-
NEWS: Update on the catastrophic server crash: https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/587701/
Who is Greater H G Wells or Jules Verne ?
- Thread starter BAYLOR
- Start date
-
- Tags
- h g wells jules verne
In this purely subjective gladiatorial bout, I'd go for HG Wells.
He feels a bit closer to us modern readers, as a lot of Verne's 'classics' are from the start of his career in the 1870s and I find them a little bit anachronistic. One could say the same about HG Wells, to an extent, but he was around longer throughout the 20th century. (Verne died in 1905, the year that Einstein published his theory of special relativity and they were just getting strange results about the microscopic world. So cruel to be at the cusp but to have missed out finding about the revolutionary theories of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. However he also missed both World Wars so there is that.)
I personally think Wells is a better story teller - lighter and more readable. I also think of his style as much more of a bridge to the science fiction of the 20th century.
As for Verne my abiding memory of 20.,000 Leagues Under the Sea were the huge chunks of text describing the various fish in that part of the ocean the submarine was in that chapter. Certainly put me off finding more Verne.
He feels a bit closer to us modern readers, as a lot of Verne's 'classics' are from the start of his career in the 1870s and I find them a little bit anachronistic. One could say the same about HG Wells, to an extent, but he was around longer throughout the 20th century. (Verne died in 1905, the year that Einstein published his theory of special relativity and they were just getting strange results about the microscopic world. So cruel to be at the cusp but to have missed out finding about the revolutionary theories of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. However he also missed both World Wars so there is that.)
I personally think Wells is a better story teller - lighter and more readable. I also think of his style as much more of a bridge to the science fiction of the 20th century.
As for Verne my abiding memory of 20.,000 Leagues Under the Sea were the huge chunks of text describing the various fish in that part of the ocean the submarine was in that chapter. Certainly put me off finding more Verne.
Another for Wells here. I also find Verne's work filled with unnecessary chunks of text but it's not just him. I struggle with a lot of pre-twentieth century writers for the same reason.
Wells is not without his tendency to ramble now and then but probably closer to the brevity in literature that suits me.
Wells is not without his tendency to ramble now and then but probably closer to the brevity in literature that suits me.
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2018
- Messages
- 1,477
Reading their stories at a young age I found them equally entertaining, which still influences my memories of those stories. Wells was easier to read but a thirst for knowledge made Verne's stories just as easy to read. I read all of their stories that I could find. I never thought that Verne wrote anything besides adventure stories that seemed to be totally believable. Wells on the other hand, wrote drama, historical, and non fiction as well as science fiction, though I didn't know it at the time. His science fiction stories were all I read and are great, but usually one step beyond yeah that's going to happen.
I only read what was easily available. There are plenty of Well's stories that I never saw because they weren't popularized at the places I looked for books. The same is true for Verne's stories, everything of his had to be translated which put a lot of his stories out of sight.
In the movie world both Well's and Verne's movies are alive and well, still active today. Well's had a couple of his dramas made into movies, one while he was alive, 3 more soon after he died. He had three good science fiction movies made while he was alive, The Invisible Man, The Shape Of Things to Come, The Island of Dr. Moreau, all great classics, still very watchable today. The rest of his movies came after he died, and have been remade multiple times and are still being made.
I only read what was easily available. There are plenty of Well's stories that I never saw because they weren't popularized at the places I looked for books. The same is true for Verne's stories, everything of his had to be translated which put a lot of his stories out of sight.
In the movie world both Well's and Verne's movies are alive and well, still active today. Well's had a couple of his dramas made into movies, one while he was alive, 3 more soon after he died. He had three good science fiction movies made while he was alive, The Invisible Man, The Shape Of Things to Come, The Island of Dr. Moreau, all great classics, still very watchable today. The rest of his movies came after he died, and have been remade multiple times and are still being made.
JunkMonkey
Lord High Vizier of Nowt
Wells for me too. He could get very preachy at times, I found Food of the Gods to be pretty... um... indigestible in that regard but most of the time he sweetens his socialist philosophy with enough story to make it more subtle. Verne on the other hand just reads like pages of an encylopedea stuck together with a linking narrative.
Wells for me. Great range of science fiction ideas.
psikeyhackr
Physics is Phutile, Fiziks is Fundamental
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2013
- Messages
- 2,167
H. G. Wells
Verne wrote harder SF but Wells was more socially futuristic and consequently more thought provoking. I like stories that I think about months or years after reading. Plus Wells coined the term "Atom Bomb". Now Putin gets to shoot them at us.
Where can I find cheap lead lined underwear?
Verne wrote harder SF but Wells was more socially futuristic and consequently more thought provoking. I like stories that I think about months or years after reading. Plus Wells coined the term "Atom Bomb". Now Putin gets to shoot them at us.
Where can I find cheap lead lined underwear?
I'd go for Wells. Only because he lived near me once 
JunkMonkey
Lord High Vizier of Nowt
I'm currently listening to an audio book reading of Verne's 'Autour de la Lune' and it is (as I had suspected it would be) turning out to be the most monumental bore. Very little story interspersed with stupendously long, didactic discourses on the history of, and (then current) theories about the Moon, the history of Lunar cartography and the like. All of which are lent an air of verisimilitude by being padded out with mind-numbing lists of details. The longitude and latitude, common and latin name of every crater, mountain, sea and other interesting mark on the lunar surface is given. Chapter XI was like listening to someone read out a gazetteer.
