The Country of the Blind (Pocket Penguins 70's) [Paperback]

H.G. Wells is one of the finest writters of science fiction of all time, and these stories are no exception. Unfortunately, the editor of this volume makes this a book to be avoided. There are six stories in this book, and before each story is an introduction by the editor. In these introductions, which range from one paragraph to several pages, the editor not only ruins the story by revealing the ending, but he also explains the mistakes with the science that Wells uses in his stories. We are also given a list of the mistakes that Wells made in his predictions of the future. There would be nothing wrong with these introductions if they were in a book of essays and criticisms on H.G. Wells. But they aren't, and the average reader of this book will be one who has not read these stories before. It would be a much better idea to buy another collection of his stories. Then you could actually enjoy the stories by themselves, without feeling like someone is reading over your shoulder, pointing out what's wrong with the book. Although the stories: The New Accelerator, the Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes, Under the Knife, the Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper, and the title story are all excellent examples of H.G. Wells supreme story telling ability, they can, and should, be read in another book.

In the story "The Country of the Blind" H.G. Wells manages to capture the dark side of humanity and place it in the metaphor of blindness. He does this well and his point is well made. By focusing on how the man thinks himself superior because he can see, Wells illistrates a point most of us can see as obvious. When he thinks it is his right to change thier way of life to his "better" way, I was reminded of all the cultures that have been changed or even wiped out by those who thought they were superior. Also, when Wells turns it around and shows the blind as thinking themselves superior it shows that even when we think we are not like the perfect man, we all are. The first pages dragged a bit, but the content and pace of the rest of the book made it well worth it!

The modern fame of H. G. Wells is largely due to the film adaptations of his longer stories. ?War of the Worlds?, ?The Invisible Man? and ?The Time Machine? have all been made into successful movies. The famous radio broadcast of ?The War of the Worlds? will always remain a legend in the history of mass media. However, Wells also wrote many short stories and six of the best appear in this collection.
Martin Gardner wrote a short introduction to each of the stories, explaining some of the story line as well as some of the science and historical backdrop of the story. In no case does he give away too much of the plot and since the stories were written over a century ago, the historical context would prove helpful to many readers.
The stories are excellent; ?The Country of the Blind? is one of the best short stories ever written. The premise is that there is an isolated valley where all inhabitants are blind from birth due to a genetic defect. However, they have adapted very well to their environment, working at night, needing no light in their dwellings and possessing extremely acute hearing. A sighted man from the outside literally falls off a snow-covered mountain into their valley, and immediately believes that he will dominate, citing the old adage, ?In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is King.? Since none of the inhabitants has any knowledge of sight, his explanations of what it is like to see is gibberish to them. To them, he is a fool who cannot even do the simplest of tasks.
The second story is ?The Star?, where a rogue planet collides with Neptune. They merge, the energy of the collision causes them to glow like a star and their changed orbit takes them close to Earth, creating fire and destruction. Third in the list is ?The New Accelerator? about a potion that causes a person to have their worldview accelerated so that they operate at a rate much faster than everyone else. Star Trek fans will recognize this as the basis for ?Wink of An Eye?, an episode in the original series. The fourth story is ?The Remarkable Case of Davidson?s Eyes? where a lightening strike shifts the line of sight of a man from his current location to a point on the antipodal position on the other side of the Earth. ?Under the Knife? is an out-of-body experience, where a man under chloroform anesthesia believes he has died on the operating table. His mind is apparently outside his body and he ?watches? himself die as his physician tries to save him. The final story is ?The Queer Story of Brownlow?s Newspaper?, where a man receives a paper from exactly forty years in the future. The account of his reading the paper is another case of predicting the future, and Wells turns out to be better than most. He predicts the collapse of the Soviet Union, although he was twenty years too early.
These stories have held up very well, largely due to their human themes. They are billed as science fiction, but ?The Country of the Blind? and ?Under the Knife? are about humans reacting to unusual circumstances and it is hard to think of them as science fiction. ?The Queer Story of Brownlow?s Newspaper? is speculation about future events, most of which are social and political. ?The Star? is basically an apocalyptic tale and ?The Remarkable Case of Davidson?s Eyes? deals with clairvoyance. ?Wink of an Eye? is the only story that I would consider true science fiction.
H. G. Wells was a good writer, but the fame of his movies tends to make him under appreciated by modern readers. These stories show him at his best, telling stories that have lost none of their appeal a century after they were written.