Quote:
Originally Posted by Calenorn
It seems clear that Verne's visionary innovations are only used when needed to explain how the characters could make their journey. He set out to be a travel writer, not a futurist. It's a testimony to his thorough research that he got so much right when anticipating things like submarines and space travel.
|
I think that's a fair assesment, although sometimes Verne used cutting edge technology in his stories, not travel-related, like the diving suit they use to look for a corpse in Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon. Mostly, I would say he writes a mixture of adventure story with documentary, often travel/exploration documentary but sometimes related to other sciences (like geology in Journey to the Center of the Earth).
Even in stories that otherwise are not speculative, he sometimes surprises with a science-related twist that you'd never expect in a regular adventure novel.