Five Weeks in a Balloon

Verne's first full-length novel, while setting the formula for many of his later books, is definitely not one of his best: the science is sketchy and the plot is basically a series of small misadventures in a row that the three main characters escape with usually not too much difficulty and a just modicum of ingenuity.

The book would still be enjoyable enough, however, if not for the blatant racism that permeates all the pages where they meet another human being: every single black person in Africa is either a savage killer (or a cannibal, or a bandit, or engaged in perverted rituals), or gullible and prone to worship our heroes as lunar deities; in any case, incapable of real civilization. The Arabs fare only a little better, in that they are rich and have fine cities, but then are all ruthless and intent on killing the infidels. This is way more than I'm able to tolerate even for a novel written in the 1850s, and the rest of the novel doesn't really make up for it.