Robur the Conqueror
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Robur the Conqueror (French: Robur-le-Conquérant) is a science fiction novel by Jules Verne, published in 1886. It is also known as The Clipper of the Clouds. It has a sequel, Master of the World, which was published in 1904.
Plot summary
The story begins with strange lights and sounds, including blaring trumpet music, reported in the skies all over the world. Then black flags with gold suns mysteriously appear atop tall historic landmarks such as the
Members of the Weldon Institute are all firm believers that mankind shall master the skies using
Later that night Robur kidnaps the Weldon Institute's
After the horizontal propellers are damaged in a storm, the Albatross anchors over the Chatham Islands for repairs. While the crew is busy at work, Prudent and Evans light a fuze and make their escape. They try to bring Frycollin with them but cannot find him, only later discovering that he had already escaped without them. The Albatross explodes and its wreckage, along with Robur and his crew, plunges towards the ocean. Meanwhile, the three escapees are safe on a small but inhabited island and are later rescued by a ship; they then make a long journey back to Philadelphia.
The Weldon Institute members return, and rather than describe their adventures or admit that Robur had created a flying machine greater than their expectations of the Go-ahead, they simply conclude the argument the group was having during their last meeting. Rather than have only one propeller to their dirigible, they decide to have one propeller in front and another behind, similar to Robur's design.
Seven months after their return the Go-ahead is completed and making its maiden voyage with the president, secretary, and an aeronaut. The speed and maneuverability of the dirigible impress a huge crowd, but are trivial compared to Robur's Albatross. Suddenly, out of the sky there appears the Albatross. It is revealed that when the Albatross exploded, enough of it was intact so that at least some of the propellers
The entirety of the final scene is described from the crowd's point of view. The Albatross begins circling the Go-ahead; the Go-ahead drops
Having demonstrated his rule over the skies, Robur returns the three men to the ground. In a short speech, Robur says that nations are not yet fit for union. He cautions the crowd that it is evolution, not revolution, that they should be seeking. He leaves with the promise that he will one day return to reveal his secrets of flight. The people of Philadelphia subject Prudent and Evans to unrelenting ridicule for the rest of their lives.
Influences
Film
The story was adapted into a 1961 film, Master of the World, with Vincent Price as Robur. The film kept the basic concept but added elements of intrigue and a romance to the plot.
In this version, Robur is an idealist who plans to conquer the world in order to put an end to tyranny and war. Using the Albatross he plans to bomb the military forces of the world until all nations concede to his demands. (In contrast, the novel's Robur has no such aims, and bombs only one ground target: an African coronation where a mass human sacrifice is about to take place.)
Instead of the Weldon Institute members, he kidnaps Mr. Prudent of Philadelphia, an armaments manufacturer, along with his daughter Dorothy and her fiancé Phillip Evans. Charles Bronson plays Strock, the reluctant hero who comes to admire Robur, but not enough to let him carry out his plans.
The name Albatross is retained, though the novel's description and early illustrations that suggest a flush-decked
This construction also enables the Albatross to fly high enough to be impervious to contemporary weapons fire. When flown low to the ground, though, Albatross was heavily damaged while within the blast radius of one of its own bombs, and was finally damaged beyond repair and sank into the ocean when the gunpowder in its armory exploded due to sabotage by the passengers.
Novels
- In Doctor Mabuse) works for Count Dracula during World War I.
- In Kevin J. Anderson's Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius, Robur is an official of the Ottoman Empire locked in a power struggle against his rival, Barbicane.
- In T.E. MacArthur's The Volcano Lady: Volume One and Volume Two, Robur carries out many of his activities from the original novel as a minor character as the novel follows the adventures of Dr. Leticia Gantry, the "Volcano Lady."
Comics
- Robur the Conqueror was adapted to comic book form in 1961 as Classics Illustrated No. 162. [1] [2]
- A Randy Lofficier and artist Gil Formosa:
- Volume 1 De la Lune à la Terre (Albin Michel, 2003) (From the Moon to the Earth, Heavy Metal, December 2003)
- Volume 2 20.000 Ans sous les Mers (Albin Michel, 2004) (20,000 Years Under the Seas, Heavy Metal, Fall 2005)
- Volume 3 Voyage au Centre de la Lune (Albin Michel, 2005) (Journey to the Center of the Moon)
In it, Robur (who is also an
- A character similar to Robur, named "Alexandre LeRoi", appears in Victorian-era Batman, with the film Master of the World.
- Robur is mentioned several times in the first three volumes of Captain Mors, the "Sky Pirate", a German fictional air-based character. An entry in the supplementary The New Traveller's Almanac in the back of Volume 2 indicates that Robur is conscripted to lead Les Hommes Mysterieux ("The Mysterious Men"), which is a French analogue to the British team. Their fateful encounter with the League is detailed in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier. Robur also appears as a (losing) square in the attached Game of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
See also
- Mystery airship
- first fully controlled free-flight8 August 1884.
External links
- Works related to Robur the Conqueror at Wikisource
- ROBUR comics official web site from Gil Formosa
- Robur the Conqueror from JV.Gilead.org.il
- Robur the Conqueror (English)
- Gallery of images, from the 1886 edition, from the Smithsonian Institution.
- "Bombing the Savages" by Sven Lindqvist (political analysis of the Robur book)
- (in French) Robur le Conquérant, audio version