H. G. Wells Books

Incl. "The Island of Dr. Moreau", "The War of the Worlds", "The Invisible Man", "The Time Machine" and "The Country of the Blind and Other Science-Fiction Stories"

of the 2 ww1 fiction works i,ve read,All Quiet on the Western Front and Johnny Got his Gun,I would have to say that this book is of the same quality and genre. It presents the point of view from the "grunt' in the trenches.These are not the kind of books a person would read for enjoyment,although a person could make a case for it.They are more the historical type that can make a more humane person for the read.The Coward was really interesting,it was about a British WW1 soldier who deliberately wounds himself to escape from the trenches on the eve of a major German assault in 1918.He tries to rationalize his "cowardice" but the letting down of his comrades haunts him thoughout the book and you leave the book realizing his desertion will haunt him throughout his life.At the field hospital he expresses jealousy of his comrads in the trenches,but not enough to want to return.He rehashes then rationalizes,condemned like Sisyphus,only instead of having push the boulder to the top and have it fall again,he must feel the guilt while he cashes a wounded soldier pension check.And so on!

About The Author And The Book: Cosmic Vision.

Leon Stover (1929-2006) was Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Illinois Institute of Technology. Dr. Stover was the author of 24 books in varied categories, including Anthropology, History, Fiction, and Criticism. His major works include Cultural Ecology of Chinese Civilization, China: An Anthropological Perspective (with Takeko K. Stover), Imperial China and the State Cult of Confucius, Science Fiction from Wells to Heinlein, Stonehenge City: A Reconstruction, Stonehenge: Where Atlantis Died (a novel with Harry Harrison), and the massive nine-volume explication of H. G. Wells' scientific romances as vehicles for expounding Wells' brand of Saint-Simonian socialism, The Annotated H.G. Wells.

Even though he and Wells would have differed radically on politics, Dr. Stover shared with Wells what might be called "Cosmic Vision," a view of humanity in the context of vast reaches of space and eons of time. At an early age, he discovered the scientific romances of H.G. Wells, which awakened in him a "sense of wonder," and it became one of his life-long pursuits to explicate to himself the ramifications of those fascinating novels that took the long view, the cosmic evolutionary view, that could be summed up in one short question: Whither Mankind? The nine-volume The Annotated H.G. Wells was the result.

The film Things To Come was the Summa of Wells' ideas for a socialist World State. The Annotated H.G. Wells, Volume 9: Things To Come is the Summa of Dr. Stover's explication of Wells' scientific romances.

Stoverism, A Unique View of Wells' Utopian Ideas.

The Annotated H.G. Wells, Volume 9: Things To Come is Dr. Stover's explication of the film Things To Come as a propaganda vehicle for Wells to expound his brand of Saint-Simonian socialism. The film Things To Come was Wells' last will and testament to his world socialist brethren, the Summa of his ideas for a socialist World State. The following introductory remarks, which will serve as background for the readings from the book, is a brief outline of Dr. Stover's unique view of Wells' Utopian ideas. Members of the H.G. Wells Society in London referred to Dr. Stover's view of Wells as Stoverism.

Wells wasn't a Hindu. But, to present the summation of his Utopian ideas, his brand of Saint-Simonian world socialism, which was the reason for making the film Whither Mankind? (re-titled Things To Come as it went into production), Wells chose to make his characters avatars of the Hindu Trinity: Brahma The Creator, Siva The Destroyer, and Vishnu The Possessor, because, to Wells, the Hindu Trinity was emblematic of the structure of ancient Indo-European culture: The Philosopher-King (embodying the convoluted mirror-twin forces of Brahma and Siva) and The Subjects (embodying the simple, but schizophrenic force of Vishnu).

The Hindu Trinity represents the eternal tri-polar struggle of those raw cosmic forces that have driven the course of human affairs since civilization began: Brahma The Lawgiver (priest-theoretician) and Siva The Enforcer (king-soldier), the two arms of the all-powerful State, sometimes at war with each other, and always at war with Vishnu The Preserver (bourgiosie-landowner and peasant-worker). This tri-polar struggle was carried over from the times of Stonehenge, the Greek city-states, through Feudal times, into the Industrial Revolution, and even into Modern Times (the thirties, between World War I and the approaching World War II).

