The Shape of Things to Come is a work of science fiction by H. G. Wells, published in 1933, which speculates on future events from 1933 until the year 2106. It is not a novel, but rather a fictional history book. Wells creates a framing device by claiming that the book is his edited version of notes written by an eminent diplomat, Dr Philip Raven, who had been having dream visions of a history textbook published in 2106, and wrote down what he could remember of it. Image File history File links Shape_of_things_to_come. ... Image File history File links Shape_of_things_to_come. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 – August 13, 1946), better known as H. G. Wells, was an English writer best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Doctor Moreau. ...

The book is dominated by Wells's belief in a world state as the solution to mankind's problems. Wells successfully predicted the Second World War, although he envisaged it dragging on into the 1960s, being finally ended only by a devastating plague that almost destroys civilisation. Wells then envisages a benevolent dictatorship - 'The Dictatorship of the Air' (a term obviously modeled on 'The Dictatorship of the proletariat') - arising from the controllers of the world's surviving transportation systems (the only people with global power). This dictatorship promotes science, enforces Basic English as a global lingua franca, and eradicates all religion, setting the world on the route to a peaceful utopia. When the dictatorship finds it necessary to kill political opponents, the condemned persons are given a chance to emulate the ancient philosophers Socrates and Seneca and take a poison tablet in a congenial environement of their choice. It has been suggested that World Federation be merged into this article or section. ... Combatants Major Allied powers: United Kingdom France Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Major Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Charles de Gaulle Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian... Look up plague in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The benevolent dictator is a more modern version of the classical enlightened despot, being an undemocratic or authoritarian leader who exercises his or her political power for the benefit of the people rather than exclusively for his or her own self-interest or benefit, or for the benefit of only... The dictatorship of the proletariat is a term employed by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program that refers to a transition period between capitalist and communist society in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. The term refers to a... Look up Appendix:Basic English word list in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... Left panel (The Earthly Paradise, Garden of Eden), from Hieronymus Boschs The Garden of Earthly Delights. ... This article is about the philosopher Socrates, not to be confused with the playwright Sophocles Socrates (Greek: , invariably anglicized as , Sǒcratēs; circa 470–399 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy. ... Bust, traditionally thought to be Seneca, now identified by some as Hesiod. ...

Eventually, after a century of re-shaping humanity, the dictatorhip is overthown in a completely bloodless coup, the former rulers are sent into a very honourble retirement, and the world state "withers away" as was predicted by Marx (and failed to actually happen in the Soviet Union). The last part of the book is a detailed description of the Utopian world which emerges, in some way reminiscent of Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. Marx is a common German surname. ... See Utopia (disambiguation) for other meanings of this word Utopia, in its most common and general meaning, refers to a hypothetical perfect society. ... Edward Bellamy, circa 1889. ... Looking Backward: 2000-1887 is a utopian novel by Edward Bellamy, a lawyer and writer from western Massachusetts, and was first published in 1888. ...

Prediction of the submarine-launched ballistic missile

Wells' book can be credited with an accurate prediction of the submarine launched ballistic missile, which was to assume a crucial role in the Cold War period. Though the warheads of what he termed "air torpedoes" were envisaged as chemical rather than nuclear, Wells fully grasped - two decades ahead of the military planners - the strategic implications of combining submarines with weapons of mass destruction. French M45 SLBM and M51 SLBM Submarine-launched ballistic missiles or SLBMs are ballistic missiles delivering nuclear weapons that are launched from submarines. ... Ήe=mc@09+74665+0-22X321 // to build an atomic bomb read the bathroom reader For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ... Weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a term used to describe a munition with the capacity to indiscriminately kill large numbers of living beings. ...

The relevant passage (Chapter four of the Second Book) reads: "The raider submarines were specially designed as long-distance bases for gas warfare. They carried no guns nor ordinary fighting equipment. They had practically unlimited cruising range, and within them from five to nine aeroplanes were packed with a formidable supply of gas bombs. One of them carried thirty long-range air torpedoes with all the necessary directional apparatus.(...) The smallest of these raiders carried enough of such stuff to 'prepare' [euphemism in the original] about eight hundred square miles of territory. Completely successful, it could have turned the most of the London or New York of that time, after some clamour and running and writhing and choking, into a cityful of distorted corpses. These vessels made London vulnerable from Japan, Tokyo vulnerable from Dublin; they abolished the last corners of safety in the world."

As well as predicting this application of submarines, Wells correctly predicted that these fearsome weapons would not be fully utilised and would be mainly used to create deterrence between the various powers holding them.

Film adaptations

There have been two film adaptations of the novel.

• Things to Come, a 1936 film with a screenplay by Wells himself.
• H. G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come, a 1979 science fiction film very loosely based on the book.

Things to Come is a 1936 British science fiction film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. ... H. G. Wells The Shape of Things to Come is a Canadian science fiction motion picture first released in May of 1979. ...

Other adaptations

• Playstation 2-First-person shooter "Cold Winter"’s story features "The Shape of Things to Come". Cutscenes explain, that the game’s super villain, that isn’t fundamentally bad, got inspired by the book to induce a nuclear winter by systematic nuclear strikes to reduce the world’s population down to a viable minimum and prevent its definitive destruction. Another supposed advantage: The survivours would be that awesome to the A-bomb, that they wouldn’t construct it again. Further, a book cover can be seen in one of the loading screens.

The PlayStation 2 (PS2) ) is Sonys second video game console, the successor to the PlayStation and the predecessor to the PlayStation 3. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Cold Winter is a first-person shooter (FPS) video game developed by Swordfish Studios and published by Vivendi Universal Games. ...

External links

• Full text - Available freely from the University of Adelaide

• A conspiracy theory based on Wells' book