During the 1990s I became a member of the HG Wells Society and amassed a collection of over 100 of his books (almost all of them, in fact). I exchanged a few letters with the wonderful Mr Hammond (the editor of this volume) who was president of the Society at the time and I found him to be a fascinating and endearing man. There was nothing about Wells he didn't know.

This book I saw - on a rare trip to London - sitting in the window of a second hand shop on Charing Cross Road. I vividly recall running in to snap it up for £20. It was the hardback edition in the red dust jacket. It weighed a ton and I had to lug round with me all day long. I lent it to someone about ten years later and never got it back. Man, I hate it when that happens - don't you?

It's hard to love every single piece in this book. You will have your favourites, for sure. But there is nothing in here that is entirely without merit, the wonderful Mr Hammond sees to that. I myself have a special affection for "The Man Who Could Work Miracles", probably because I loved the old film so much as a boy.

Wells' prose is a delight to read: clear, simple, often beautiful.

A different version of this book was in my college library. If I had an hour or two between classes, I would go there, pick up this book and read for a while in one of the chairs there (often dozing off as well). I got through most of it, there are some real gems, including many predictions from Wells of the future that have actually come to pass. A good read if you like sci-fi.

Two of the most curious aspects of science fiction are firstly that much of it is distinctly unscientific, and secondly that much of it is even sceptical about the very science that has inspired it. Even writers with a background in science (such as HG Wells) are obliged to abandon too rigid a commitment to scientific probability, or too great a faith in the wonders of science.

Of course there is science fiction in which science is allowed to save the day, or where there the writer lays a greater emphasis on making the science as factual as possible. However, for obvious reasons it behoves most science fiction writers to abandon too much focus on scientific fact. Also it makes for poor reading if science is only ever seen as an improving force in the world. The darker side of science is better material for exploration.

Indeed the virtue of the best science fiction is often to disconcert and discomfort the reader. It is perhaps appropriate that the genre arose at a time when old-fashioned views about the dignity and superiority of mankind were starting to be challenged.

The stories of H G Wells do a good job of challenging the special place in the universe that which mankind imagined that they held. His fiction constantly shows human beings at a disadvantage. With a decent understanding of evolution and human descent, Wells lowers us from the realm of the angels.

In two short stories here, mankind is seen as being a descendant from a more brutal prehistoric age in which early humans had to compete with animals and other human-like species to ruthlessly acquire their dominance. In another story, a man is engaged in an absurd fight over food with an extinct ancient bird that leads to him killing this valuable specimen.

The future holds out little hope for mankind either. Humans evolve into weaker specimens such as the Eloi and Morlocks before disappearing off the face of the earth. Future societies are unable to save themselves from the effects of war. Humans living in the future find themselves struggling with the same tawdry financial problems that undermine them in the present.

Indeed the future may not belong to us, but to another species. In one story, ants begin to evolve levels of intelligence that threaten to make humanity extinct. Humans are also assailed by spiders, underwater monsters and mysterious flying jungle creatures. Elsewhere a giant star nearly wipes out all life on the planet when it narrowly avoids collision with us, but this event is merely a matter of interest to observers on other planets, further downplaying the significance of the dwellers in our world.

Other worlds also threaten to impinge on our own. Characters have dreams of future worlds that cause them fear and confusion. Sometimes they catch glimpses of alternative worlds that seem better than ours, and which leave them dissatisfied with our own. Even finding a society that appears lesser than our own does not offer a guarantee of human superiority. Hence a man who finds a country of blind people soon discovers that far from dominating this world he will be treated as an idiot by a society of people who cannot understand his extra sense.

These other worlds may be those that lie on the other side of death. Men are taken outside of the earthly world into worlds of phantoms that harrow them. Ineffectual ghosts appear and have to be helped back into their own dimension.

