Jules Verne (1828–1905), one of the founders of science fiction, is the author of such classics as Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Gregory A. Benford is an acclaimed science fiction writer and a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine. He has won the Nebula Award for Timescape and If the Stars Are Gods, cowritten with Gordon Eklund.