've blown past them in less than 100 years. Who knows what modern science fiction authors will be proven right in just a matter of decades?

This story is in the public domain. I listened to the free audio production from Librivox's 6th science fiction collection.

The recent publication of the short story "In the Year 2889" (Wildside Press, 2006) is a welcome addition to the Jules Verne library. I read it first back in my early college days in the late sixties, and I have been hoping for a new edition of the text.

At 32 pages, it is a slim volume, but nonetheless significant. There is some question as to whether the story was actually penned by Jules Verne or might be, at least in part, the work of Verne's son Michel. The story is in keeping with Jules Verne's optimistic view of future possibilities.

While the cover art by Sophie Martin is quite striking, I would have preferred the volume be illustrated throughout. That would have greatly enhanced the pamphlete-size volume.

Much of the story presented, a day in the life of a citizen of the 20th century, sounds like an episode of "The Jetsons," with a man being clothed by a mechanical dresser as he is whisked off to work.

It is quick and light reading, to be sure, but oh! the memories it rekindles of a vision gone by, a vision of life almost 1000 years into the future.

Thank you, Monsieur Verne. Thank you, Wildside Press.

"Would not our contemporaries prize the telephone and the telephote more highly if they had not forgotten the telegraph?" First published in 1889, Michel Verne (Jules's son) imagines the world in 1000 years. In little more than 100, we've made lots of the progress he dreamed of...

My feeling of this so called book is just that so called, it's maybe a long chapter of a unwritten book and on the first page of this so called book it say that it may have been written by Verne's son. Of what is written is good but some how missing that Jules touch of writing and feeling, it is a day in the life of business leader and it has a forerunner of the internet and newspaper on line a nice touch and a little scary that he was able to foretell of this type of techonolgy, I wounder if he left any notes as to this book or if this is all there is to it, I would hope not as it had the making of a very good book from a master story teller.

This story was just fascinating to me, how Verne, thinking in his 1800s perspective was able to imagine such a futuristic world and still keep the tone of a 19th century writer. I loved all of the unique inventions!