In Wells' view, comparing the examples of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and even his own Great Britain to Plato's Republic, and to Saint-Simon's technocracy, The Rulers and their Executives were incompetent captives of Vishnu, valuing the possession of territories subsumed under the banners of nation-states that fragmented the planet and prevented the formation of a socialist World State, and The Ruled were selfish brutes, also captives of Vishnu, valuing the possession of women subsumed under the sanctions of marriage and family that prevented the emergence of a new evolutionary product: Cosmic Man, an entity made of all humanity, working together in common cause, as bees in a hive, submerging all vestiges of individuality.

Wells' socialist mentor-saint was Henri Saint-Simon, a nobleman who was stripped of his nobility by the French Revolution, and whose greatest disciple was Auguste Comte, the man who invented the word "socialism." Saint-Simon was the first thinker to see that the Industrial Revolution was more important than the political one. The French Revolution, in the name of the People, did nothing to put down the feudal and military system, and the old order soon came back. To overthrow feudalism once and for all, that was the original socialist idea. Saint-Simon advocated the control of society by its "industrial chiefs," they who were the aristocracy of talent, the technocrats, run under the guidance of a "Council of Newton," composed of scientists and engineers. This would be a competent socialist World State, and Vishnu (embodied in the willing proletariat) would be held eternally in check by Siva (embodied in the technocrats) under the direction of Brahma (embodied in the Council of Newton).

Wells wasn't a Marxist. In Wells' estimation, the closest approximation to this Saint-Simonian socialist "Heaven on Earth" was the original Soviet Union, set up by the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of V.I. Lenin, although--at the time--it hadn't achieved world-wide domination. It fell short of being the ideal socialist World State. We had Lenin and the Politburo embodying the Council of Newton, the Communist Party, the Red Army, and the Secret Police embodying the technocratic executives, all under the direction of the Politburo, and the (maybe-not-so-willing) Proletariat guided by the firm hand of the dedicated Communist Party bureaucrats (backed up by the Red Army and the Secret Police). Aside from the fact that it didn't yet control the entire planet, the biggest flaw in the new Soviet Union was that the leaders gave lip-service to the Marxist rhetoric of class-warfare. In private, Lenin and the Party Elite were technocratic socialists of the Saint-Simonian stripe. But, to appeal to the masses of the Proletariat, Communist Party propaganda had to be couched in terms of Marxist ideology. This Wells despised.

If we could define Communism, as practiced by the Communist Party under V.I. Lenin, as Marxism-Leninism, then Wellsism, Wells' brand of Saint-Simonian socialism, might be close to Communism minus Marxism; that is, Leninism. The main reason for the existence of the film Things To Come was to provide a propaganda vehicle for Wells to expound his brand of Saint-Simonian socialism. Wells used the characters John Cabal and his grandson, Oswald Cabal, as spokesmen for Wellsism. They embody the truest aspects of the Saint-Simonian Scientist-Technocrat, all Brahma and Siva working together to keep Vishnu in check!

Those who believe that Wells was a Marxist--the majority of critics who have attempted a political reading of Wells' scientific romances, and Things To Come, in particular--will probably wither under the searchlight of Dr. Stover's analysis of the film that was originally titled Whither Mankind? But, that's their problem!

THIS HUGE BOOK HAS ALMOST ALL OF H.G.WELLS BEST WRITINGS. THE STORIES ARE AMAZING AND THIS BOOK IS A MUST FOR ANY SCI-FI LOVER.

An unnamed time traveler sees the future of man (802,701 A.D.) and then the inevitable future of the world. He tells his tale in detail.

