The Wheels of Chance

The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll
© 1896 H.G. Wells
193 pages

What an odd little story! Begin with one J. Hoopdriver, a draper's assistant who lives for nothing but spare opportunities to ride his bicycle -- or rather, to crash repeatedly on his bicycle, banging up his legs but still delighting in sheer momentum. Mr. Hoopdriver, at the novel's beginning, is finally embarking on his yearly vacation: a cycling tour in England. Immediately he spies a beautiful woman, crashes dramatically, and earns her pity and his own chagrin. He chances to see her again, later on, and this time in the company of another fellow who claims to be her brother. His love-sickness not withstanding, Hoopdriver can tell that something's amiss, especially after the "brother" accuses Hoopdriver of being a detective. Delighted at having a game to play, Hoopdriver pursues the odd couple, eventually changing roles to that of a clumsy knight- errant once he and the woman (Jessie) realize the other chap is a genuine cad. Jessie's intention was to Be Her Own Woman, but her first ally turned out to be a manipulative fink. Eventually the gig is up for everyone, but Hoopdrive ends the tale most invigorated, having gone on a quest and discovered a friend who could put a little steel in his soul and allow him to dream of doing greater things with his life.

Although the story is nearly inconsequential, there's much charm. Wells' writing is often fun (one passage remarks that while Hoopdriver was in the throes of indecision, gravitation was hard at work and thus the man found himself on the ground with a bleeding shin, still wondering what to do), and sometimes beautiful, as when he's describing the landscape or the dreams of these two. Still, there were two reasons I picked this book up: bicycles and H.G. Wells -- and that, in the end, was the reason I finished it.  If nothing else this is literature from bicycling's first bloom of mass popularity.

Related:
Bicycles: The History,  David Herlihy

H.G. Wells and his wife Jane Wells

In the Days of the Comet

In the Days of the Comet
© 1906 H.G. Wells
276 pages

Have you been cyanogened yet?  Carl Sagan delivered that preposterous line in the original Cosmos, reading the newspaper headlines of a century past. Then, as Halley's Comet approached the Earth, fear and wonder spread -- and some enterprising rascal sold gas masks to people who feared the comet's toxic fumes. As it turns out, they needn't have worried; the comet's fumes are magic!

That's the setup for In the Days of the Comet, which opens with an old man reminiscing about his youth, set in the last days of Earth before 'the Change', when all was foul and dismal.  He spent that week brooding, ignoring his mother, and stalking an ex-girlfriend across the country with the intent of shooting her.  Fortunately for all concerned, as he crashed through the brambles firing his revolver at the girl and her new beau, the fumes of an approaching comet mixed with the atmosphere of Earth and made the world anew.  Every living thing fell into a stupor, wakes up, and -- after a contented belly scratch -- decide to abolish everything and create The World State.  And we all lived happily ever after.

Aside from a joke about Texas,  very little of In the Days of the Comet made for enjoyable reading. The narrator is from the start a boor, one of those types who has discovered the Secret of Life and is intent on lecturing everyone who will listen, and berating those who won't for being sheep.  He grows even more tedious after The Change, because now his eyes are open to how much else was wrong with the old world, and since his fellow characters now agree with him, the only audience for his lectures is...the Reader.  Alas.   In the Days has nothing of science fiction in it; it is instead a bit of wish-fulfillment in which Wells writes about what's wrong with the world: property, marriage,  tradition, and Jews.

Wells' status as an enlightened man of science takes quite the hit here, and not just because of the antisemitism. His views on society and economics are simplistic, to say the least,  with science depicted as maaaaaagic.   I guess they can't all be War of the Worlds, eh H.G.?

Reads to ...er, Reels: War of the Worlds

"...coming this way, about twenty yards from my ri—"

Tonight I turned off the lights and put on a recording of Orson Welles' 1938 radio dramatization of H.G. Wells' (confusing, that) The War of the Worlds.  According to a popular urban myth,  the format of this radio-play  so confused and alarmed the listening audience that they began running amok, wandering into the country and firing guns at anything suspicious-like.  While the extent of that panic is greatly exaggerated,  having experienced the play I can appreciate why people might believe the myth.  After an introduction which identifies the novel as its inspiration, the play begins as a period music broadcast which is interrupted periodically by news accounts of strange activity on Mars, then some sort of impact in New Jersey, and then -- by golly -- the dots are connected.  The interruptions are first routine and annoying (I was rather enjoying "Stardust", though the version wasn't close to Glenn Miller's)  and then increasingly panicked.  The scene in which an on-site reporter arrives at the first impact and witnesses the cylinder begin to open are especially well done, and later we seem to hear a man killed by the Heat Ray on air.   Broadcast interruptions are frequent, as the fictional network officials scramble to keep accurate reporting even as the affair widens. By the time we reach an assumed-dead scientist commenting in a "it's the world as we know it" fashion, musing over the events of the last several days, the radio-play status of the broadcast is much more obvious. The recording ends with Orson Welles reminding readers that this was a Halloween play, and please do not run amok.  I don't know how the panic myth started, but I certainly enjoyed listening to the play and experiencing an odd piece of American history.  You can find copies on YouTube, of course.

The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man
© 1897 H,G, Wells
149 pages

The Invisible Man opens with the arrival of a Mysterious Stranger to a country inn. He is covered from head to toe, and remains so even after he takes a room. The townsfolk don't know what to make of the irritable visitor who insists on wearing gloves, a hat, and goggles indoors, and peevishness only intensifies their curiosity. That, and the fact that his luggage consisted of a small library and an enormous set of chemical apparatus.  The more time he spends with them the more suspicious he seems, and those who keep trying to get a feel for the man notice...curiosities. For instance, once his sleeve seemed to be empty, yet it moved in a way that would be impossible for an amputee's.  Driven to frustration by their constant prodding, the visitor reveals that he is, in fact, an Invisible Man. From there, the plot is one of spectacle, siege, and violence as the Man lashes out in desperation. The other villages think the people in the first hamlet are lunatics, but soon the "madness" spreads as he moves. His every encounter results in contemptuous treatment of the terrified people he meets, followed  by attempts to subdue people with inexplicable force. It turns out that the English winter is not the best time to embark on an experiment in invisibility.  Invisible he may be, but he still still needs clothing and food -- and both expose him.   Eventually the Man is cornered when he attempts to enlist the help of a university colleague. That man, Kemp, listens to his story but can't help but notice that the Invisible Man seems to be the one instigating all of the trouble. He is especially bothered by the Man's account of nicking a man's goods....from his very house. This is England, you transparent lout, don't you know a man's home is his castle?  When the Man reveals that he wants to inflict a profitable Reign of Terror on England, that's the last straw.  A trap is sprung, the man is caught, and when he dies the electro-chemical process he exposed himself to wears off to reveal him.  That's that.

The Invisible Man is curious, as compared to the other Wells novels I've read. It drops the reader right into the middle of the character's story, and doesn't consist of any thoughtful narration. In recapping the story, I've attempted to be as sympathetic as I can, attempting to frame him as a man driven to desperation by the miserable condition he inadvertently cast himself into.  It's a bit of a stretch, though, because the Invisible Man is a grump from page one, as though the invisibility simply escalated his own disdain and short temper. His intelligence is all technical; he doesn't have the least bit of tact or strategy in his head.  A Reign of Terror in England? Sounds awfully French.   I don't know if Wells was aware of the old Greek story about a ring that makes the wearer invisible and quickly immoral, but the lesson certainly applies to our fellow here.

This is a fast story, with the feel of horror.. The Invisible Man is more a monster to be feared than a man to be awed by or pitied.

The Outline of History

The Outline of History, Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind (Volume I)
© 1920 H.G. Wells, revised edition by G.P. Wells and Raymond Postgate © 1970
550 pages

At the close of the Great War, people wondered how such a monstrous conflict could have arisen and destroyed so many lives. In part to answer this question, and out of conviction that contemporary history texts were not up to the task. H.G. Wells set about penning an epic history of humanity, beginning with the formation of the Earth billions of years ago. His opening chapters cover the tumultous early years of Earth and the rise of life, followed by four hundred pages of human history -- from the birth of agriculture to the Crusades.Though originally published in 1920, Wells continually revised the book in keeping with new discoveries, a work continued by his son and Raymond Postgate after his death. Wells' account and the many revisions through the decades seem to have aged well, as there were no notable discrepancies between this and my readings from last week, consisting of modern treatments of the same subjects. I am altogether impressed with the work of Postgate: his seamless revisions only stick out when they reference events Wells could not have possibly written about, being dead at the time.  I chose to read this book because Wells is for me a representative of the late 19th century: his protagonists in novels such as War of the Worlds are the ideal man -- intelligent, literate in various fields of study, humanistically moral, and advocates of technological, cultural, and social progress. His voice is what I generally expect of Wells: elegant and strong, encouraging me to read sections of the narrative aloud and savor the flow of his sentences and the texture of his word choices. It was such a reading on the Punic Wars that an offhand joke -- completely unexpected from such a 'serious' author as Wells -- startled me into laughter that did not abate for several minutes. Though an intellectual, Wells is not above a sly remark or two.


