“Empire of the Ants”—A story of eco-disaster. An idea that would be seen now as a bouncing-off point, here is the whole story. Which makes sense, of course: the idea was original, and Wells is a remarkable tale-teller. The story ends with the worrying suggestion by the narrator, Wells, that the second act of this disaster story will occur in Europe in 1950 or 1960.

“The Door in the Wall”—One of my favorite stories, by anyone. Haunting, magical and sad, and none the less satisfying for being so perfectly predictable. Like a silent comedy, the delight is not in what happens, but in how each event in the chain happens at the perfect moment for it to happen.

“The Wild Asses of the Devil”—A little brimstone, a little political commentary. What more could anyone wish for?

THERE ARE FEW enough writers in any field whose short stories will be read a hundred years after they were written. Science fiction in particular has a short enough sell-by date, one that only the finest writers surpass. Ray Bradbury’s Martian short stories transcend our knowledge that there are no canals on Mars and no atmosphere; too many near-future tales from too many fine authors were overtaken by events or by breakthroughs in scientific knowledge and became, simply, redundant. H. G. Wells’s stories are, as this collection demonstrates, still astonishingly readable, and, ultimately, the joy of a volume like this is that the stories can and will be read, not as curiosities from the past, but as living things. Wells himself said of his short stories, “I make no claims for them and no apology; they will be read as long as people read them. Things written either live or die . . .” And of all the things one can say about these stories, to my mind unquestionably the best is this: long after they were written, they live.

This was my introduction to the Penguin Modern Classics edition of The Country of the Blind and Other Stories by H. G. Wells, 2007. All Wells quotations are from his introduction to The Country of the Blind and Other Stories, 1911.

Business as Usual, During Alterations: Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free, by Cory Doctorow

George shook his head slowly. “You’re wrong, John. Not back to where we were. This morning, we had an economy of scarcity. Tonight, we have an economy of abundance. This morning, we had a money economy—it was a money economy, even if credit was important. Tonight, it’s a credit economy, one hundred per cent. This morning, you and the lieutenant were selling standardization. Tonight, it’s diversity.

“The whole framework of our society is flipped upside down.” He frowned uncertainly.

“And yet, you’re right too, it doesn’t seem to make much difference, it is still the same old rat race. I don’t understand it.”

—“Business as Usual, During Alterations” by Ralph Williams (Astounding Science Fiction, 1958)

I bought a box of SF pulps when I was in my late teens from one of my father’s friends, who kept them in the garage. English editions of Astounding Science Fiction, for the most part. Stories written by authors whose names I barely recognized, despite being a science fiction reader from about as soon as I could read.