Jules Verne didn't just predict the future—he made it irresistible. Long before submarines prowled the ocean depths or rockets pierced the atmosphere, this visionary Frenchman was sending readers on impossible journeys: beneath polar ice caps, to the center of the Earth, around the world in record time, and twenty thousand leagues under the sea. His "Extraordinary Voyages" series married meticulous scientific research with breathless adventure, proving that the most thrilling discoveries happen at the intersection of imagination and inquiry. Verne understood that every technological marvel begins as someone's audacious dream—and his dreams have been inspiring explorers, inventors, and readers for over 150 years.
Did you know? Jules Verne's novels predicted an astonishing array of technologies decades—sometimes a century—before they existed: electric submarines, television, helicopters, skywriting, guided missiles, tasers, and even lunar modules. His 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon described a spacecraft launched from Florida (near modern Cape Canaveral) with such accuracy that Apollo astronauts would later marvel at his calculations. When the first nuclear submarine was built in 1955, the U.S. Navy named it Nautilus in honor of Captain Nemo's fictional vessel. Verne's research was so meticulous that his "science fiction" has repeatedly become science fact.
These are Verne's spiritual heirs—writers who understood that the best speculative fiction is built on scientific foundations, who made the impossible feel inevitable through careful research and imaginative extrapolation. They shared Verne's conviction that science and adventure are inseparable partners.
If Jules Verne was the optimist of early science fiction, H.G. Wells was the skeptic—and together they defined the genre's twin poles. Where Verne celebrated technological progress and human ingenuity, Wells warned of science's darker possibilities. Yet both writers grounded their speculations in scientific plausibility, both sent readers on voyages to impossible places, and both understood that the best adventures explore not just distant lands but profound questions about humanity's future.
Wells is often called the "father of science fiction" (alongside Verne), and his influence is immeasurable. The Time Machine invents an entirely new mode of travel—not through space but through time itself—sending a Victorian inventor 800,000 years into humanity's disturbing future. Where Verne's Captain Nemo explored the ocean's depths, Wells' Time Traveller explores the depths of evolutionary destiny.
His novel The War of the Worlds does what Verne never quite dared: it brings the alien and threatening directly to Earth's doorstep, showing civilization's fragility when confronted with superior technology. And The Island of Doctor Moreau takes Verne's fascination with natural science into horror territory, examining what happens when scientific ambition loses its moral compass.
Most readers know Doyle for creating the world's most famous detective, but Verne enthusiasts should seek out his adventure novels—particularly The Lost World, which is essentially Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth relocated to a remote plateau in South America. Doyle had Verne's same gift for making the scientifically impossible feel tantalizingly plausible through detailed research and confident narration.
Published in 1912, The Lost World introduces Professor Challenger—bombastic, brilliant, and absolutely convinced that dinosaurs still survive in an isolated region of the Amazon. The expedition he leads combines everything Verne fans love: a diverse group of explorers with conflicting personalities, meticulous planning followed by improvisation when plans fail, exotic settings described in vivid detail, and discoveries that reshape human understanding of natural history.
Doyle's The Poison Belt takes Challenger in a different direction—confronting Earth's passage through a region of deadly ether that threatens all life. It's pure Vernian catastrophe, handled with scientific speculation and human drama in equal measure.
If Verne was the 19th century's great prophet of technological possibility, Arthur C. Clarke was the 20th century's. Clarke brought Verne's approach into the space age, writing science fiction so technically rigorous that his novels often read like blueprints for the future. Like Verne, he understood that readers crave both scientific accuracy and sense-of-wonder—and that these needs aren't contradictory but complementary.
His masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey is Verne's lunar voyage reimagined for an era when such trips became reality. Clarke's astronauts don't just reach the Moon—they encounter evidence of alien intelligence that challenges humanity's place in the cosmos. The novel's technical accuracy (developed alongside Stanley Kubrick's film) echoes Verne's meticulous research, while its philosophical depth takes the Extraordinary Voyage into territory Verne only glimpsed.