There is little comfort of a heavenly afterlife in these stories, and religion offers little solace. Wells was not an atheist, but he does not present humans as being the special creatures under the special protection of a benevolent god. Rather we are just one more scurrying animal whose time on this planet is limited.

In one tale, God pronounces harsh judgments that send everyone to hell. In another, the last trump is mostly ignored by a sceptical population. Elsewhere one man acquires the ability to perform miracles, but instead destroys all life on the planet before hastily using his powers to undo all the harm he did, and indeed to remove his own ‘gift’. In another story, a worker from the East begins to revere the dynamos in his factory as a god, and sacrifices his employer to them.

Even human identity is under challenge, and there are a few stories here in which humans experience body swaps, sometimes reversible and sometimes not. Sanity too is no guarantee, and one man becomes obsessed with a dead rival that he believes is haunting him in the shape of a dead moth. Another man is haunted by the upside-down head of a Porrah man that he killed, and which he can only escape through suicide.

There is a curious blend of the remarkable and the unremarkable in Wells’ stories. While the events that Wells describes are remarkable, the heroes who experience them are not. Often they are comically ordinary in a way that dissipates some of the potential horror that the stories might evoke. While some stories may deal in the same subject matter as the stories of Poe or Lovecraft, they lack the overwrought and hypnotic prose of those writers. Wells was certainly a very imaginative writer, but his imagination went into his development of the stories. His prose is far more plain and matter-of-fact.

There are remarkable people here who show a curiosity and genius that raises them above the other characters, but they tend to be over-reachers. The Time Traveller insists on a second journey after his risky first one, and is never seen again. A similar fate awaits a scientist who discovers an underwater world though a submersible. Early pioneers of flight meet unhappy ends in crashes, or through suicide. Even a man who attempts to learn the trick of passing one’s soul into the next life only brings about his death.

Indeed science can be a dangerous business, producing armoured vehicles and planes for warfare, and a bacillus that could be used for germ warfare. It is not only the pioneers, but science itself that threatens to over-reach.

There are darker glimpses of human nature here too, with stories that involve jealousy, infidelity, murder, theft, suicide and forgery. Not to mention the lesser sins of snobbery, pettiness and vanity.

However, the more characteristic hero of a Wells short story is the Mr Polly type of character – the man whose life is utterly unremarkable, save for the extraordinary things that happen to him. This is also true of the non-science fiction short stories included in this volume. A timid teacher tries his hand at burglary and is spirited away to a distant island. A lady rejects a suitor because his surname is ridiculous and pines away when she learns that he willingly changed the name for a new wife.

It may be asked why Wells is so concerned with portraying the more commonplace and absurd side of human nature. Clearly this is partly for comical and satirical purposes, and partly as a way of easing off the potential horror contained in some of the stories. Whether this is a good idea or not is a matter for the reader’s tastes, but Wells was attempting to write fiction with speculative ideas, not to produce sensational potboilers.

I can’t help wondering though if Wells is drawn to the small-minded man because he saw a little bit of himself in those characters. Certainly a few of the heroes in these stories share letters in their names with Wells himself – Wallace, Wedderburn, Woodhouse, Watkins, Winslow etc.

In some respects, Wells was an advanced man for his time, with ideas that were new and progressive. He was an enthusiast for science, and also a socialist. However, in other respects, his attitudes were indeed rooted in the parochial attitudes of his time. For example, women rarely come to play a big part in any of the stories here. When we do see women, they are often shrewish wives, servants or silly girls who fail to marry for one reason or another.

In his attitude towards race too, Wells is rather deplorable by modern standards. The liberal use of the n-word will be uncomfortable for today’s readers, but not as much as his portrayal of black people. They are generally savages, and are often kicked around by white people. Admittedly this comes at a price, and the black servants often get to avenge themselves on their brutal masters. However, the black characters are generally superstitious, treacherous and murderous. None are ever treated with the same respect as the white characters.