For a book so rigid with 'indisputable' and 'proven' facts it's pretty obvious that Verne is just transferring them wholesale from whatever reference books he has to hand. The times when Verne has to do his own scientific thinking stick out like a sore thumb. Our heroes spend a good part of one chapter wondering why they didn't hear the detonation of the several gazzilion tonnes of gun cotton that launched their projectile - before coming to the conclusion that they must have been going faster than the speed of sound and outpaced the noise of the detonation. The fact that the implied instantaneous acceleration from zero to over Mach one would have pulped anyone inside their aluminium container (and probably the container itself) doesn't seem to have occurred to Verne.
I guess it was concurrent scientific thought that that the weight of astronauts in a capsule like Verne's would diminish slowly as they drew farther away from the Earth and that they would only became weightless when they reached that point in space where the gravitation of the Earth and that of the Moon cancelled each other out. After that the gravity of the Moon would take over and they would slowly increase to one sixth of their original weight on the Moon's surface. One of Verne's characters likens this moment of crossing over from one gravitational attractor to another to that of traversing the equator on the Earth and, in keeping with maritime tradition, produces a bottle of wine and glasses They all drink a toast to the event. Working out quite how one pours wine into glasses while weightless obviously wasn't on Verne's to do list. As for the moment when they opened the hatch to throw the dead dog out into space (but quickly! before they let too much air out and too much cold in) the less said the better.
In the English speaking world people are reading translations which have either ditched all the boring bits or, been extensively rewritten. I have a couple of English versions, and the original French from project Gutenberg open in front of me. One translation is Victorian (1874) the other undated and anonymous and they are vastly different. The Victorian translator invents dialogue and embellishes the dialogue that is there - while removing at least one 'joke' which poked fun at the Anglo Saxon mindset. The anonymous just cuts stuff away with a machete. Chapter XI in the Victorian version is 2956 words long, the anonymous version is less than a third of that at 978 words. (The original comes in at 1886 words.)
At least with Wells us Anglophones are getting the original as she was writ.
For a book so rigid with 'indisputable' and 'proven' facts it's pretty obvious that Verne is just transferring them wholesale from whatever reference books he has to hand. The times when Verne has to do his own scientific thinking stick out like a sore thumb. Our heroes spend a good part of one chapter wondering why they didn't hear the detonation of the several gazzilion tonnes of gun cotton that launched their projectile - before coming to the conclusion that they must have been going faster than the speed of sound and outpaced the noise of the detonation. The fact that the implied instantaneous acceleration from zero to over Mach one would have pulped anyone inside their aluminium container (and probably the container itself) doesn't seem to have occurred to Verne.
I guess it was concurrent scientific thought that that the weight of astronauts in a capsule like Verne's would diminish slowly as they drew farther away from the Earth and that they would only became weightless when they reached that point in space where the gravitation of the Earth and that of the Moon cancelled each other out. After that the gravity of the Moon would take over and they would slowly increase to one sixth of their original weight on the Moon's surface. One of Verne's characters likens this moment of crossing over from one gravitational attractor to another to that of traversing the equator on the Earth and, in keeping with maritime tradition, produces a bottle of wine and glasses They all drink a toast to the event. Working out quite how one pours wine into glasses while weightless obviously wasn't on Verne's to do list. As for the moment when they opened the hatch to throw the dead dog out into space (but quickly! before they let too much air out and too much cold in) the less said the better.
In the English speaking world people are reading translations which have either ditched all the boring bits or, been extensively rewritten. I have a couple of English versions, and the original French from project Gutenberg open in front of me. One translation is Victorian (1874) the other undated and anonymous and they are vastly different. The Victorian translator invents dialogue and embellishes the dialogue that is there - while removing at least one 'joke' which poked fun at the Anglo Saxon mindset. The anonymous just cuts stuff away with a machete. Chapter XI in the Victorian version is 2956 words long, the anonymous version is less than a third of that at 978 words. (The original comes in at 1886 words.)
At least with Wells us Anglophones are getting the original as she was writ.
Extollager
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2010
- Messages
- 9,209
From what I know, Wells.
beccabear67
Well-Known Member
I prefer Wells, I find him more 'readable' and his ideas presented with greater veracity.
I had an interest in early SF/F and thought Kurd Lasswitz' Of Two Planets (1897) should be given a lot more attention. An early often unmentioned fantasy author was William Morris (of Kelmscott Press, Arts & Crafts and the Pre-Raphaelites) although the style may seem dated/Victorian as with Lasswitz.
I had an interest in early SF/F and thought Kurd Lasswitz' Of Two Planets (1897) should be given a lot more attention. An early often unmentioned fantasy author was William Morris (of Kelmscott Press, Arts & Crafts and the Pre-Raphaelites) although the style may seem dated/Victorian as with Lasswitz.
This book was admired by Werner Von Braun. I have a copy of this book , haven't gotten around reading yet.
Cthulhu.Science
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2023
- Messages
- 661
I'm Voting Verne.
His science was right on to the extent that the US Navy broke all tradition to name their first Nuclear Submarine
I just downloaded the entire 15 volume Verne Collection from the Internet Archive. I've got some reading ahead of me!
His science was right on to the extent that the US Navy broke all tradition to name their first Nuclear Submarine
USS Nautilus (SSN-571)
That is hard core. But the science was true throughout Verne's writing. For me Verne is the greater writer.I just downloaded the entire 15 volume Verne Collection from the Internet Archive. I've got some reading ahead of me!
Last edited:
Similar threads
-
-
Which Series Do You Think is Greater Babylon 5 or Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica ?
- Started by BAYLOR
- Replies: 28
-
-
-