Rendezvous with Rama gives readers the pure Vernian experience of exploring the unknown: when a mysterious cylindrical spacecraft enters the solar system, humans must race to explore it before it departs. The novel is essentially a guided tour of an alien world, cataloging wonders with the same methodical fascination Verne brought to the Nautilus or Professor Lidenbrock's underground sea.
From Fiction to Fact: When Jules Verne wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas in 1870, submarines were primitive, dangerous devices that could barely function. Yet Verne envisioned the Nautilus as a marvel—powered by electricity, capable of diving to unprecedented depths, with comfortable living quarters and even an organ for entertainment. Less than a century later, nuclear submarines became reality, and the U.S. Navy honored Verne by naming the world's first nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus in 1954. Captain Nemo would have approved: it could remain submerged almost indefinitely and even achieved Verne's dream by crossing under the North Pole's ice cap in 1958—a journey Verne had imagined in his novel The Adventures of Captain Hatteras.
These writers were Verne's contemporaries and fellow travelers in the golden age of adventure fiction—an era when vast portions of the globe remained unmapped, when lost civilizations seemed genuinely plausible, and when a determined group of explorers could still discover wonders the world had never seen.
H. Rider Haggard was England's answer to Jules Verne—a writer who understood that Victorian readers hungered for exotic destinations, lost civilizations, and adventures in places maps labeled "unexplored." While Verne favored mechanical marvels and scientific speculation, Haggard specialized in ancient mysteries and forgotten kingdoms hidden in Africa's unmapped interior.
His most famous novel, King Solomon's Mines (1885), practically invented the "lost world" genre that Doyle and countless others would follow. Allan Quatermain leads an expedition deep into unexplored Africa to find a legendary diamond mine—encountering hidden kingdoms, tribal warfare, and treasures beyond imagination. Like Verne's Professor Aronnax aboard the Nautilus, Quatermain narrates with a mixture of scientific observation and boyish wonder.
His sequel She pushes even further into fantasy territory, discovering an immortal queen ruling a lost city. It's more mystical than Verne, but it shares the same core DNA: a small group of determined men venturing where no European has gone, armed with courage, resourcefulness, and careful preparation.
Edgar Rice Burroughs took Jules Verne's template—send a protagonist to an impossible place and let adventure ensue—and dialed up the romance, action, and sheer pulp energy to maximum levels. While Verne grounded his voyages in scientific plausibility, Burroughs cheerfully abandoned such constraints in favor of pure, exhilarating adventure.
A Princess of Mars (1912) introduces John Carter, a Confederate veteran mysteriously transported to Mars—or "Barsoom," as its inhabitants call it. There he discovers a dying world of warring civilizations, radium weapons, eight-legged thoats, and the incomparable Dejah Thoris. It's Verne's journey to the Moon reimagined as swashbuckling planetary romance, trading careful research for breakneck pacing and exotic thrills.
Burroughs is probably best known for creating Tarzan, the ultimate "lost world" character—a British nobleman raised by apes in the African jungle, combining the noble savage with Victorian values. The Tarzan series has that same Vernian fascination with exotic locales and impossible adventures, even if the scientific rigor is replaced by wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Robert Louis Stevenson was among the finest adventure writers of the Victorian era, and he shared Verne's gift for transporting readers completely into exotic worlds. Where Verne favored cutting-edge technology and contemporary settings, Stevenson looked backward—to the golden age of piracy, buried treasure, and the savage beauty of the South Pacific islands where he eventually made his home.
Treasure Island (1883) remains the definitive pirate novel—the story that every subsequent treasure hunt adventure either imitates or subverts. Young Jim Hawkins discovers a treasure map and joins an expedition to recover Captain Flint's buried fortune, only to discover that much of the crew are pirates planning mutiny. Long John Silver became the archetypal pirate, just as Captain Nemo became the archetypal submarine commander.
Stevenson's prose has that same propulsive quality as Verne's—readers are swept along by momentum, unable to stop turning pages. His Kidnapped and The Master of Ballantrae offer more complex narratives of adventure, loyalty, and betrayal, showing the same interest in moral questions wrapped in thrilling plots.
