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The most significant difference between these two great authors was that whereas Wells described mostly otherworldly events, Verne wrote about this world.

The fiction of Wells has been staggeringly influential, and few understand the impact of Wells on Science fiction. Perhaps his greatest masterpieces are "The War of the Worlds" and "The Time Machine". Today, one can hardly call Science Fiction books "masterpieces", since they are mostly meant to please and not to serve some artistic purpose; in this, Wells stands out. His works are so original that they have more or less created their own genre (though of course science fiction is not solely the domain of Wells), and they have influenced almost all future works in that genre. The very concept of (inhuman) alien life on Mars, and certainly the idea of an alien invasion, was introduced to the mass society by one book of his, and today it is one of the most common science fiction themes in the world. The by now ubiquitous concept of time travel by a machine basically started with Wells in "The time machine". Wells prefers not to enter the scientific problems regarding time travel, which make the book all the more wonderful. In both works, Wells speaks of other worlds: in the former, the world is mars, which enables Wells to activate his rich imagination to describe the creatures that hail from there; and in the latter, the world is technically our own Earth, but Wells transforms it completely by fast forwarding its history and catapulting it into a dystopian future.

Verne, on the other hand, deals largely with Earth-based stories. Not all of his works are science fiction, but they all have the concept of "potential", the idea that our world is capable of untold wonders that have not yet been realized. Many times, this potential took the form of inventions, and here Verne is rightly hailed as a visionary, having predicted such things as travel to the moon and many aspects of submarine travel. In other books, such as in "Around the world in Eighty Days", Verne details miraculous achievements and thus once again shows the potential of human ability. Verne's statement to society is about humanity: anything is possible, and while the power that humans wield can be used for evil, it is a wonderful thing that can produce amazing achievements.

In short, Wells takes us to other worlds and planets and describes imaginatively what he finds there, while Verne keeps us on our own planet and urges us to see the beauty in the world in which we live. Both authors have revolutionized literature and have essentially created the modern genre of science fiction. Whatever the differences between them are, their works have much to teach us and can be read not only for pleasure and enjoyment, but also for thought-provoking ideas that amaze us even today.

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