The surest sign of a writer’s fame is when they themselves become a literary hero. This is certainly the case with HG Wells - polymath, prophet, legendary fantasist and one of the 20th century’s most prolific authors - who features as a character and/or a protagonist in a number of works of contemporary fiction. Ronald Wright’s ‘A Scientific Romance’ and Robert Masello’s ‘The Haunting of HG Wells’ are just two.
Wells’ widely known literary and technological predictions range from the time machine, which has not (yet) come true, to the atomic bomb, which regrettably has. His less well-known techno prophecy is that of the 'World Brain'; a pre-digital, freely available ‘World Encyclopaedia’ accumulating the bulk of all human knowledge. This, he believed, would lead to an ideal, perennially peaceful world, with no conflicts or wars and where universal happiness reigns. Wells was - first and foremost - a Utopian thinker.
This timely reissue by the...