Alexandre Dumas was the master of adventure fiction long before Verne put pen to paper. While Verne conquered space and the future, Dumas conquered time—transporting readers to historical eras made vivid through exhaustive research, unforgettable characters, and plots that never stop moving. Both writers understood that the best adventures combine meticulous detail with irresistible momentum.
The Count of Monte Cristo is adventure fiction perfected: wrongful imprisonment, impossible escape, hidden treasure, elaborate revenge. Edmond Dantès transforms himself as completely as any Verne protagonist embarking on an extraordinary voyage, though his journey is through society rather than geography. The novel's scope is Vernian—covering years and continents, filled with narrow escapes, brilliant plans, and the satisfaction of seeing justice achieved through ingenuity.
The Three Musketeers series offers pure swashbuckling adventure: swordplay, political intrigue, daring rescues, and friendship tested by impossible circumstances. It's Verne's spirit of adventure relocated to 17th-century France, where d'Artagnan's courage and resourcefulness echo the qualities Verne admired in his explorers and inventors.
Rudyard Kipling captured the British Empire at its height, writing adventures set in India, Afghanistan, and across colonial territories with the same eye for exotic detail that Verne brought to his global voyages. Kipling knew these places intimately—he was born in India—giving his adventures an authenticity that matches Verne's meticulous research.
Kim (1901) follows Kimball O'Hara, an Irish orphan raised as a native in India, who becomes entangled in the "Great Game" of espionage between British and Russian intelligence. It's a coming-of-age adventure that doubles as an extraordinary travel narrative through turn-of-the-century India—the colors, religions, languages, and landscapes rendered in loving detail. Like Verne's Phileas Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days, Kim navigates a complex world where different cultures collide.
Kipling's story collections—The Jungle Book, The Man Who Would Be King—offer shorter bursts of adventure, each exploring themes of identity, belonging, and survival in exotic settings. His writing is more politically complex than Verne's, reflecting the moral contradictions of empire, but shares that same fascination with distant places and the men who venture into them.
The Writing Machine: Between 1863 and his death in 1905, Jules Verne published over 60 novels—averaging more than one per year for over four decades! His publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, had contracted him to produce two volumes annually for the Extraordinary Voyages series. Verne maintained this incredible pace while conducting exhaustive research for each novel, reading scientific journals, consulting experts, and accumulating a personal library of thousands of volumes. His office was filled with filing cabinets containing notes on every scientific subject imaginable. When asked how he managed such productivity, Verne replied: "I get up at five o'clock in the morning, and I work until eleven. I lunch, and then I work again from noon to six o'clock."
Verne had a particular love for maritime adventures and unexplored natural frontiers—from the Nautilus exploring ocean trenches to expeditions across polar wastelands. These writers share that fascination with Earth's most challenging environments and the exceptional individuals who dare to venture into them.
Clive Cussler is the modern Jules Verne of maritime adventure. Like Verne, he combines exhaustive research about ships, submarines, and ocean technology with rollicking adventures that span the globe. His hero Dirk Pitt is essentially Captain Nemo reimagined as an American action hero—leading NUMA (National Underwater and Marine Agency) on expeditions that uncover lost ships, ancient treasures, and threats to modern civilization.
Raise the Titanic! (1976) epitomizes Cussler's Vernian approach: take an impossible-seeming task, apply meticulous technical detail, add international intrigue and ticking-clock urgency, and deliver an adventure that keeps readers hooked. The novel imagines raising the Titanic from the ocean floor to recover a rare mineral crucial to American defense—pure Verne in its audacious premise and careful attention to engineering challenges.
His other novels—Pacific Vortex, Sahara, Inca Gold—follow the same formula: Dirk Pitt discovers something impossible, investigates against mounting danger, and saves the day through courage, ingenuity, and occasionally by piloting vintage aircraft or submarines. If Verne were alive today and writing thrillers, they'd read exactly like Cussler's novels.
