The War in the Air

H.G. Wells The War in the Air (1908)
The general consensus seems divided as to the quality of Wells' later work, or at least his less well-remembered work. My take is that, based on what I've read, you're probably better off sticking with War of the Worlds, First Men in the Moon, and the ones you've already heard of because they're mostly at least as amazing as their respective legends would have it. In the Days of the Comet is decent, but probably not so astonishing as earlier novels, and The Food of the Gods is massively underwhelming - an interesting story struggling to free itself from beneath a duvet of creaking gags and supposedly comic characters. The War in the Air struggles with similar whimsy but mostly keeps the balance to just the right side of readable. Of course, history itself has somewhat overtaken this novel and readers may need to remind themselves of what a wonder powered flight must once have seemed. Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men foresaw the aircraft as such a radical invention as to inspire what would become a new religion, and in the art world there were the Italian Aeropainters - about whom no-one really likes to say too much these days - but the miracle of aviation has since been lost somewhere within the general thrust of technological progress.

Once again, Wells tends to fall flat as an author of predictive science fiction, his flapping flying machines belonging to the same oubliette as the feeding tubes which Hugo Gernsback had believed would put an end to the misery of mastication. Although this isn't to suggest that this novel lacks purpose or fails to say anything of interest, and certainly it predicted the change in the zeitgeist brought about by the first world war, if not necessarily the means by which it was fought. Our main character is one Bert Smallways of Bromley, Kent. Smallways - who probably would have worked just as well without his speech rendered in phonetic south London - is one of Wells' working class types who thankfully manages to stay just the right side of turning into Will Hay or George Formby, and who finds his parochial existence cast rudely upon the wider world stage through a faintly improbable encounter with an inventor. Manned flight is developed and swiftly spreads, and the entire world is suddenly at war. Combatants are no longer obliged to fight along a limited earthbound front and are now able to attack the enemy from above, far behind the traditional lines. Finding himself aboard a German airship as it bombs New York, Smallways accordingly comes to a realisation.

Hitherto he had rather liked the idea of war as being a jolly, smashing, exciting affair, something like a Bank Holiday rag on a large scale, and on the whole agreeable and exhilarating. Now he knew it a little better.

Technological progress has forever changed the dynamic of war, as did, it could be argued, the first world war a few years later.

Nowhere in the world any more was there a place left where a Smallways might lift his head proudly and vote for war and spirited foreign policy, and go secure from such horrible things.

Wells takes a typically pessimistic view, and so The War in the Air effectively bombs the human race back into the stone age, the message being at least as much to do with human nature as the technological progress which allows us to express its worst aspects.

The development of science had altered the scale of human affairs. By means of rapid mechanical traction it had brought men nearer together, so much nearer socially, economically, physically, that the old separations into nations and kingdoms were no longer possible, a newer, wider synthesis was not only needed but imperatively demanded.

Wells' view is that such a synthesis is vital but unlikely because we as a species tend to take for granted the universal nobility of our own intentions, so the argument is, as ever, not whether we can do something, but whether we should. The above principal applies just as well now as it did in 1908 and might be considered with regard to the sort of cultural homogeneity and amplification of stupidity which the internet has brought about.

The War in the Air is far from Wells' greatest but its only real failing is, arguably, that it would have worked as well with about half the page count. Otherwise, it's respectable, and only truly suffers through War of the Worlds and others having been such tough acts to follow.