What You Don’t Know About The Father of Sci-Fi (Feat. Princess Weekes) | It's Lit
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- čas přidán 13. 05. 2024
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H.G. Wells is a name that is synonymous with the creation of what we now know as science fiction. He effectively invented the subgenre of alien invasion, he coined now-ubiquitous terms “time machine,” “heat ray” and even disputably “the new world order.”
But what most people don’t know about Wells is that although today he is predominantly known for his science fiction, his career as an SF author was pretty short. Wells wrote dozens of novels, most of which weren’t science fiction. But despite the relatively few science fiction works he wrote in comparison to his vast oeuvre, Wells was an influential thinker - not just for the genre of science fiction, but for science’s relationship to the culture at large.
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres, and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.
Hosted by: Princess Weekes
Written by: Lindsay Ellis
Director: David Schulte
Executive Producer: Amanda Fox
Producer: Stephanie Noone
Editor: Jeremiah Johnson
Writing Consultants: Maia Krause, PhD
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Executives in Charge (PBS): Adam Dylewski, Jess Kasza
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One small Shout Out to H G Well's 1908 novel "The War in the Air" where he managed to predict the major players and sides in WW1 relatively accurately, slam-dunked the nationalism that led to the war, predicted the strategic use of air power and wrote strongly about the horrors and destruction of industrial warfare.
A re-print in 1941, with the second world war in full swing, had a short, simple statement from Wells as a preamble.
"You Fools. You Damn Fools"
I feel like more than a shout out the poor man deserves a pained _"oof"_
"Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us." This is one of the most ominous sentences in English literature.
Aloo!
Bump Bump Baaaah... ba-da-du bad-da-du Bump Bump Baaaaaah...
Agreed. It sets the ominous tone that runs through the whole story.
fun fact: HG Wells founded the Diabetes assoication in 1935 and was the groups first chairman and worked with DH Lawerence whom was the groups first president. He was diagnosed with diabetes in 1920 and became an early recipient of insulin injections in the UK in 1923.
I lost it at “The Morlocks eat the rich.” 😂
That needs to be on a t-shirt.
H.G. Wells was working class, or at least, not allowed to forget that was his background., like many of that time. I highly recommend a visit to Uppark House, it was the underground servants' tunnels that his mother had to walk through, which influenced parts of The Time Machine and namely; the proposed divergent evolution of mankind into the Morlocks.
Wells had hope for the future of mankind, until the onslaught of War World 2.
Incidentally, 'Morlock' derives from a Cockney pronunciation of 'Moloch', the Biblical child-eating deity... possibly a reference to how industrial society was (and still is) devouring its own people?
"Wells had hope for the future of mankind, until the onslaught of War World 2."
Indeed. It's telling that the preamble to the 1941 reprint of his 1908 novel "The War in the Air" was simply
"You Fools. You Damn Fools"
Are you suggesting he viewed the morlocks as a devolution to man like the blue collar worker is to a white collar worker? Or at least it inspired themes?
@@Lucius1958 interesting find if that is true.
@@te9591 That was one of his warnings, if people weren't able to socially climb, get an education, destined to do mind numbing physical work, while the upper classes became weak and indulged. Over thousands of years, evolution adapting, then the twist, that actually the Eloi were the food, the means of the morlocks survival. The Eloi only existed to enable the Morlocks to live.
"Maybe the means of production were the friends we made along the way." I LOL IRL.
Ditto.
SAME! 😂
My hot take is always that the ending of War Of The Worlds is perfect (in book form at least)
Man doesn’t defeat the aliens and the way they’re beaten is entirely out of their control and random. The Martians are too powerful for the humans, and the book says that humanity will live forever in fear of the possibility that it will happen again.
People saying that they should have defeated the aliens with military or fire power misses the point. If they had done that it would have undermined the entire anti-colonialist message, which is showing a seemingly unbeatable empire completely defeated by a superior power with no way to fight back.
Isn't illness the dread of most colonizers? Historically, we talk about Yellow Fever, etc. killing off the people and armies coming in to colonize. But the great powers of the day, kept invading.