Where Verne explored exotic foreign lands, Jack London explored the savage edges of the American wilderness—particularly the brutal beauty of Alaska and the Yukon. London brought firsthand experience to his adventures (he survived the Klondike Gold Rush), giving his stories a visceral authenticity. Like Verne, he was fascinated by how humans respond when pushed to their physical and mental limits.
The Call of the Wild (1903) is his masterpiece—the story of Buck, a domesticated dog who discovers his wild nature when thrust into the harsh realities of the Alaskan frontier. It's adventure fiction stripped to its essence: survival, adaptation, and the eternal conflict between civilization and primal instinct. Verne's characters conquered nature through technology; London's protagonists either adapt to nature's terms or perish.
White Fang tells the inverse story—a wild animal gradually civilized—while novels like The Sea-Wolf examine human nature through maritime adventure, featuring the unforgettable Captain Wolf Larsen, who combines elements of Captain Nemo's brilliance with Ahab's darkness.
Emilio Salgari was Italy's Jules Verne—a writer who never traveled to most of the exotic locations he described, but brought them to vivid life through tireless research and boundless imagination. He specialized in maritime adventures and distant lands, particularly Southeast Asia and the Caribbean during the age of piracy. In Italy, his popularity rivals Verne's own.
His most famous creation is Sandokan, "The Tiger of Malaysia"—a prince turned pirate who battles British colonial forces across the South China Sea in a series of swashbuckling adventures. The first novel, The Tigers of Mompracem (1900), introduces Sandokan and his band of pirates operating from their secret island base, a setup that echoes Captain Nemo's Nautilus as a mobile headquarters for challenging imperial power.
Salgari's The Black Corsair relocates the adventure to the Caribbean, featuring another revenge-driven captain who matches wits with Spanish authorities. Like Verne, Salgari combined extensive naval and geographical knowledge with relentless pacing—his books were often serialized, and he became expert at ending each chapter on a cliffhanger that demanded readers return.
These contemporary writers have inherited Verne's throne, bringing his combination of cutting-edge science and propulsive adventure into modern thrillers. They understand that readers still crave what Verne provided: exotic locations, technical authenticity, and the thrill of witnessing the impossible become possible.
Michael Crichton is the late 20th century's answer to Jules Verne—a writer who understood that the most thrilling adventures emerge when cutting-edge science collides with human ambition. Like Verne, Crichton exhaustively researched his subjects, incorporating real scientific principles into stories that feel plausible even when depicting the impossible. Both writers asked "what if?" and followed the implications with rigorous logic.
Jurassic Park (1990) is Crichtonian Vernian adventure at its finest: scientists resurrect dinosaurs through genetic engineering, creating a theme park on a remote island. Like Verne's Captain Nemo, entrepreneur John Hammond builds something unprecedented through technology—and like Verne's cautionary tales, the novel examines what happens when innovation outpaces wisdom. The book is structured as an adventure (escape the island before the dinosaurs kill everyone) while seriously engaging with chaos theory, genetics, and bioethics.
Crichton's other novels follow the same formula: The Andromeda Strain (deadly extraterrestrial microorganism), Congo (high-tech expedition to find diamonds in a lost city), Sphere (mysterious alien artifact at the ocean floor). Each novel is essentially a Vernian extraordinary voyage updated for the modern era—meticulously researched, scientifically grounded, absolutely thrilling.
James Rollins writes adventure thrillers that feel like Jules Verne novels injected with adrenaline and contemporary geopolitics. His Sigma Force series follows a team of ex-Special Forces soldiers who also happen to be scientists, investigating mysteries that blend cutting-edge technology with ancient secrets—exactly the combination Verne pioneered.
Amazonia (2002) exemplifies his Vernian approach: an expedition into the Amazon rainforest to investigate a lost team of researchers encounters strange mutations, ancient civilizations, and scientific discoveries that could change the world. It's Journey to the Center of the Earth relocated to the Amazon, with updated science and military-thriller pacing.