There is a wide variety of stories here, showing the enormous sweep of Wells’ imagination. Five stars may seem a high rating, and the stories are not all consistently brilliant. However, every story has some point of interest, and Wells shows himself to be a surprisingly gifted short story writer. I tend to rate generously, as I recognise that writing a book of merit is not an easy thing to do, and I believe we should more clearly distinguish the classic work from the dross.

The book was given to me by a friend, and I began it with low expectations. However, I found the book more enjoyable than I ever imagined, and have no hesitation in recommending it to others.

*I don’t imagine anyone is interested in reading it, but I have reviewed The Time Machine separately, although it is included in my collection of short stories here.

Still excellent a hundred years after they were written (3.5 stars)

For a guy who lived almost half his life in the 19th century, it's amazing how well the fiction of H.G. Wells (1866-1946) has stood the test of time, and can still be enjoyed and appreciated by readers today. An early pioneer of the science fiction genre, he's especially known for his novels, and four in particular stand out: The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). But it's not his novels, but his short stories that are the subject of this review. He wrote over eighty of them in the course of his life, and I've read well over half of them. These are my personal favourites which I enjoyed the most:

⁃ "The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham" (5 stars): A brilliant premise in which a young man's mind ends up in old man’s body. Is this where Tim Powers got the idea for his book Anubis Gates from?
⁃ "The Country of the Blind" (5 stars): Apparently a one-eyed man isn't king among the blind after all; at least that's what a man who ends up in an isolated region full of blind people discovers. It's a brilliant reversal of perceptions and of what is normal, and shows the power of the collective against the individual.
⁃ "The Apple" (4.5 stars): More of a literary story, in which a schoolmaster is given an apple from the Tree of Knowledge by a stranger on a train. While some biblical inaccuracies detract from the storyline, this more literary story has interesting things to say about knowledge and about sin.
⁃ "The New Accelerator" (4 stars): Suppose your inventor friend comes up with a drug that lets you speed up your actions to a thousand times those of everyone else, so you can move about them as if they're frozen? It's a great concept.
⁃ "The Treasure in the Forest" (3.5 stars): More of an adventure story, this tells the tale of two men who hike into a secret forest to find a hidden treasure. It's really the ending that made this for me, but it's a story that warns against the allure of wealth and unchecked greed.
⁃ "The Stolen Bacillus" (3.5 stars): Another story with a fun twist at the end, this is about a deadly cholera bacterium that apparently gets stolen by an anarchist.
⁃ "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" (3.5 stars): A man makes a strong argument against miracles, when he accidentally performs one. What will he do next with his amazing power?
⁃ "Mr Ledbetter's Vacation" (3.5 stars): A vicar gets more than he bargained when he decides on a whim to step out of his usual calm character and seek adventure by performing a burglary. Light, whimsical, and entertaining.
⁃ "The Magic Shop" (3 stars): A son pulls his father into a magic shop for a demonstration of magic tricks, but things take a sinister turn when the tricks become increasingly powerful. The ending is somewhat ambiguous, and raises questions about what is real versus what is an illusion. And is the point merely to highlight a need for protecting the innocence of children, or is there a deeper meaning about how we lose our sense of innocence and wonder as we get older?
⁃ "The Truth about Pyecraft" (3 stars): A lesser known but humorous and light story about a fat man who loses weight - literally!
- "Answer to Prayer" (3 stars): A less popular story, but for me it made a strong impression in light of my religious beliefs. What happens if a religious man who frequently goes through the motions of prayer actually prays from the heart, and gets an immediate answer?

Besides "Answer to Prayer", all of the above titles are well-known and popular stories in the H.G. Wells' canon. But there are plenty of other highly regarded stories Wells has written that deserve mention too. While these wouldn't make the cut for me personally as personal favourites, clearly others respect and admire them very highly, and many of them are still decent stories worth taking a look at.