History Buff generally, diseases the colonizers bring with them cause way more hell with the colonized than the other way around. Look at American Indians, or South Africans. Wells reversed this because (IIRC) he couldn't think of another way to have them lose.
@@mahatmarandy5977 It's somewhere in between. In the Americas, Old World diseases ravaged the native populations and eased the transition to European rule... but disease also came within a whisker of destroying Britain's colonial venture in its cradle, and disease was a major factor in the collapse of France's rule over Haiti. In Africa, diseases like malaria hit Europeans much harder than native Africans, and kept most European colonial ventures small-scale temporary occupations rather than permanent settlement -- only along the northern and southern extremes of the continent did Euriopean colonists establish heavy long-term presence.
Gregory Eatroff fair enough. If a society had been out of contact with the old world, it got hit much harder by colonial diseases - the Americas, Australia, and countless islands - but parts of the old world weren't hit as bad. And with a few minor exceptions, there was nothing as virulent or fatal in the new world as the old. American Indians got 90% fatalities, whereas Europeans got a new form of VD in exchange, for instance.
One of my favorite throwaway tributes to HG Wells was in Babylon 5: "There's a Martian war machine parked outside, they want to have a word with you about the common cold."
The delightful thing about reading War of the Worlds is realising how closely Jeff Wayne's rock opera stuck to the original story.
Ooohhlaaahh!
That's my versión of the sound of the heat Ray!
Wee eww • wee eww • wee eww
@@MsAdlerHolmes farewell thunderchild
You wanna know what blows my mind about when I read Dr. Moreu as a teeneger, compared to now, in my 50's?
When I was in high school his idea of "manipulating the germ plasm" of animals sounded like a flawed prediction of genetic engineering. What it actually was was a great understanding of Epigenetics-- what Jack Horner is doing to make the Chickenosaurus.
Epigenetics wasn't really even a thing back then, it's a fairly modern science.
Not to mention, the subtext in Moreau deals with Western societys conversion of third-world peoples.
@@te9591 That subtext was played up brilliantly in "Island of Lost Souls." That's still one of my top films of all time.
@throatgorge2 yes, the film i wanted to mention. I guess it inspired Devo the band.
If H.G. Wells is the father of Sci-Fi, I would cast my vote that Marry Shelley is the mother of Sci-Fi.
they created a monster... and its beautiful
That's a bit Anglo-centric, Jules Verne was writing influential Sci-Fi decades before Wells, and was much more interested in the actual science ala *"hard sci-fi".* Wells was more like Shelly, more concerned with the ethics and societal implications of discovery, but _"soft sci-fi"_ regarding the means - I agree she's the best candidate for the Mother if we need to reduce it to one Mother and Father.
We can have a mom and two dads, right? Jules Verne gets us on weekends and holidays!
@@cbpd89 Why do they even need to be separated?
Gee, I never heard anyone say that before :)
Mary Shelly has been regarded as the creator of modern science fiction by pretty much everyone in the genre for well over 100 years, probably closer to 150. And, come on, Jules Verne was writing much more scientifically accurate Sf in the 1860s
Please make an Its' Lit tshirt that says "Maybe The Means Of Production Are The Friends We Made Along The Way".
(Boosting another commenter's idea to see this happen)
I love this episode. Thanks for your great work and humour.
10/10 would buy.
That, but also "If you see an alien, sneeze on it"
Holy hell I'd buy 5
Mary Shelley was first, that little gal was ahead of her time.
yes and no, the ghost stories that inspired it all are a stepping stone, Mary is an OG horror and terror master
I used to think that Frankenstein was more Gothic horror. This was because the science itself doesn't really play a big part in the world or story.
I think she's classified as horror
At times, I get pessimistic about younger people's appreciation of the value of scholarship. This brilliant, fresh and erudite presentation by Ms. Weeks and Ms. Ellis, provides solace in that now I know the future of scholarship is in good hands.
As Greg Bear said about his reputation as a sci-fi author: A foot in the soup, and you're a cannibal forever.