His novel Subterranean even more directly echoes Verne—a team descends into an enormous cavern beneath Antarctica, discovering an entire ecosystem of evolved creatures and lost human civilizations. Rollins combines Verne's fascination with unexplored Earth with modern genetics, archaeology, and particle physics, wrapping it all in relentless action.
Isaac Asimov brought Verne's systematic, rationalist approach to its logical conclusion—science fiction built on careful extrapolation of scientific principles, where the focus shifts from adventure to ideas. While Verne sent explorers to exotic locations on Earth, Asimov sent humanity across the galaxy, examining how civilization itself might evolve and transform.
The Foundation series (beginning 1951) is Verne's Extraordinary Voyages on a galactic scale—following the collapse and rebirth of civilization across thousands of years and countless worlds. Like Verne, Asimov grounded his speculations in scientific thinking—in this case, imagining "psychohistory," a mathematical science of predicting human behavior en masse. The series follows Hari Seldon's plan to shorten the coming dark age, with each novel functioning as another journey to another crisis point requiring human ingenuity to overcome.
Asimov's Robot stories continue Verne's tradition of examining how technology transforms society, establishing his famous Three Laws of Robotics and exploring their implications through puzzle-like mysteries. Like Verne, Asimov believed science was fundamentally optimistic—that human intelligence could solve the problems human intelligence created.
Pierre Boulle was a French writer who shared his countryman Verne's gift for adventure storytelling infused with serious themes. While Verne generally celebrated human progress, Boulle—writing after two world wars—brought a more satirical edge to his speculative fiction, questioning whether humans deserved their dominant position.
Planet of the Apes (1963) inverts Verne's typical structure: instead of humans discovering strange new worlds, we follow astronauts discovering a world where apes have become civilized and humans reduced to savagery. It's a Vernian extraordinary voyage with a satirical twist—the unfamiliar world isn't just exotic but holds up a disturbing mirror to human society, questioning our assumptions about intelligence, civilization, and progress.
His earlier novel The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952) is more grounded—based on his own experiences as a prisoner during World War II—but shares Verne's fascination with engineering challenges and human determination. The British prisoners' obsessive focus on building a perfect bridge for their Japanese captors echoes Verne's engineers and inventors, showing how technical excellence can become its own moral trap.
The Scholar of Adventure: Jules Verne never actually traveled to most of the exotic locations he described so vividly. He was an armchair explorer who relied on exhaustive research rather than personal experience. His study contained a library of thousands of books, stacks of scientific journals, and detailed files on every conceivable topic. He would spend months researching each novel—reading accounts from actual explorers, consulting the latest scientific papers, studying maps and technical manuals. When he wrote about American geography in Around the World in Eighty Days, he had never visited America but had read every available travelogue. His widow later revealed that Verne kept extensive notebooks filled with calculations proving his fictional journeys were possible—he wouldn't publish until he'd convinced himself the science worked.
The Scientific Romance Path: Start with Wells' The Time Machine → Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey → Asimov's Foundation → Crichton's Jurassic Park. Follow how Verne's tradition of scientifically grounded speculation evolved from Victorian optimism through space age wonder to modern cautionary thriller.
The Lost World Adventure Path: Begin with Haggard's King Solomon's Mines → Doyle's The Lost World → Burroughs' A Princess of Mars → Rollins' Amazonia. Experience the evolution of "hidden civilization" adventures from Victorian Africa to alien worlds to modern techno-thrillers.
The Maritime Explorer Path: Read Stevenson's Treasure Island (classic piracy) → Salgari's The Tigers of Mompracem (exotic naval adventure) → London's The Sea-Wolf (survival at sea) → Cussler's Raise the Titanic! (modern nautical thriller). Chart the course of ocean adventure from golden age piracy to contemporary underwater archaeology.
The Victorian Adventure Companion Path: Try Stevenson's Treasure Island → Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo → Doyle's The Lost World → Kipling's Kim. Experience the full range of Victorian-era adventure alongside Verne, from pirates to explorers to empire.
The Modern Verne Experience: Jump directly to Crichton's Jurassic Park → Rollins' Amazonia → Cussler's Sahara → Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. See how contemporary writers have adapted Verne's formula for modern readers while maintaining his core appeal.
