Pages : 424
Overall Mark : 4/10
When Dr Philip Raven, a diplomat working for the League of Nations, dies in the 1930s, he leaves behind a book of dreams outlining the visions he has been experiencing for many years, detailing events that will occur on Earth for the next two centuries. This fictional ‘history of the future’ proved prescient in many ways, as Wells predicted events such as the Second World War, the rise of chemical warfare, climate change and the growing instability of the Middle East.
H. G. WELLS (1866-1946)
Born in Bromley, Kent, the third son of a shopkeeper, Herbert George Wells was apprenticed to a draper before becoming a teacher-pupil at Midhurst Grammar School and winning a scholarship to study under T.H. Huxley. Through his trail-blazing works of science fiction, his prophetic imagination and his championing of socialism, science and women’s rights he became a hugely influential figure of international renown.
VERDICT
To be perfectly honest this was not only a struggle to read but also something of a let-down. I was expecting to read a brief history of the world spanning from 1933 to 2106, but instead I got around 300 pages focussing almost entirely on the twenty years following the publication of the book and then some random excuses for why the history was so incomplete. I thought, with Wells at the helm, that this would be a clever look at our future, but its focus is so tight compared to what it claimed it would show that it couldn’t be anything but a disappointment.
