Review: ‘The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham’ by H. G. Wells

‘The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham’ was first published in May 1896 in the Idler magazine. It’s one of the best stories of H. G. Wells (1866-1946), who left behind dozens of classic short tales which laid the foundations for modern science fiction.

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Review: ‘The Land Ironclads’ by H. G. Wells

‘The Land Ironclads’ is one of the most prophetic short stories by H. G. Wells (1866-1946), a writer who made more than his fair share of accurate prophecies. First published in Strand magazine in December 1903, the story anticipated the invention of the tank in modern warfare some thirteen years before the first tanks were deployed.

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Review: ‘Motel Architecture’ by J. G. Ballard

‘Motel Architecture’ is not one of the best-known short stories of the British author J. G. Ballard (1930-2009), but it’s one of his most prescient. And this is an author who anticipated everything from Ronald Reagan becoming US President (in the late 1960s) to videocalls and virtual socialising via a TV/computer screen (see his ‘The Intensive Care Unit’ for the latter).

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Review: ‘The Electric Ant’ by Philip K. Dick

‘The Electric Ant’ is a short story by the American writer Philip K. Dick (1928-82), written in 1968 and published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in October the following year. The story is about an ‘electric ant’ or robot which has always thought it was human; when it discovers the truth, it sets about trying to alter the reality around it.

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Review: ‘The Crystal Egg’ by H. G. Wells

‘The Crystal Egg’ is a short story by H. G. Wells (1866-1946), first published in the New Review in 1897. The story might be regarded as a precursor to Wells’s novel, The War of the Worlds: the ‘crystal egg’ of the story’s title turns out to be a communication device Martians have left on earth.

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Review: All Aboard for Ararat by H. G. Wells

The British author H. G. Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific writer of novels, scientific romances, and non-fiction. His late work All Aboard for Ararat, which was published in 1940 against the backdrop of world war, is not one of his most celebrated books, but it’s an interesting example of ‘late Wells’ and a fun update on the Noah story from the Old Testament.

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Review: ‘In the Avu Observatory’ by H. G. Wells

Of all of the short stories written by H. G. Wells (1866-1946), ‘In the Avu Observatory’ is one of the most genuinely frightening. In this story, Wells’s writing is sublime, and the way he slowly builds suspense as a mysterious monstrous creature attacks the scientist manning an observatory in Borneo serves as a masterclass in how to write a ‘monster tale’ such as this.

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Review: ‘The Hammerpond Park Burglary’ by H. G. Wells

‘The Hammerpond Park Burglary’ is not one of the best-known short stories by H. G. Wells (1866-1946), but in my determination to read all of his short fiction I thought it worth recording my comments on this slight piece of fiction, even though it has no elements of fantasy or science fiction and is more like a Raffles adventure than a quintessential slice of H. G. Wells’s imaginative fiction.

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Review: ‘The Flowering of the Strange Orchid’ by H. G. Wells

‘The Flowering of the Strange Orchid’ is a short story by H. G. Wells (1866-1946), first published in the Pall Mall Budget on 2 August 1894. In some ways a forerunner to later narratives like Little Shop of Horrors, the story is an unsettling tale about a parasitical species of plant which feeds upon the blood of a man who collects orchids.

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