1st June 2016: I’ve just had the great pleasure of reading and finishing my copy of H. G. Wells’ 1927 (20) SELECTED SHORT STORIES.

So much could be said about this great author’s futuristic soothsaying allied with his insightfulness about our human condition which he displays in these short stories. Penguin Books’ cover note on this edition expresses what I’d want to say: “These twenty stories … represent the variety of his imagination and reveal his power to evoke both scene and atmosphere… He had an interest in many diverse subjects and was able to apply a fresh and unspecialized mind to them.” And that’s putting it mildly.

THE TIME MACHINE: many have seen movie versions of this astounding story. We see and hear a version of it. If it’s the only version/ presentation of the story to have been seen, it’s a lightning-bolt of a realisation to read HG’s story with its lyricism, invocation and descriptions of thoughts and emotions. He uses words as an artist would use paint: “The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses”.

Very much in the times, at that time, HG has his characters discussing time and space; it’s to set us up to believe in a further dimension to thickness, length, breadth and time: our consciousness, as relevant and important, HG’s character tells us, to our existing at any time;  there is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along with it. Which is, I offer, what writers are intending to do when seeking to provide credibility and gain empathy with their readers when they use the vehicle of consciousness, of ourselves, others and the world around us to create the literary world they would have us inhabit.

THE LAND IRONCLADS: 

What an opening sentence this is: The young lieutenant lay beside the war correspondent and admired the idyllic calm of the enemy’s lines through his field-glass. We are immediately transported into the sense of impending danger.

(To be continued, AR ©2016)