Synopsis

History

First publication: George Bell & Sons, 1908

Review

Wow! This is another of the Wells books I hadn’t read when I was young. First I want to say that the WordFire Press edition I bought was worth every penny. Very high quality book! I want to buy more of their books. The story was incredible. It started out like a comedy, with the protagonist, Bert Smallways being swept off to Germany in a balloon, where he is mistakenly identified as an airplane inventor. Germany has a fleet of zeppelins which they take to New York City and carpet bomb. And civilization breaks into all-out world war from there.

I think Wells is predicting that the advancing technologies would take war onto a global scale, which he was right about, but he saw this as heralding a collapse of civilization into barbarism. He doesn’t seem to see mankind as being able to handle the advancement of science and technology. We are still too primitive in our feelings and reactions.

I don’t like to spoil, but the ending blew my mind. Some of Wells’ best writing!