It's amazing how many aspects of modern sci fi sprouted from one source
Amazing presentation, Princess. Thanks to you and the writers for not glossing over some of H.G. Wells' more monstrous philosophies while also making sure that it was clear that the times were rather different. Loved this video.
Anyone else remember that show Time After Time that had Wells be the main protagonist and he's chasing Jack the Ripper?
"The first man to raise a fist is the man who's run out of ideas." H.G. Wells to Amy Robbins
Yes, I liked that show.
Great movie. I love how he's a man so ahead of his time, he figures out how to function in 1970s San Francisco in like, a day.
Malcolm McDowell
Truly a movie that went over most people's head back then. :)
He's also the father of wargaming. Which is weird for a pacifist. But I like the idea of settling our differences on the tabletop instead of on the battlefield.
Remember the Thunderchild!
Wasn’t Wargaming created by the Prussians?
He was a fan of war games and developed his own version, according to what I've read. But I'm fairly certain he didn't invent wargames.
He gave the rules of most modern wargaming. Like the dead pile, artillery, and it's future spin off role playing games.
Exactly. Killing toy soldiers would not create toy widows and toy orphans. Peter Cushing, actor and a wargamer said: "I get the relaxation I want from my collection of model soldiers. I am a keen member of the model soldier society which meets once a month in a Regent Street pub. Why do I collect soldiers? I like to play 'war', a game created by H.G. Wells, himself a collector."
Hell yeah. I named one of my fighting robots after it
The fact that His Books are still as fascinating, moving and thought provoking Is amazing.
Having read a lot of science fiction classics, and being mostly left disappointed, War of the Worlds completely knocked me off my feet how genuinly suspenseful it was. It 100% holds up and feels still innovative in so many ways.
"The Morlocs 'eat the rich'!" 🤣 I love that!!!
Love his work, it has a depth of philosophical though that later science fiction completely lost. We had to wait decades for Science Fiction to go back on track literarily. I also respect that he was very conscious of the opinion of writers and artists and how it can influence public opinion. He was committed to his political views, right or wrong, and it's that honesty what I respect the most.
Stanislaw Lem and Thomas Disch discuss this a bit. Wells was a social commentator first and a fantasist second, so his stories took a long time to get going, firmly establishing a slice of life, the mundane concerns of our protagonist, etc, THEN the crazy stuff happens. Later authors just went straight to the crazy stuff, which (paraphrasing heavily) Lem described as the equivalent of pornography: going straight for the sex and bypassing the seduction, or even the introduction.
Hi! I'm J. P. DeMeritt, a university-trained professional futurist, and I'd like to make clear a distinction that's blurred in this presentation: the difference between speculation and prediction. Speculation is about imagining what a particular innovation might do within society. Prediction is about determining what WILL happen at some point in the future that we can determine with some accuracy. So let me make one point clear: Wells engaged in speculation, not prediction. You can see that clearly in his work. He didn't say that particular things WOULD happen, and he didn't give a time frame in which something would happen. He DID speculate on how society might be transformed if particular things DID happen. And this speculation is what makes science fiction particularly important to us -- both the public and futurists -- today.
When someone like Wells or science fiction author and futurist David Brin writes a work of science fiction, they're speculating on what the world might be like if one invention or another became widely adopted and adapted. In doing so, they're inviting us to explore how innovations might change human society, for better or worse. But when someone like Brin does actual futures work, they're asking clients to imagine what, for them, might be the best of all worlds. Then, the futurist asks clients to look at the potential consequences of that most desirable future. It's important that we not only determine what clients want, but critique that desired outcome. Science fiction offers limited critique of the imagined world, while good futures work digs deeper into the consequences and even the world views and the myths underlying the imagined world.
Good futures work also offers alternative futures for clients -- typically futures that broadly resemble the ultimately desired future, but with different sets of consequences. This offers clients the opportunity to achieve a good future for themselves while doing the least harm to others possible. Few works of science fiction offer alternative futures within the same work: they tend to stick with a central theme the author wants to explore and share with the public.
