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H.G. Wells was perfect for my early teenage reading/feeding frenzy, but for an adult? No worries. Try Dent’s first volume of his collected works The Science Fiction of H. G. Wells £15.99, ISBN 0 460 87732 1) and The Invisible Man (Everyman, £4.99, ISBN 0 460 87628 7). Each novel is frustratingly short. You plunge into Moon madness, the hell of invisibility, the crushing fear of Martian invasion, the fetid world of human beasts. Then you’re out and free and away. Reeling with shock but half-glad to be safe. Make no mistake. To read Wells is to be utterly convinced of the truth of his future. You have been warned.