The World Set Free

by H. G. Wells

Overview

The World Set Free is a novel published in 1914 by H. G. Wells. It is not one of Wells' better-remembered works, but is noteworthy for its depiction of fictional "atomic bombs" which eerily prefigure the development of real nuclear weapons.

— Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781605018966
Publisher:	MobileReference
Publication date:	01/01/2010
Series:	Mobi Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	257 KB

About the Author

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.

Date of Birth:

September 21, 1866

Date of Death:

August 13, 1946

Place of Birth:

Bromley, Kent, England

Place of Death:

London, England

Education:

Normal School of Science, London, England

Table of Contents

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

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“The World Set Free is a crucial novel in Wells’s amazing effort, and it’s great to see it in a new edition.”
—Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future

“A breathless story of great wars of World Powers, of hovering aeroplanes with atomic bombs, and of peace between Kings in a World Council.” 
—Sinclair Lewis, Detroit Free Press (1914)

“The color, vigor, and picturesqueness of Mr. Wells’s description of this last war combine to produce an amazing effect.”
—The New York Times (1914)
 
“The World Set Free is not so much fiction as a forecast of a quite improbable future.”
—The Bookman (1914)

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher

Published in 1914 and set in 1956, this is a fantasy of the possible. Before scientists split the atom, Wells foresaw the wonders of robotics, the positives and negatives of computers, and the horrors of weaponry that could bring an end to civilization as we know it. Wells's sometimes unpopular social policy rails against the dangers of isolationism and offers the logic of globalization. Shelly Frasier performs the narrative with appropriately thoughtful distance. She manages sensitivity and complexity as George Ponderevo considers mankind’s inevitable end. "…And these atomic bombs which science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men who used them." A prophetic, imaginative social reformer, Wells has long been recognized as a man ahead of his time. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

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