So, to get back to the central message here, Wells did a lot of very good speculative work, showing us what the potential consequences of particular scientific, economic, political and social developments might be. He offered us a lot to think about. But it's incorrect to say he predicted things. Prediction works well when you're talking about physical systems with well known characteristics: the first digital computers were used for predicting how a shell fired from a naval rifle would fly and where it would land. But human beings make choices, and the systems that either make the choices work out or prevent their fulfillment are complex and adaptive. If you ask me, as a professional futurist, to make a prediction, the only one I'll offer is, "Things won't go as planned."
Wow. Now I understand why people don't like when I do this, especially when they know I'm correct. Bugger.
Thanks for the info 👍🏿
I will peruse your essay later 🤓
"Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong."
Watch out for unintended consequences. Especially the kind many people warn of with carefully laid out reasoning and evidence that others "nothing can go wrong!" will insist "no one knew or could have known that could happen".
@@kathryngeeslin9509, I used to be a disaster planner -- Mr. Murphy and I are old acquaintances!
"War Of the Worlds" holds the rare distinction of being the only book I was assigned in high school that I actually read. Though I still only remember the gist of it.
LOL! Princess, you are outrageous (in the best way)! When you said Welles loved to smash, I nearly choked on my water. Thank both you and Lindsey for doing this. I love you guys.
She is hilarious I love her takes on things also
The last line was is freaking gem! 🤣
Speaking of time machines - I hope you ladies cover “The Expanse” soon!
"Maybe the means of production were the friends we made along the way..." Oof, dark.
You didn't mention his contribution to games. He wrote one of the first sets of miniatures wargaming rules (the book actually covers the entire design process, which is fascinating to those in the hobby.) In the end he talks about how he shown it to friends and associates in the military, who felt that it was more realistic than the "realistic" training wargames of the time because it was less predictable. In the end he says heads of state should play it to learn how risky and random a war can be, and why no sane man would risk an empire on it. It was published just before WWI.
Also his book "Floor Games" advocates playing games with your kids where they can explore new lands, and "role play" characters in the stories the two of you create.
I imagine Orwell's reaction to Social Media would have been "WOAH! I never pictured anything THAT bad!"
This is definitely one of the best It's Lit!!!
I love how she has to stop before reading out "WEA" cause she knows she's gonna giggle. Glad they kept that in.
Aye ;-) though WEA is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than a word, same as FBI, DEA.
The WEA is still going strong too, providing adult education & lifelong learning opportunities across the UK.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
"But one thing's for sure. If you see an alien, sneeze on it."
*Beautiful!!*
Wells' understanding and exploration of the human condition and the psychology of people is still second to none. The reason I love good science fiction is not only the guesses about our future but the study of different aspects of the human condition/behavior set in a place where we can explore truths from a distance.
I think that Wells began to see the true dangers of Eugenics. He used the idea of Morlocks and Eloi to show the horrors of Eugenics. Here the Morlocks have enslaved the Eloi and bred them into trusting and controllable herd animals. The ugliness of the Morlocks is a metaphor for the horror of corruptions that twists inner human until their culture spawns monsters. So they live in the darkness of their cultural sin. While the Eloi are beautiful, since innocence is beautiful, dim witted to some extent and bred so. Living in the light working the land. Clearly Wells had been influenced by US Civil war and also the similar issues confronting the UK in their own issues with slavery. So he wanted in the end to show how de-humanizing and destructive slavery was to culture and the people who lived with-in it. Warning us not to become the animals - the monsters. Its a shame that Slavery is still practiced in some parts of the world. I think mankind will never learn no matter the color, nor creed of the enslavers. Awesome feature thanks for making it, Princess.
Honestly, though, there's no implication that the Eloi and Morlocks were intentionally bred into two different races. Wells seems to imply it was the natural result of the classes becoming so stratified that they evolved into two separate races. The Eloi are trusting and controllable not because the Morlocks bred them that way but because *they* were originally the elite, and Wells' protagonist speculates that their cushy lifestyle meant they never exerted themselves mentally or physically and basically regressed to this childlike state.
Either way though, the situation with the Eloi and Morlocks is clearly framed as a worst-case scenario, not something Wells was hoping for or thought should happen.