If you loved the scientific speculation: H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Michael Crichton all share Verne's commitment to grounding fantastical ideas in real science.
If you loved the exotic locations: H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, and Emilio Salgari specialize in vivid, distant lands filled with discovery and danger.
If you loved underwater adventures: Clive Cussler is your writer—he's essentially writing modern Nautilus adventures with Dirk Pitt as a contemporary Captain Nemo.
If you loved the Victorian era setting: Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Alexandre Dumas were Verne's contemporaries, capturing that same spirit of exploration and possibility.
If you loved the "what if?" questions: Isaac Asimov and Pierre Boulle excel at taking scientific premises and following them to their logical (and often unsettling) conclusions.
If you loved the sense of wonder: Edgar Rice Burroughs and Arthur C. Clarke deliver that same "impossible made possible" feeling, whether on Mars or in deep space.
If you loved the expedition structure: James Rollins and Arthur Conan Doyle organize their adventures around teams of diverse specialists venturing into unknown territory—just like Verne's best novels.
Most Like Verne: Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park or Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama—both combine meticulous scientific detail with adventure in the purest Vernian tradition.
Easiest Entry Point: Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island—shorter, faster-paced, and an absolute classic of adventure fiction that shares Verne's gift for immersive storytelling.
Most Challenging: Isaac Asimov's Foundation series—requires commitment across multiple volumes and shifts focus from adventure to ideas, but rewards patient readers with Verne's vision expanded to galactic scale.
Hidden Gem: Emilio Salgari's Sandokan novels—criminally underread outside Italy despite being rollicking maritime adventures that rival Verne's best work.
Best Modern Update: James Rollins' Sigma Force series—takes everything that worked about Verne (scientific detail, exotic locations, expedition structure) and updates it perfectly for contemporary thriller readers.
For Space Enthusiasts: Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov both carry Verne's torch into the solar system and beyond, maintaining his commitment to scientific plausibility while expanding the canvas.
The Most Adapted Author: Jules Verne ranks as one of the most-adapted authors in cinema history, with over 200 film and television adaptations of his works. 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas alone has been adapted more than 30 times, including Disney's lavish 1954 production that won two Academy Awards and firmly established Captain Nemo and the Nautilus in popular imagination. Around the World in Eighty Days inspired multiple film versions, including the 1956 epic that won Best Picture. Directors have long recognized what readers knew all along—Verne's adventures are inherently cinematic, filled with spectacular visuals and propulsive action that translate naturally to the screen. From Georges Méliès' pioneering 1902 silent film A Trip to the Moon (inspired by Verne's lunar novels) to modern adaptations like Journey to the Center of the Earth, Verne's imagination continues to shape visual storytelling.
These fifteen authors represent different aspects of Jules Verne's extraordinary literary legacy. Some share his scientific rigor, others his love of exotic adventure, still others his gift for making the impossible feel inevitable. What unites them is a commitment to taking readers on journeys—whether across oceans, through time, to distant planets, or into lost civilizations—that expand imagination while celebrating human ingenuity, courage, and curiosity.
Verne's genius was recognizing that science and adventure are natural partners, that careful research enhances rather than diminishes wonder, and that the best stories transport us to places we've never been while teaching us something valuable about the world we inhabit. His influence extends far beyond literature—his novels inspired real explorers, inventors, and scientists, from submarine designers to aerospace engineers to oceanographers. When humanity finally did reach the Moon, travel in submarines, and circumnavigate the globe in record time, it was fulfilling dreams that Verne had first made readers believe were possible.
These fifteen writers are his heirs and disciples, whether they acknowledge the influence or not. They continue his project of showing that the universe—whether beneath the waves, beyond the stars, or hidden in Earth's unmapped corners—remains full of wonders waiting for anyone brave and curious enough to seek them. Verne taught generations of readers that adventure begins with a single question: "What if we could?" These authors have spent their careers answering that question in new and thrilling ways, ensuring that the extraordinary voyage never ends.
