Goodreads Synopsis:
The novella depicts two lovers in a dystopian London of the 22nd century. They explore the implications of excessive urbanization, class warfare, & advances in the technology of medicine, communication, transportation & agriculture. Like “When the Sleeper Wakes”, published in the same year, the stories extrapolate the trends Wells observed in nineteenth-century Victorian London two hundred years into the future.
London of the early 22nd century is over 30 million people in population, with the lower classes living in subterranean dwellings, the middle & upper classes living in skyscrapers & largely communal accommodations. Moving walkways interconnect the city, with fast air-travel & superhighways available between cities. The countryside is largely abandoned.
Many aspects of the world of these two stories will be instantly familiar to readers of the more popular Isaac Asimov’s Robot series written 50 years later. Altho no apparent citation exists crediting Wells’ world as the source for the Asimov stories’ settings & culture, the parallels between the two are striking.
Review:
It’s Sci-Fi month and H.G. Wells is finally in the public domain so of course I had to read something by him. I chose this book because I have a physical copy of it and so it means I can make a nice stack at the end of the month. This also just looked really interesting too as it’s always fun to see how people imagine the future.
The book follows a young couple who start off wealthy but end up losing all their money and so this conveniently allows us to see life in the different classes of society. Wells has taken “upper” and “lower” class and made them literal where the lower classes literally live below and work below those of the upper classes.
There isn’t much of a plot to the story, it’s mostly just following the two characters throughout their life and they’re used as a means of showing off the worldbuilding that Wells has done and well, that is what we’re here for. I won’t mention much else of what he imagines as it’s really fun to just read through and see his vision of the future.
If you’re looking for something short and enjoy reading what people thought the future would be like, then I’d definitely recommend this. However, although I enjoyed this I definitely enjoy his other work more so I’d only suggest this to those who already enjoy his work as otherwise there are much better books you can start off with.
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