Something very strange is in the air of the harmonious town of Quiquendone. Unknown to its inhabitants, the mad genius Dr. Ox has unleashed a veil of oxyhydric gas over the town-his own living laboratory-in an attempt to spice things up. In his amusing portrait of an idyllic community suddenly overtaken by an appetite for aggression, Jules Verne points to the ease with which any society-and the modern resonance is unmissable-can be manipulated by its masters into hatred and war. Jules Verne was the originator of modern science fiction; among his works are Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth.