"The World Set Free, with its predictions of aerial warfare, atomic bombs, and international peace conferences, takes first place in the Nostradamus sweepstakes for those who prefer their science fiction to be predictive." Los Angeles Review of Books
Series Foreword ix Introduction: A Crash Louder Than Thunder xv Sarah Cole Preface xxv
Prelude: The Sun Snares 1 1 The New Source of Energy 25 2 The Last War 63 3 The Ending of War 113 4 The New Phase 163 5 The Last Days of Marcus Karenin 207
Afterword: Shall We Play a Game? 243 Joshua Glenn
H.G. Wells (1866 1946) is best known today as author of pioneering scientific romances such as The Time Machine(1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). An influence on sf authors from Olaf Stapledon to Arthur C. Clarke, he was also a social critic and futurist who penned dozens of novels, stories, and works of history and social commentary in which he proposed more rational ways to organize society.