@@Luanna801 Yeah, he explored similar ideas (IIRC) in the short story/essay(?) "Man of the Year Million" where he postulates in the far future humanity will have devoted itself so much to intellectual pursuits and automated physical tasks that our descendants will have evolved proportionately giant heads (to contain their enlarged brains) and have small shriveled limbs used only for basic locomotion or to operate machines (i.e. no tool use or heavy labour).
when humanity learns to smash concentrated power on sight, slavery will end
@@solgato5186 While I ponder which form may be best, clearly SOME form of anarchist philosophy is required.
Nacha255 yes. Exactly. The idea that the speciation of humanity was deliberate is fundamentally misguided. He was criticizing classism, not promoting racism.
I'm so here for Princess' nerdy glamour style, she rocks it!
Had to like this vid after the comment about speilbergs war of the worlds "great first half". Straight facts
How could anyone mix up Jules Verne with H.G. Wells? Their styles are ridiculously different, and Verne likes to dump info, Wells does not.
Verne was autistic?
@@nathannakonieczny1343 I still don't know that. xD
@@SuviTuuliAllan what's with the Verne hate he is still man an underrated a great writer even today
@@reynellfreeman8761 Hate? Who's hating?
i love ur eyeshadow its really pretty!! also a mary shelley episode would be pretty cool if ur gonna do more stuff about old timey sci fi
Just a little random addiction: Wells interviewed Lenin after the revolution. It is one of the most amazing thing you can read to understand that age.
He also conversed with Stalin. Stalin gave him a talking to. I did not know about Lenin.
The February Revolution? Or the October Revolution?
@@jonathangiese5727 October
I love the way Princess presents and I love her writing. She's so good at what she does.
The entire team deserves kudos. I just discovered this channel and I am officially hooked.
Excellent video! Princess is great, and her humor shines through. Just as a side note, the 1932 Island of Lost Souls is far and away the best movie adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau in my opinion!
Unfortunately Welles HATED this version, especially the highly eroticised "Panther Woman" and applauded it's being banned in Britain.
But it is closest to Well's story, not least in it's allegory of colonialism, with Charles Laughton's whip-cracking sadistic mad scientist a dark parody of a District Commissioner ruling over natives whom he rules through the "House of Pain".
He even coins the phrase, 'The natives are restless, tonight!'
If you wanted to be even bleaker, you could compare the chaos that frequently accompanied the end of colonial rule with the angry 'natives' dragging Moreau into the "House of Pain" for horrific revenge!
Excellent video! As always.
And may I say, amazing eye shadow as well. Looks fabulous on you.
An excellent review, very well presented. Thank you!
This channel is SO well made.
I really enjoyed this, an interesting and thought provoking dissertation well presented and engaging.
A quarter of an hour or so well spent.
Thoughtful and well researched, presented with clarity and humor. Well done!
What a great and informative post! Loved it!!!
Love this! So well analyzed and explained! And funny! Thank you!
Maybe the means of production were the friends we made along the way. I want that on a T-shirt or a mug but then I'd just be contributing to mass capitalist production.
Ohmigod It's Lit please make this tshirt
PERFECT
Make your own
@@CorbCorbin I believe I will
Wells is still one of my favourite authors of all time. Also, the War of the Worlds sound effects used in the background of this video were so creepy! Think you could cover another "scientific romance" author, John Wyndham, at some point?
This was absolutely fascinating , that you for the great content. Man this World Brain sure is handy! 😄
I don't want to distract or detract from the quality of the video and all the research and smartness...but the style is absolutely fabulous! Hair and make up are on point, you are looking lovely, Princess!
This was great. Anyone who wants a walk through the history of the genre of science fiction ought to tune this offering in. Brava!
Princess - you are seriously awesome at what you do and the Queen Amidala shirt is badass. :-) Just discovered this channel and subscribed after jumping down the rabbit hole and watching 4-5 videos in a role. This is great and very balanced content!
Your hair is particularly beautiful today your majesty 😍
🤣😂 I wasn't expecting the "sneeze on it" line. 😂🤣
Brilliant episode!
