Reviews for The Food Of The Gods And How It Came To Earth

The average rating for The Food Of The Gods And How It Came To Earth based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-10-27 00:00:00 Jean Grier Originally published in 1904, The Food of the Gods by H. G. Wells is less well known than the author's The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds but it is a highly philosophical and entertaining science fiction novel and one not to be missed. And I'd suggest the SF Masterworks edition since there's an informative, insightful Introduction by Adam Roberts. The storyline is simple: two amateurish scientists, Mr. Bensington and Professor Redwood, create a miracle substance accelerating growth in both plants and animals. They carry out their experiment on a farm run by a Mr. and Mrs. Skinner, feeding their "Herakleophorbia IV" to chicks. The chicks grow to six times their normal adult size. Unfortunately, the slovenly Skinners are careless, spilling the substance all over the ground and very quickly thereafter other plants and animals grow to monstrous proportions - vines, grass and gulp! - wasps. Then even more alarming news: rats! Newspapers run headlines about the monstrosities. Bensington and Redwood know something must be done forthwith. The scientists swing into action - here are my comments coupled with a number of direct quotes from Chapter 3 - The Giant Rats: "The doctor, one gathers, stood up, shouted to his horse, and slashed with all his strength. The rat winced and swerved most reassuringly at his blow'in the glare of his lamp he could see the fur furrow under the lash'and he slashed again and again, heedless and unaware of the second pursuer that gained upon his off side." ----------Completely uninformed about recent developments with various animal life, a country doctor returns home on his horse-drawn carriage after delivering a baby only to be attacked in the early dawn by three giant rats. One of the most vivid scenes in all of literature. The way in which the narrator reports the unspeakable horror of such an occurrence passes over into humor. "Go up the street to the gunsmith's, of course. Why? For guns. Yes'there's only one shop. Get eight guns! Rifles. Not elephant guns'no! Too big. Not army rifles'too small. Say it's to kill'kill a bull. Say it's to shoot buffalo! See? Eh? Rats? No! How the deuce are they to understand that? Because we want eight. Get a lot of ammunition. Don't get guns without ammunition'No!" ---------- Bensington and Redwood lean on civil engineer Cossar, just the Action Jackson to organize a hunting party to kill the giant rats. Such an ugly turn of events. An to think, the two Brit scientists had no more evil intentions with their growth formula than Laurel and Hardy. Unfortunately, Bensington and Redwood had hardly more brains than those two famous film nitwits. "By five o'clock that evening this amazing Cossar, with no appearance of hurry at all, had got all the stuff for his fight with insurgent Bigness." ---------- What is so striking is the enormity of the change in nature, a change that will expand into global crisis, and the reaction from this small band of bumbling Brits. Hey, why get the government involved when we can organize our own hunting party? Perhaps H. G. Wells is making a statement on the general state of human intelligence - hardly above the level of the Three Stooges. "They left the waggonette behind, and the men who were not driving went afoot. Over each shoulder sloped a gun. It was the oddest little expedition for an English country road, more like a Yankee party, trekking west in the good old Indian days." ---------- I so much enjoy the British author's swipe at the American frontier mentality. I can clearly picture these eight men - Redwood, Bensington, Cossar and the five men Cossar rounded up - striding down the road on their rat hunt. "Redwood had kept his gun in hand and let fly at something grey that leapt past him. He had a vision of the broad hind-quarters, the long scaly tail and long soles of the hind-feet of a rat, and fired his second barrel. He saw Bensington drop as the beast vanished round the corner." ---------- This encounter with the giant rats (seven feet long from head to tail) has all the making of a blockbuster B film. Many are the movie posters featuring the attacking giant rats. "When things were a little ship-shape again Redwood went and stared at the huge misshapen corpse. The brute lay on its side, with its body slightly bent. Its rodent teeth overhanging its receding lower jaw gave its face a look of colossal feebleness, of weak avidity. It seemed not in the least ferocious or terrible. Its fore-paws reminded him of lank emaciated hands. Except for one neat round hole with a scorched rim on either side of its neck, the creature was absolutely intact." ---------- And what is Professor Redwood's reaction to such a event? He chimes: "This is like being a boy again." The immaturity of the current human population is one of the novel's abiding themes. "Cossar was on all fours with two guns, one trailing on each side from a string