Happy Birthday to the Father of Steampunk - Jules Verne

I recently went back and reread all the Jules Verne novels I loved as a child. Glad I did. Verne, who many call the "Father of Science Fiction" was more than a teller of tall tales. He based his stories on the available science at the time and then projected forward in the manner of a true futurist.

Verne was also quite clever in his skewering of society. He viewed Americans as born adventurers. He also had a less than kindly attitude toward the Germans, yet many of his protagonists are German. His works are far more involved than just fun stories for kids, they reflect the times he lived in and a deep insight into the character of humanity in general.

His 1963 unpublished novel "Paris in the 20th Century" was recently unearthed and published in 1992. It had been previously been considered lost. It's a good read and amazingly accurate in some predictions though much more bleak than his other works. Had the world developed as he envisioned it, we would all be living in a Steampunk universe.