Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1916

haha

Thanks for taking me as sincere, James Morrison! It was more a comment on just how many books Wells cranked out and indeed if anyone read - and still reads - them.

Once heard a BBC thing on why authors fall out of favour and they gave Wells as an example and put it down to his views on eugenics, which feels half baked. Surely lots of still-in-canon authors shared those?

I've read two of these: Chaturangah and the one apparently we've all read. Both novels about young men coming of age, with an interesting contrast in the treatment of religion/spirituality. The main character of Chaturangah is drawn ever closer to it, whereas the main character of Portrait is running as fast as he can in the opposite direction.

Once heard a BBC thing on why authors fall out of favour and they gave Wells as an example and put it down to his views on eugenics, which feels half baked. Surely lots of still-in-canon authors shared those?

Wells is still historically important as a writer of science fiction, but by now all his 'prophecies' have either been surpassed by scientific developments or else proved to be fallacious, so they've lost a major part of their initial fascination. The major exception would be The Invisible Man, which was never really science fiction, but an allegory of science, more like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or Frankenstein than like The War of the Worlds. Late Wells was more pontifical and topical, and far less imaginative.

I read a fair amount of Wells when I was a kid, and thought he was a good storyteller. Checked in a few years ago, and found him the same (myself too: no levels were revealed by adult eyes). This one was prophetic enough:

The Land Ironclads" is a short story by English writer H.G. Wells, which originally appeared in the December 1903 issue of the Strand Magazine.[1] It features "land ironclads," 100-foot-long (30 m) armoured fighting vehicles that carry riflemen, engineers, and a captain, and are armed with remote-controlled, semi-automatic rifles...

The story contributed to Wells's reputation as a "prophet of the future"[3] when tanks first appeared on the battlefield in 1916. For contemporaries, Wells's rather sketchy battle between countrymen "defenders" (who rely on cavalry and entrenched infantry) and attacking townsmen carried echoes of the Boer War, as well as of his 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, which also featured a struggle between technologically uneven protagonists.[4]
The story opens with an unnamed war correspondent and a young lieutenant surveying the calm of the battlefield and reflecting upon the war between two unidentified armies.

Yeah, liked the points of view; the correspondent is old and getting older as he stands there and watches.

Middlebrow can be good. Mark S has referred in passing to the Beatles as middlebrow.

i have nothing against middlebrow! i just wonder whether it's peculiarly subject to going out of fashion.

I quite like Wells' short stories, and his history of the world was the first major synoptic history i read.

I should admit that this kind of "prophecy" might have seemed pretty freaking obvious to anybody halfway keeping up with steady gains in this kind of technology x imperial rivalries x the past century or centuries of European history. By 1903, he was contributing this story to a well-established subgenre---good article about it here:
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/future_war

Daniel, where art thou?

Saw a disturbing adaptation of HG's "The Magic Shop" a few nights ago on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Don't know how much of that came across in the original; part of the effect here was perfect casting. The ending seemed like it might have been lifted by the author of a story famous via Twilight Zone adaptation, but that now seems a bit cuet compared to this.

Sorry pom! Moved house and we won't have wi-fi until the end of the month :( so tethering my phone's net to keep this up

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1917

Thanks, Daniel! Just wanted to make sure you were ok – the polls can obviously wait. And congrats on your new home!