⁃ "The Door in the Wall": This is more literary in nature, and often considered by many as Wells' best short story. A man tells the story of a magical world he visited as a child but has never been able to return to. Is it real or is it a dream?
⁃ "Dream of Armageddon": Another common favourite for many. A man dreams of a terrible future world war he could have prevented by choosing duty over love. Again it raises questions about what is real and what is a dream, and about why we have a craving for pleasure and beauty.
⁃ "The Pearl of Love": A prince who has lost his love resolves to build a glorious monument for her. There's a shocking ending as he forgets his original intent. The point is somewhat ambiguous, but some have interpreted this as a warning about how we can often make an idol of our loved ones and eventually forget them altogether in our worship of them.
- "The Star": An apocalyptic scenario as a star appears in the sky, and gets increasingly larger since it is on a collision course with earth.
⁃ "The Empire of the Ants": Humanity is threatened by an ant that has evolved in an aggressive and intelligent way. It's another story with an open ending, which to me felt unfinished and begged for more, although the concept is good.
⁃ "The Flowering of the Strange Orchid": A rather decent story bordering on sci-fi horror, about an attacking orchid; but for me the ending was too abrupt.
- "The Sea Raiders": Another decent story that borders on sci-fi and horror, this time featuring giant squid-like creatures that attack people from the sea.
⁃ "Valley of Spiders": More gothic horror, with giant spiders being the source of terror; really not my thing.
⁃ "The Cone": A man takes terrible revenge on another man who was having affair with his wife. Too gory for me, unfortunately.
⁃ "The Crystal Egg": An unusual crystal egg proves to be a portal that enables remote viewing onto Mars.
⁃ "Aepyornis Island": Suppose a castaway comes across a prehistoric egg ... and manages to hatch it?! Quite a decent story.
⁃ "The Red Room": A ghost story about a skeptical man who experiences the fear of meeting a ghost in a haunted house. It's one of Wells' more popular stories, but just didn't interest me much.
⁃ "The Inexperienced Ghost": Another ghost story, this time about a man meets a ghost so pathetic that it can’t get back to the spirit world. But a surprise is in store when the man tries to replicate the moves the ghost did to pass back into the vale of shades.
⁃ "The Triumphs of a Taxidermist": An interesting idea about a man who commits taxidermy fraud by forging existing birds and inventing new ones, but it feels more like a concept and isn't long enough for a story. Also worth a look is the follow-up, "A Deal in Ostriches".
⁃ "Miss Winchelsea’s Heart": This story shows how Wells was capable of a wide range of different types of story. It's about a pretentious woman who falls in love with a stranger, but her later regret after she first rejects him when she finds out his name is the undesirable "Snooks".
⁃ "A Slip Under the Microscope": A student confesses to accidental cheating and gets thrown out of university - but I was left wondering what the point of the story is.
- "The Stolen Body": Another "out-of-body experience" story, as a man has his body taken over by demon-like creature. It's a clever concept, but a bit dark and not my favourite.
⁃ "Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland": This is about someone's impossible obsession for a perfect woman, but like some of Wells' other stories, just didn't sustain my interest.

Nearly all of the above stories are quite short and easy to read, which is remarkable considering how long ago they were written. They also show that H.G. Wells was capable of a wide range of different types of fiction. While the genre is predominantly science-fiction, some feel more like horror stories, others adventure stories, and others again are quite literary in nature. Some of his speculative fiction anticipated later inventions that would be used in war such as aircraft ("The Argonauts of the Air"), and tanks ("The Land Ironclads"). I especially enjoyed his stories about fantastic inventions and concepts, as well as his more whimsical or humorous stories, and those with unexpected twists. To lend authenticity to his tales and make them more believable, Wells often uses a framing device, by having the story told by a character in the tale. And while Wells was not a Christian and at times his atheist presuppositions show, he does sometimes work with Christian ideas and themes.

