How He Created Sci-Fi

There was no other writer like H.G. Wells. The native of Bromley, Kent, who was born on September 21, 1866, wrote his own brand of science fiction, a cross between Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory and Charles Dickens's views on the social aspects of Victorian society. He didn't excel at school, as he led a troubled life. But he was an intellectual, one of the great minds during his lifetime. The jingoistic fever, which led to World War I, turned him into a pacifist. But he had a change of heart.

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water."

- "The War of the Worlds" (1897)

Wells's literary legacy was unquestioned, but as for his other endeavors, his peers dismissed it. He was on a time warp.

Some are more equal than the others

Wells saw himself as part of the elite. He was a member of a number of groups, all of which espoused causes he believed in. But he saw himself bigger than them, someone who could saved a troubled world. This might be the reason why he had many lovers; Amy Catherine Robbins, his second wife, consented to this kind of arrangement. In "Experiment in Autobiography" (1934), Wells insisted that he wasn't an amorist. He may be searching for a woman who was his intellectual equal. This was how scientific romance came about.

In "The Time Machine" (1895), Time Traveller made it to the distant future, and to his horror, saw the social system still existed. Amidst the doom and sorrow was a glimmer of hope. Readers would speculate if it was something or someone. "The Invisible Man" (1897) was even darker, about a scientist who believed that knowledge (or its discovery) mustn't be shared for the greater good. This tense tale was set in a small English town, which Wells knew too well. Only a discerning mind could figured out the satire behind it. "The War of the Worlds" alluded to the British Empire and the author's trepidation on what it was capable of. It also referred to the other kingdoms in the continent. In fact, "Shape of Things to Come", published in 1933, foretold what would happen during the next hundred years. They were grim predictions, mainly influenced by Adolf Hitler's rise to power. But many weren't swayed by his views.

"Mr. Wells is a born storyteller who has sold his birthright for a pot of message," G.K. Chesterton said.

In the end, Wells was tired and pessimistic. He didn't live long to see that he was half right. It wasn't his fault, as his era was filled with uncertainty. This was how he saw the modern world.