by Royce Radcliffe

Created on: May 23, 2007

I think when you study Wells and Verne you see a case of men who used the same venue to express polar opposite views on mankind and its destiny. This is the main difference among a great number of them.... Since these are possibly the two greatest science fiction writers of all time it does well to compare the two.

One more slight difference was a technical one. Jules Verne was quite the technician. They say the vessel he described in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea could have actually been built based on the writings in the book alone. Such was his level of exacting detail and technical accuracy. When Wells came out he would really skimp over these details in comparison. This even irritated the more accurate Verne, who criticized Wells on this very issue many times in his lifetime.

But the more basic difference is that the two have opposite views on mankind itself. Wells seems to be the pessimist to Verne's optimist. Verne is one of the more optimistic science fiction writers of all time and despite the drama of his writing, books like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, From the Earth to the Moon and Journey to the Center of the earth all used science as a method of empowering the characters. He looked at science and saw a blossoming of wondrous possibilities, this most evidenced in Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Whereas with Verne it was about romance and character driven dramas, Wells would use the medium to make a point about mankind itself. He criticizes the stratification in English society in his book the time Machine and in The War of the Worlds he seems to imply our technology will destroy us. Before it was even thought of he predicted the splitting of the atom. When this happened he was horrified... he encouraged governments not to pursue the technology but they did anyway... he died a bitter man.

The question of whether to focus on technical details like Verne or to focus on the characters like Wells has permeated science fiction since the days of its inception. The issue of whether to use it as a canvas to make points about social commentary like Wells or to focus on the adventure like Verne is a close second in importance. These are two of the great writers of all time and at the end of the day that is about all they have in common, but it is more than enough.

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