Much as I enjoyed it myself (primarily as a curio of sorts), this slim little book is one that most SF fans, I think, need not hurry to read. Unless one is truly interested in Wells as a man, in seeing how old age and the knowledge of his approaching death (by liver cancer) affected his thinking and writing, I don’t think someone is likely to get much out of it. But if you are interested in Wells, this book can help you get a handle on his last few years. These works, especially Mind at the End of its …

Not so very long ago, in a post where I requested some help regarding some articles, and discussed some of my ongoing readings, I bashed Terry Eagleton’s self-righteous and dismissal of H.G. Wells, in the course of his review of the book I am now reviewing myself, University6 of Illinois scholar Andrea Lynn’s Shadow Lovers: The Last Affairs of H.G. Wells. Leaving aside Eagleton’s ignorant and sniping attack on Wells as a writer — it’s par for the course when self-appointed cardinals and pontiffs of literature look in any direction that even faintly bears the markings of popular fiction, be …

Again, as part of the research for my current writing project, I’ve been digging into some of the work of H.G. Wells, specifically the stuff he’s famous for today. It may surprise some people — not the SF fans reading my site, of course, but perhaps those who never checked out Wells beyond his work — that H.G. Wells was more well-known in his time for things other than those scientific romances of the early days, like The War of the Worlds, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The Time Machine. One thing he was well-known for …