This is Jules Verne's first novel, and while it's only the third of his that I've read, there's a massive gap in quality between this and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, for instance. There are flashes of interest here, places where the characterisation very briefly sparks, but mostly I was only very mildly interested, and in some places it verged a little on tedium. There's a lot of detail on things I don't really care about - the mechanism of the balloon, for instance, plus Verne clearly enjoys showing off his knowledge about the history of European exploration of Africa - and the whole thing is very, very racist. And yeah, I know, product of its time, but I don't particularly enjoy reading that sort of thing, and I don't particularly enjoy Kennedy slaughtering every impressive or endangered animal he comes across either. The man's a dick; I wish he'd been eaten by crocodiles. I wouldn't have cared if any of them were eaten, frankly, and as for the murdered missionary... well, he sort of brought it on himself, didn't he? Some people don't know when to leave well enough alone.