The Outline of History is an ambitious title, one that forces Wells to be economical with his narrative. He thus focuses on the big picture, studying a given civilization's growth or regress than reciting fact after fact. He quotes liberally from other historians, including Herodotus and Edward Gibbon. Most of the book follows the standard narrative of western history seen: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and finally Europe. It is not wholly eurocentric, though: his frequent diversions to China, Persia, and India, followed by his focus on Arabia in this volume's final hundred pages, succeed in offering the reader a broad perspective with a slight western emphasis.

Though writing to (presumably) an early-20th century western audience, Wells does not pander to them by vigorously condemning  paganism or by giving Christianity preferential treatment. Though he regards Jesus and Christianity favorably, he approaches them in the same way as he approaches Buddha, Muhammed, Mani, and Zoroaster. C.S. Lewis and G.K. Cheston are chauvinistic babies for whining about Wells' very complimentary treatment of Christianity. He's also very keen on Buddha, though not so much the religion that others created around him, and regards Islam as a triumph even though its founder was unremarkable, "cast from commoner clay" than Jesus.  While he doesn't praise religion and authority figures as much as Will Durant, he appreciates those which spur humanity on to greater heights and spares the reader morality tales. Interestingly, he's also completly unimpressed with the Roman empire, seeing it as a prolonged epoch of stagnation and rot following Rome's victory in the Second Punic War -- a series of wars he regards as more wasteful than the Great War which he just survived. He emerges from this first volume as an even-keeled author, whose goal is to make the world understandable. He writes in the introduction that the "why's" of the Great War inspired him to write this, and I have some inkling as to how he will address that question: throughout the book he reminds the reader that despite our accomplishments, biologically we are not far removed from our primitive ancestors, and it is altogether too easy to shove a human being and see him gazing back with the "red eyes of the cave man".  I suspect that the Great War will be attributed to  nationalism's primitivism.


Wells is thus far an engaging author, and I look forward to continuing to the second and final volume of this series -- especially to his coverage of the Renaissance and Enlightenment.  This volume was like returning to my Western History 101 class and being delighted to hear these stories of human history all over again.

Related:

• Will Durant's Story of Civilization series,  particularly the first three volumes which cover the same period of time as this. (Our Oriental Heritage, The Life of Greece, and Caesar and Christ.) 
• Isaac Asimov's The Near East.
• A History of Life on Earth , Jon Erickson

The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds
© 1898 H.G. Wells
from The War of the Worlds with The Time Machine and Selected Short Stories, collected 1963.
303 pages

"Don't run! We are your friends!"

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter.

It is the late eighteen-hundreds, the high-water mark of western civilization. Western man and his science are ascendant, triumphant:  while the old empires of the east wither and decay, the virile west takes dominion of the world, uniting it with iron rails and ships belching steam. The earth surrenders her bounty to the miners, and in the cities -- in which people gather in ever-increasing numbers -- towers of steel climb into the skies, rivaling the trees from which we sprang so long ago.  But far away, lurking in the cold of space, lies another civilization, one which sees in the flourishing Earth new life for its own people -- and salvation from its dying world. Like the the Trojans of legend, they have come to our own Italy seeking to establish a new home for themselves -- and they care little for its current occupants.

The narrator of this work, an unnamed intellectual who is trained in comparative biology but is well-versed in all manner of sciences and technology, was there the night the first cylinder arrived. It crashed not two miles from his home, and he regarded these unannounced visitors with wonder, curiosity, and even sympathy at first -- hoping as the cylinder cooled and began to open that the brave men inside had survived their journey all right. Never does it occur to our guide that these visitors come to Earth as the Puritans came to the Americans -- for gold, god, and glory.  Even when the heat-ray vaporizes the fascinated crowds,  the survivors cling to the hope that there's been a misunderstanding.  Every night that passes brings with it a new cylinder, and from the landing sites rise terrifying machines that visit death on anyone and anything that they approach. The crowds were first scattered by the heat-ray, but when the Martians' advance is countered by artillery and iron-clads the otherworldly machines begin belching black smoke of their own -- visiting the area around them with clouds of noxious gas that mitigate any thoughts of resistance.

They march toward London, and civilization flees from them, leaving behind towns in flames and thousands dead. A great mass of humanity routs southward, but our own guide through this harrowing time is trapped  in a partially-destroyed home. The man who had enjoyed a quiet evening chatting with his wife over wine, followed by a session at the typewriter discussing civilization's moral progress is reduced to hiding in rubble, scurrying from ditch to bush and eating anything he can find while surrounded by the ruins of his old world and wondering what is yet to come. Will men take to the sewers, begin life anew while the Martians?  But this is not to be -- for humanity's greatest weapon is its heritage, having overcome generations of diseases that the Martians are utterly unprepared for.