I was enjoying this all the way through (especially as someone who used Wells' "Time Machine" as part of my English Lit. thesis :)) but you won my English heart with your "meme's of production" pun-drop :chuckles:
Excellent piece!
Loved this video!
I love me some Princess Weekes. Your videos are always a pleasure.
Very good stuff. Thanks!
Thank you, truly appreciated your history of the man in his time
He was just damn accurate....soo damn talented......he definitely didn't belong to his time😂😂😂
Great video! I love these and Lindsay Ellis videos
I enjoyed this video. Cool, positive and informative.
Host gave it a nice kick.
Fantastic job and I adore your shirt 😍
I'd like to understand why anyone would dislike this video
This is a good one!!
I love you, please keep it up!!!
This was very cool, as always. It is amazing to think how often science fiction writers have predicted the future. To know that they have inspired it, too, is also fascinating. Szillard could have ended up being a Hatter, perhaps, without Wells' work.
For me, I always think of William Gibson and Neuromancer which has inspired so much, and even Idoru which seems to have predicted a forthcoming reality.
Sure, but I like to keep it real and remember all the things they didn't predict. No one really predicted the internet the way we use it today. Very few authors saw the Cold War ending before the end of the 20th century. Even Jules Vernes' Paris in the 20th Century, which gets so much right about the mid-20th century, failed to predict television (it's a minor miracle TV was invented when it was; it was largely considered beyond the engineering of the time).
Love this series.
The best thing about War of the Worlds, for me, is the Jeff Wayne album.
I can agree with that… closely followed by the Audible audiobook version of Jeff Wayne’s version narrated (mostly) by Welsh national treasure Michael Sheen.
love this channel, and nice Star Wars shirt!
Great video!! Also Princess' hair looks beautiful
This account of Wells rocks Info. Important points are not missed! Balance is kept!
Lovely summary, I learned new things about on
e of my favorite authors.
Thank you!
love the way you did your hair Princess!!!
Love this one!
Another great show!
Great episode!
lol "if you see an Alien Sneeze on it!" hahaha that was pretty good. I Love it.
Princess really knocked this video out the park. Her best work on the channel so far
Huh... 🤔
Now The Time Machine makes so much more sense than it ever had 😲
Thanks! Awesome work! 😊👍
This is areally good video. I loved it.
Wells wrote a heck of a lot more science fiction (and some pure fantasy) than indicated here (which really only focuses on his novels from his early "burst"). He also wrote SF throughout most of his life, interspersed with novels about relationships, social, philosophical/critical and didactic prognostications. His SF and fantasy short stories laid the groundwork for numerous other themes and tropes of the genre and shouldn't be ignored.
(That Orson Welles radio show is far more legendary than it deserves to be in many ways. My parents thought it was a joke when they heard that broadcast----and I thought it very unconvincing when I heard it as a kid. I think it must've impressed only those who were easily impressed.)
Anyway....thanks for the video.
(MOrlock, not MErlock, btw).
Can I just say....I'm a little upset with myself that I was not aware of this channel sooner, especially being subscribed to every variation of Crash Course lol but anyways thank you for your content. Better late than never :)😁😁❤❤
Excellent. Infgormative and funny.
I was under the impression Jules Verne was considered the Father of Science Fiction.
Technically that distinction belongs to Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. Down as a horror, but it ticks all the boxes for science fiction. So I guess it's the mother of sci-fi.
Mary Shelley
Nice video! Energetic host and smart edition.
Such lively commentary. I only wish that the concept of Eloi could be explored more. My friend who is a senior citizen like me, believes we are entering an era of darkness, of Eloi humans who are so focused or centred on there existence, they cannot see beyond their neighborhood.
This channel came out in 2019 and it is still new
"maybe the means of production were the friends we made along the way".... I CACKLED
Princess is back!!!!
perfect video!
Excellent video! I really like H. G. Wells works, especially his science fiction. The old black and white movie, The Island of Lost Souls, with Charles Laughton is the best adaptation of the novel in my opinion - I rewatch it periodically. I love Princess's final comment. "If you see an alien, sneeze on it!" 😆 I promise to remember that!