The Purchase of the North Pole

In this wildly prescient 1889 sequel to From the Earth to the Moon, the Baltimore Gun Club returns with a scheme so audacious it reads like climate-fiction written 130 years too early. These space-hucksters propose to purchase the North Pole, then fire a colossal cannon into the ice to shift Earth's axis itself, eliminating seasons, melting the polar ice caps, and exposing the coal deposits beneath. The unintended consequences: flooding that threatens to swallow entire nations. As the world scrambles to stop them, only a single miscalculation may prevent catastrophe or ensure it. Verne, writing before industrial warming was even conceived, somehow predicted our present moment: scientists debating whether to geoengineer the planet, corporations eyeing the Arctic's resources, and humans convinced they can engineer nature into submission. The result is a ripping adventure that doubles as a sharp satire on scientific hubris and the dangers of treating the Earth as a machine to be tinkered with.