About the author

Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography, and autobiography, and even including two books on recreational war games. He is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback.

During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and biological engineering. Brian Aldiss referred to Wells as the "Shakespeare of science fiction". Wells rendered his works convincing by instilling commonplace detail alongside a single extraordinary assumption – dubbed “Wells’s law” – leading Joseph Conrad to hail him in 1898 as "O Realist of the Fantastic!". His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898) and the military science fiction The War in the Air (1907). Wells was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.

Wells's earliest specialised training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathising with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he wrote little science fiction, while he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of journalist. Novels such as Kipps and The History of Mr Polly, which describe lower-middle-class life, led to the suggestion that he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens, but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English society as a whole. Wells was a diabetic and co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association (known today as Diabetes UK) in 1934.

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The War of the Worlds

‘The War of the Worlds’ is H. G. Wells’ most popular novel and is celebrated as one of the most influential and greatest science-fiction stories ever. Its popularity stems largely from the fact that it is one of the earliest stories dealing with an alien invasion on Earth. An army of Martians lands in England and their three-legged robots wreak havoc and destruction upon the unsuspecting civilians. The protagonist is separated from his wife during the onslaught and must defeat the invaders and find his wife. This thrilling novel features non-stop action from the start as the protagonist must journey through a nightmarish world in which aliens are not the only monsters. The novel remains timeless due to its critique of imperialism and its belief that civilisation will turn to other planets once their native resources have been plundered. Well’s vivid and terrifying imagery caused widespread panic when ‘The War of the Worlds’ was broadcast as a radio play in 1938 as people believed the invasion was real. The novel spawned an Academy Award-nominated movie adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise in 2005. It is clear to see why ‘The War of the Worlds’ remains influential as it is the definition of a page-turner and should be read by fans of authors such as George Orwell or Frank Herbert. H. G. Wells (1866-1946) was a celebrated English writer, remembered mostly for his science fiction works. Often described as a futurist, H. G. Wells’ influence cannot be overstated for his works foresaw many technological innovations such as space travel, the atomic bomb, and the Internet. A four-time Nobel Prize in Literature nominee, Wells explored a wide array of themes in his works, from religion to social criticism and beyond. Some of his best works include the time-travel novel ‘The Time Machine’, the sci-fi adventure novel ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’, and the mankind-versus-aliens novel ‘The War of the Worlds’. Wells occupies one of the central seats in the canon of science-fiction literature and his writing inspired other celebrated authors such as Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick. Wells’ stories are still widely read to this day and have had numerous cinematic adaptations including ‘The Invisible Man’ starring Elisabeth Moss.
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Printed pages94 Sider
Publish date02 Mar 2022
Published bySAGA Egmont
Languageeng
ISBN epub9788726606171