H G Wells

The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth H G Wells

Two scientists devise a compound that produces enormous plants, animals - and humans! The chilling results are disastrous. First published in 1904, this gripping, newly relevant tale of science fiction combines fast-paced entertainment with social commentary as it considers the ethics involved in genetic engineering. In the middle years of the nineteenth century there first became abundant in this strange world of ours a class of men, men tending for the most part to become elderly, who are called, and who are very properly called, but who dislike extremely to be called- "Scientists." They dislike that word so much that from the columns of Nature, which was from the first their distinctive and characteristic paper, it is as carefully excluded as if it were-that other word which is the basis of all really bad language in this country. But the Great Public and its Press know better, and "Scientists" they are, and when they emerge to any sort of publicity, "distinguished scientists" and "eminent scientists" and "well- known scientists" is the very least we call them.