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The World Set Free

by H. G. Wells

Narrator Roberta Jackson

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Length 9 hours 5 minutes

Language English

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Summary
About the author
About the narrator

Of this book, H. G. Wells wrote:

“The World Set Free was written in 1913 and published early in 1914. It is the latest of a series of three fantasias of possibility, stories which all turn on the possible developments in the future of some contemporary force or group of forces. The World Set Free was written under the immediate shadow of the Great War. Every intelligent person in the world felt that disaster was impending and knew no way of averting it, but few of us realised in the earlier half of 1914 how near the crash was to us…”

The thesis of this story is that “because of the development of scientific knowledge, separate sovereign states and separate sovereign empires are no longer possible in the world. To attempt to keep on with the old system is to heap disaster upon disaster for [hu]mankind and perhaps to destroy our race altogether. The remaining interest of this book now is the sustained validity of this thesis and the discussion of the possible ending of war on the earth.”

This title is part of the Voices of Today’s H. G. Wells novel collection, produced by Susan Iannucci.

Fiction Science Fiction Historical Fiction Fantasy

Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) was born in Bromley, England, to a working class family. His first novel, The Time Machine, was an instant success and Wells produced a series of science fiction novels which pioneered ideas about the future. His later work focused on satire and social criticism. Wells forecasted the rise of major cities and suburbs, economic globalization, and aspects of future military conflicts.

Roberta Jackson has audiobooks on Audible, Learning Ally, the National Library Service for the Blind, and other platforms. She has narrated audiobooks for publishers and production companies including Simon & Schuster, Dreamscape, Lycan Valley, John Marshall Media, Voices of Today, and many more. Her work includes multiple characters in multi-cast productions: fantasy, thrillers, poetry, and Shakespeare. Roberta has also narrated character voice roles in audio dramas, podcasts, video games, and web comics.