War of the Worlds is a fascinating book; when doing research for my various WW1 papers I learned of the genre of  "invasion literature"*, which became popular in the late 1800s following Prussia's swift technological victory over the French Empire in 1871. Fantasizing about how technological advances like balloons and airplanes could render a nation helpless in a matter of days was quite popular for a time, and though I am not familiar with the history of science fiction,  I wouldn't be surprised if Worlds grew out of that and the increasing interest in Mars and other close astronomical bodies.  The devastation visited on civilian populations and the use of poison gas predicts some of the ravages of the Great War.

Wells is an effective writer, taking the reader through our guide's wonder,  fear, terror, and joy. The guide is ideal for me: I like idealistic intellectuals like our unnamed host, who takes pleasure in the pursuit of knowledge. His status as an intellectual allows him to analyze the aliens' biology, their machines, and what their world may be like -- and his well-rounded education makes the epilogue's musing predictions fascinating.    War of the Worlds is very much a classic, enjoyable though dated: the vastness of space probably insulates us against alien invasions, and I snorted when Wells mentioned that the Martians had effected a landing on Venus. Knowledge gained throughout the 20th century indicates that Venus is as inhospitable as it gets.

Good reading for those interested in a harrowing adventure, or a peek into classic science fiction.  If you enjoy Wells or want to own some of his works, this particular edition seems like a good investment. It gathers two classics along with a few short stories I've not yet read but intend to.  The publishers are Platt & Munk, a division of Grosset and Dunlap.  ISBN: 0-448-41106-7. The cover has a retro feel, and the introduction refers to Wells' work as "scientific romance", which I find endearingly quaint.


* Walter J. Boyne's The Influence of Air Power Upon History shows that invasion literature was not just the stuff of fiction, but a concern to military strategists.

The Time Machine

The Time Machine

© 1895 H.G. Wells

108 pages

I was not expecting The Time Machine to be such a short read. The Great Illustrated Classics treatment of it was the first bit of science fiction I ever read, and I remember it being a fairly thick read and was surprised to find that my library's only copy of the work was bound in a collection with The Invisible Man. Much of that book from my childhood sticks with me: the Time-Traveler staring at two wilted flowers, the titular machine that looked more like an amusement park ride than a time-traveling device, the way it made me want to find out what "mutton" tasted like, since the Time Traveler found it so appealing when he returns from his first trip -- and the haunting image of him staring at a bloated sun that filled the sky on a cold and dying Earth.

You may have surmised at this point that The Time Machine is a novella about a man who goes time-traveling. It begins at his home in England as he talks with his friends about the reality of four dimensions and the fact that time is as real as width or depth. (I found this very interesting when I was a child, given that science classes at the elementary level consisted of memorizing definitions of things.) He then states that he has found a way to move forward through time, and demonstrates with a little model of a time machine to prove this to his skeptical friends, most of whom are known only from their occupations -- as is the Time Traveler. Most of the story is told from his point of view: a week after he demonstrates his little model, he returns from a more extended time-traveling trip, most of which he spends in the far future.

He spends most of his time in the year 802,701, in which he discovers (in England) two races of people whom he believes are the descendants of humanity, the first being a childlike race of people living in vast communal structures who spend their time eating fruit, singing songs, and dances. At first the Traveler believes these people to be the fulfillment of human evolution -- they have completely conquered Nature, and now can enjoy the fruits of their labor. The problem with this, as the Traveler soon discovers, is that these people (the Eloi) are not enjoying the fruits of their labor. They do nothing other than sleep, eat, and enjoy other sensual pleasures. They don't grow food or make clothing -- so where are their generous supplies of fruit and simple tunics coming from? Our Traveler finds this out when he discovers the second race of men, the Morlocks: they live underground, fiddle with machines, and prey on the Eloi like humans treat cattle.

The Traveler's explanation for the evolution of the Eloi and Morlocks is grounded in then-contemporary social conditions and historical materialism: he believes that the Eloi and the Morlocks are the ancestors of the bourgeaouise and working class respectively. I assume that since the laborers were treated like animals, they became so. Our Traveler is quick to admit that this explanation, however plausible, could be wrong -- just as his initial thoughts about the Eloi were. As he explores the landscape -- eventually venturing into the Morlock underworld -- he befriends an Eloi named Weena. She seemed to be less present in the actual novella than in the children's book I read,but perhaps as a child I simply gave her more attention. Eventually the Traveler leaves the world of 802,701 to witness Earth's end, and quickly returns to his present to tell his friends of his story. The novel has a slight twist ending.

What is remarkable for a book written in 1895 is how utterly readable this novella is: Victorian language can be a bit dense at times, but this was easy to read as a magazine article. The story has its charm as well.

Lead picture is from The Big Bang Theory.