But they're not all good. For the most part his stories communicate remarkably well to modern audiences, but occasionally they do feel dated. What was normal behaviour and within the daily experience of 19th century people can at times feel obscure to modern readers, e.g. some methods of transport. At other times his stories end too quickly, and feel more like an exploration of a concept rather than a narrative tale. The point of some of them is ambiguous and unclear, and while this may be an intentional stylistic choice on his part, it can sometimes be frustrating for the reader. But because they're all so short, it's worth wading through them to find the gems - and there are enough of them to make reading H.G. Wells short stories a rewarding exercise.

Quite a number of typos strewn throughout...

H.G. Wells was a founding father of modern science fiction, but it was in his short stories, written when he was a young man embarking on a literary career, that he first explored the enormous potential of the scientific discoveries of his day. This volume contains all 84 of his short stories.

Introduction (The Complete Short Stories of H. G. Wells) • essay by J. R. Hammond [as by John Hammond] ✔

The Stolen Bacillus • (1894) 5⭐
The Flowering of the Strange Orchid • (1894) 4⭐
In the Avu Observatory • (1894) 3.25⭐
The Triumphs of a Taxidermist • (1894) 3.25⭐
A Deal in Ostriches • (1894) 4⭐
Through a Window • (1894) 4.5⭐
The Temptation of Harringay • (1895) 4⭐
The Flying Man • (1895) 4⭐
The Diamond Maker • (1894) 4.5⭐
Aepyornis Island • (1924) (variant of Æpyornis Island 1894) 4.5⭐
The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes • (1895) 4⭐
The Lord of the Dynamos • non-genre • (1894) 4.25⭐
The Hammerpond Park Burglary • non-genre • (1894) 3⭐
The Moth • (1895) 4⭐
The Treasure in the Forest • (1894) 4.25⭐
The Plattner Story • (1896) 3.5⭐
The Argonauts of the Air • (1895) 3⭐
The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham • (1896) 5⭐
In the Abyss • (1896) 3.25⭐
The Apple • (1896) 5⭐
Under the Knife • (1896) 3.25

Mi libro de la pandemia. Un año leyendo a H.G. Wells, en este verdadero tabique de mil y tantas páginas. Wells es un escritor que me impactó mucho en mi adolescencia cuando leí "El hombre invisible", la desconcertante "Los ojos de Davison", la hilarante "El bacilo robado" y que me sorprendería aún más con la belleza apabullante de uno de los mejores relatos cortos escritos: "El país de los ciegos", cuando encontré esta edición completa no dude mucho en adquirirla. Señor inglés que escribe como inglés, muy sarcástico, amargo en dosis pequeñas, humor de sombrilla y muchos pasajes lluviosos, húmedos, grises; crítico de la masculinidad violenta siendo el mismo misógino en sus andares por la vida y uno de los referentes clásicos de la ciencia ficción europea.

Creo que es mi deber advertir que no todas sus historias son de ciencia ficción o son fantásticas, muchas son estampas cotidianas, con ese humorcito sofisticado y medio cínico del que se enorgullecen sus coterráneos.

La edición de Valdemar también incluye, "La máquina del tiempo", uno de sus trabajos más famosos, del que no soy tan entusiasta pero es realmente entretenido de leer como lectura introductoria al género de la ciencia ficción y los viajes en el tiempo.

Independientemente de que no todas las historias brillan y varias son bastante regulares, vale la pena rescatar este libro como documento para todas las personas interesadas en la literatura de lo extraño, el autor brilla como nunca cuando se mete de lleno en el mundo del asombro y lo fantástico.

Y por favor, no dejen de leer "El país de los ciegos", a mi parecer el mejor trabajo de Wells y una de las historias más memorables de amor que he tenido el gusto de leer, belleza en estado puro.

Have only read some of it, had to take it back to the library, will continue reading more of the short stories it provides someday soon. So far it's a great & intriguing book.

R r

DNF. Some of the stories were quite good but a few were horrifically racist. Could not continue

Excellent short story writer and extremely creative but an Atheist and that informs everything.