Grasping for the Wind

Jules Verne, Prolific SF Writer

Some of the time, rather than find new authors to read, I like to go back to the roots of fantasy or science fiction (hence my recent reading of Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank). The Guardian has an interesting piece on that Frenchman, Jules Verne. Says the article:

Ask an Englishman to name a French writer of science fiction and he is likely to answer: Jules Verne (ask him to name another French writer of science fiction and he'll probably go 'that guy who wrote the book on which Planet of the Apes was based, him, you know, him, can't recall his name right now'). In fact France has a rich tradition of science fiction going all the way back to Cyrano de Bergerac in the 17th century and continuing without a break right up to the present day. We might wonder why an entire literary tradition has been shrunk, in the English imagination, to a single writer. We might also wonder why that writer's enormous output - more than 50 novels - has been reduced to a handful of titles: Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869-70) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872). Verne is famous today as the inventor of Phileas Fogg, and of Captain Nemo, and for little else. It's unfair, for not only did Verne write much more than this, he wrote much better.

The article makes several recommendations of further reading, including a Utopian adventure, and an Armegeddon/Deep Impact (the movies) type story.

You can read the rest of the story, as well as a short history of Verne's life and writing, here.

Posted by John on September 12, 2007 09:57 AM | Posted to Literature and Language | Science Fiction
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