Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was an English writer best remembered today for his science fiction works. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction". --- He has foretold many futures for us, some utterly abhorrent, others more or less attractive... There was, for example, "The Man Who Could Work Miracles": "his name was George McWhirter; ... he was a little man and had eyes of a hot brown, very erect red hair, a mustache with ends he twisted up, and freckles." This unpromising looking individual, and he was a blatant skeptic, too, becomes suddenly possessed of the power to make anything happen that he wills, but he finds the use of this mysterious gift by no means to his advantage. It brings him and others into all sorts of trouble, and only his renunciation of it saves the world from destruction. --- We shudder at the thought of humanity being suffocated on a blazing world as in "The Star", ... which is a little gem in its way without a superfluous word or a false tone... Those were the days when Mr. Wells was writing for pleasure. He was enabled to throw off in the early nineties a swift succession of short stories astonishingly varied in style and theme. As he became more experienced in the art of writing, or rather of marketing manuscripts, he seems to have regretted this youthful prodigality of bright ideas. Many of them he later worked over on a more extensive scale as the metallurgist goes b...