The War in the Air

by H. G. Wells, Jay Winter (Introduction)

Overview

Following the development of massive airships, naïve Londoner Bert Smallways becomes accidentally involved in a German plot to invade America by air and reduce New York to rubble. But although bombers devastate the city, they cannot overwhelm the country, and their attack leads not to victory but to the beginning of a new and horrific age for humanity. And so dawns the era of Total War, in which brutal aerial bombardments reduce the great cultures of the twentieth century to nothing. As civilization collapses around the Englishman, now stranded in a ruined America, he clings to only one hope - that he might return to London, and marry the woman he loves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141938066
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	05/26/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

H. G. Wells was a professional writer and journalist, who published more than a hundred books, including novels, histories, essays and programmes for world regeneration. Wells's prophetic imagination was first displayed in pioneering works of science fiction, but later he became an apostle of socialism, science and progress. His controversial views on sexual equality and the shape of a truly developed nation remain directly relevant to our world today. He was, in Bertrand Russell's words, 'an important liberator of thought and action'.

H.G. Wells was a professional writer and journalist who published more than a hundred books, including pioneering science fiction novels, histories, essays and programmes for world regeneration. He was a founding member of numerous movements including Liberty and PEN International - the world's oldest human rights organization - and his Rights of Man laid the groundwork for the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Wells' controversial and progressive views on equality and the shape of a truly developed nation remain directly relevant to our world today.

H.G. Wells was a professional writer and journalist who published more than a hundred books, including pioneering science fiction novels, histories, essays and programmes for world regeneration. He was a founding member of numerous movements including Liberty and PEN International - the world's oldest human rights organization - and his Rights of Man laid the groundwork for the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Wells' controversial and progressive views on equality and the shape of a truly developed nation remain directly relevant to our world today. He was, in Bertrand Russell's words, 'an important liberator of thought and action'.

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

	Introduction	vii
I.	Of Progress and the Smallways Family	1
II.	How Bert Smallways Got into Difficulties	21
III.	The Balloon	44
IV.	The German Air Fleet	63
V.	The Battle of the North Atlantic	95
VI.	How War Came to New York	116
VII.	The Vaterland is Disabled	138
VIII.	A World at War	160
IX.	On Goat Island	182
X.	The World under the War	211
XI.	The Great Collapse	230
	The Epilogue	246

Editorial Reviews

“An extraordinary concoction—as if H. G. had shaken up Kipps and The War of the Worlds and poured out a new story that would appeal both to those who liked his social comedies and those who had been impressed by his early fantasies of terror.” —Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie, H. G. Wells: A Biography

From the Publisher