December 21, 2001

Lost Worlds of Science Fiction

By SCOTT MCLEMEE

Scholars unearth the prehistory of a genre

Nearly a century after his death, Jules Verne still has readers -- but not much of a literary reputation. Critical theorists such as Roland Barthes and Pierre Machery have analyzed Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and other "fantastic voyages" by the novelist, and children have acted them out, with even greater seriousness, in their backyards. But Verne never gets listed among the great authors of his era. The didactic quality that

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