Here’s the thing about life-shattering days.
They start just like any other. You don’t realize your world is about to explode into a million smoking pieces of awfulness until it’s too late.
The novel opens with these words from its protagonist. The reader quickly learns that she is in her freshman year at a prestigious school with the snooty-sounding Harding-Pencroft Academy. Of course, it turns out this is not your average snooty academy for upper-class privilege rich kids. And even though it shares the same initials as a certain famous wizard who attends a certain famous exclusive school, it is not quite different in that way. It is, however, the most elite provide school in the country for training those with an interest in marine-based careers.
Two of the main characters in The Mysterious Island were Harding and Pencroft, men with the same surnames as the founders of our school. At the time I’d thought, Okay, that’s a little weird. Later in the book, when the crazy sci-fi submarine commander Captain Nemo revealed that his real name was Prince Dakkar, I admit I got a shiver down my back.
Why an advanced academy for marine-based interests? Well, it facilitates the main purpose of the book which is to get the characters involved with the story from another author. What occurs in this book is essentially a sequel of sorts to Jules Verne’s famous story about a submarine traveling 20,000 leagues under the sea. Most people who know the name Captain Nemo probably do not also know the name Prince Dakkar, so it is a nifty little slight of hand for the author here to give his protagonist that name instead of Nemo. Although, of course, most readers in the age demographic to which this story is targeted probably first think of finding a fish with that name rather than the crazed captain of the Nautilus.
The Nautilus is like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s difficult for me to even think of it as a submarine. Granted, I’ve never been on an actual sub. That training doesn’t start at HP until the second half of our sophomore year.
The Nautilus is, for those not familiar, Captain Nemo’s futuristic submarine in Verne’s novel. It is more than a mere submarine, however, as it is equipped with the ability to drawn power from the sea itself. Thus, it never actually has to rise to the surface for refueling. It also can do a lot of other crazy things that no submarine should be able to do, but it is really the idea of being able to circumnavigate the globe several times over without ever having to come up refueling that is at the center of the interest here. But, also, let’s admit one very important fact about this quote: wouldn’t it be cool beyond all reason if there really was a school out there that offers submarine training?