I grew up on the Rod Taylor /George Pal movie. When I started the book I expected it to be slightly different with a tad more complexity as with most book/movie relationships. I was surprised to find the reason for the breakup of species (Morlock and Eloi) was class Vs atomic (in later movie versions it was political). I could live with that but to find that some little pink thing replaced Yvette Mimieux was too munch.

After all the surprises we can look at the story as unique in its time, first published in 1895, yet the message is timeless. The writing and timing could not have been better. And the ending was certainly appropriate for the world that he describes. Possibly if the story were written today the species division would be based on eugenics.

The Time Machine Starring: Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux

An unnamed time traveler sees the future of man (802,701 A.D.) and then the inevitable future of the world. He tells his tale in detail.

I grew up on the Rod Taylor /George Pal movie. When I started the book I expected it to be slightly different with a tad more complexity as with most book/movie relationships. I was surprised to find the reason for the breakup of species (Morlock and Eloi) was class Vs atomic (in later movie versions it was political). I could live with that but to find that some little pink thing replaced Yvette Mimieux was too munch.

After al the surprises we can look at the story as unique in its time, first published in 1895, yet the message is timeless. The writing and timing could not have been better. And the ending was certainly appropriate for the world that he describes. Possibly if the story were written today the species division would be based on eugenics.

An unnamed time traveler sees the future of man (802,701 A.D.) and then the inevitable future of the world. He tells his tale in detail.

I grew up on the Rod Taylor /George Pal movie. When I started the book I expected it to be slightly different with a tad more complexity as with most book/movie relationships. I was surprised to find the reason for the breakup of species (Morlock and Eloi) was class Vs atomic (in later movie versions it was political). I could live with that but to find that some little pink thing replaced Yvette Mimieux was too munch.

After al the surprises we can look at the story as unique in its time, first published in 1895, yet the message is timeless. The writing and timing could not have been better. And the ending was certainly appropriate for the world that he describes. Possibly if the story were written today the species division would be based on eugenics.

This book is the one that all stories regarding time travel must measure up to. In it, Wells literally defined the genre and how such plots must be handled. He starts with a brief explanation of how time is but another dimension, the fourth dimension to go along with the three we experience in the physical sense. The story was written in 1895, so it is interesting to read how Wells handled the topic of topic of time travel. It is a plot device that has been well used since he introduced and handled it so well.
The story is not a happy one, the "people" far in the future are not an advanced race, but have degenerated into barbarism and separation. The Morlocks live underground in total darkness and the Eloi living about ground are childlike. It is not a pleasant tale and it also is an early example of stories where the human race does not advance over all time but degenerates into much less than they are now.
This is a story that should be read and reread by anyone with an interest in writing science fiction. A great deal of what has appeared in science fiction tales since 1895 can be traced to this book.

An unnamed time traveler sees the future of man (802,701 A.D.) and then the inevitable future of the world. He tells his tale in detail.

I grew up on the Rod Taylor /George Pal movie. When I started the book I expected it to be slightly different with a tad more complexity as with most book/movie relationships. I was surprised to find the reason for the breakup of species (Morlock and Eloi) was class Vs atomic (in later movie versions it was political). I could live with that but to find that some little pink thing replaced Yvette Mimieux was too munch.

After al the surprises we can look at the story as unique in its time, first published in 1895, yet the message is timeless. The writing and timing could not have been better. And the ending was certainly appropriate for the world that he describes. Possibly if the story were written today the species division would be based on eugenics.

An unnamed time traveler sees the future of man (802,701 A.D.) and then the inevitable future of the world. He tells his tale in detail.

I grew up on the Rod Taylor /George Pal movie. When I started the book I expected it to be slightly different with a tad more complexity as with most book/movie relationships. I was surprised to find the reason for the breakup of species (Morlock and Eloi) was class Vs atomic (in later movie versions it was political). I could live with that but to find that some little pink thing replaced Yvette Mimieux was too munch.

After al the surprises we can look at the story as unique in its time, first published in 1895, yet the message is timeless. The writing and timing could not have been better. And the ending was certainly appropriate for the world that he describes. Possibly if the story were written today the species division would be based on eugenics.