The War in the Air

Bert Smallways had always been fascinated by anything that moved. Bicycles were his latest fad - but that was before he discovered the thrilling possibilities of hot air balloons. Or rather they discovered him. Accidentally whisked away to Germany in one such contraption, he finds himself in possession of plans for a top-secret aeroplane. This is turn catapulted him into the very heart of Prince Karl Albert's airship raid on New York - a step that caused the nations to take up arms and fight; a step that wad to result in world war. Written in 1907, The War in the Air was conceived before the days of the flying machine and seven years prior to the outbreak of The First World War.

This thrilling tale is H. G. Wells at his modernist, visionary best. In 1907, a naive Londoner named Bert Smallways finds himself an unwitting passenger on a fleet of German airships heading over the Atlantic to attack New York. What unfolds in characteristically Wellsian fashion is a clash of early flying machines that leaves Gotham in shambles and unleashes the terrible age of Total War. Uncannily relevant to our own era, The War in the Air remains a cornerstone of early science fiction.