Jules Verne (ZHOOL vehrn)

Jules Verne was born in the bustling port city of Nantes, France, where ships came and went bearing news and goods from every corner of the world. As a child, Verne was captivated by tales of exploration and invention, often imagining grand voyages he might one day take. Though his father intended for him to become a lawyer, Verne's heart was always elsewhere—chasing airships, submarines, and stories. He eventually broke from his legal training and followed his muse to Paris, where he began writing for the stage and serialized fiction.   Verne found his calling in speculative adventure, marrying scientific curiosity with literary imagination. With *Five Weeks in a Balloon*, *Journey to the Center of the Earth*, and *Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas*, he launched the literary genre now known as science fiction. Verne combined real-world science with fantastical ideas, creating thrilling adventures grounded in possibility. His stories were both escapist and visionary, often predicting technological innovations that would not emerge for decades—submarines, moon landings, even video conferencing.   Though often seen as an optimistic futurist, Verne also explored darker themes of obsession, isolation, and the limits of knowledge. His characters were frequently torn between wonder and consequence, mirroring Verne’s own tension between technological progress and its unintended costs. Later in life, his tone grew more philosophical and melancholic, shaped in part by illness, strained family relationships, and the trauma of being shot by his own nephew.   Even so, Jules Verne remained a tireless storyteller. He penned more than sixty novels and numerous essays, becoming one of the most translated authors in the world. His legacy endures not only in libraries, but in space programs, submarine designs, and the dreams of every child who’s looked at a map and wondered what lies beyond. In your world, he may have simply been ahead of his time—or perhaps he glimpsed a piece of something no one else did.