under his chin, and his most trusted assistant, a little dark man with a grave face, was to go in stooping behind him, holding a lantern over his head. Everything had been made as sane and obvious and proper as a lunatic's dream. --------- Cossar crawling through the giant rat holes, shooting the giant rats, makes for a spectacularly harrowing scene in a B film. Oh, incidentally, the boy's adventure also includes dealing with giant wasps. Alas, Redwood feeds the "Boomfood" to his own son. Likewise, there are other children raised on the miracle formula. Soon the world has to deal with baby giants and toddler giants and then, fully grown giants (forty feet tall, as tall as a four story building). With such sad giants inhabiting the planet, sad because the little people become increasingly intolerant of their presence, The Food of the Gods turns into a tale of pathos and high drama, a tale of political corruption and general ineptitude in humans dealing with anything outside their conventional framework and worldview. Also added into the philosophic mix is a topic of particular relevance in today's world - genetic modification and the so called Frankenstein foods. All in all, there is good reason why The Food of the Gods is published as part of the SF Masterworks. Highly recommended. British author H. G. Wells (1866 - 1946)

Review # 2 was written on 2010-10-27 00:00:00 David Fechheimer Of all the many books written by H G Wells, this is not one that usually springs to mind. However this is a good, if rather overlooked, scientific romance that is worthy of your attention. The tale is fairly straightforward. Two scientists, Mr Bensington and Professor Redwood, create a miracle chemical that they call (rather unpronounceably) Herakleophorbia IV. This chemical element accelerates physical growth and creates animals that are much bigger than normal. Thinking that they are Advancing Science and have created a solution to future world supplies, the two scientists test their compound by creating giant chicks and set up an experimental farm for their study. However, mismanagement by the Skinners, an inept couple given charge of the farm, leads to the giant poultry escaping. The problem is exacerbated when it is found that other animals have fed on the food and soon giant worms, earwigs, wasps (as shown on the cover) and rats are found across the countryside. The media publicise this with gusto. Consequently the scientists, with a civil engineer named Cossar, track the giant vermin down and to halt further problems the farm is burnt to the ground. However most of the book is concerned with the humans who have eaten the food, now called Boomfood. Redwood's own child, Edward (Teddy), is fed the food, as too Albert Caddles, the grandson of the couple given the farm to look after. Unable to stop eating the food (as that would prove fatal) the giants created are seen as a boon yet ultimately lead a sad life. Intelligent and physically advanced, the super-sized innocents are shunned and reviled by human society, seen as freaks and treated with mistrust. Bensington is driven into hiding by the media. A politician, John 'The Giant Killer' Caterham , uses the public fear of the giants through the media to whip up feeling against them, which has tragic consequences. In the end it seems clear that there is to be a war between the repressed giants, the Children of the Food, and the human Pygmies. However, as this tale is not told here, the reader is left to wonder 'what-if?'The last paragraph is an epic Stapledonian-type moment: 'For one instant he shone, looking up fearlessly into the starry deeps, mail-clad, young and strong, resolute and still. Then the light had passed and he was no more than a great black outline against the starry sky, a great black outline that threatened with one mighty gesture the firmament of heaven and all its multitude of stars.' For a book that is over a hundred years old, this book (as mentioned in the new introduction by Adam Roberts) is surprisingly relevant in these days of Frankenstein foods and genetic modification. The corrupt politician, the restrictions of a hierarchical class society, bureaucratic ineptitude, the gullibility of the masses and the influence of the media are surprisingly apt keystones, not just for the 20th but also for the 21st century. In this study of 'Man versus Science', though the technology in Wells' tale may be different, the social consequences are both appropriate and thought-provoking. Wells manages to show the consequences of scientific progress, whilst warning of corruptible politicians and evoking the inequality of slavery. Wells' combination of both light humour (at the beginning) and darker pathos (towards the end) work surprisingly well here, though they are relatively simple in execution. The need for the giant Young Caddles who travels to London to determine the meaning of life is both amusing and affecting. Some of the scenes of the giant creatures attacking humans are quite horrific. The characters are a little caricaturist, and show their age, though this is perhaps deliberate. It must be remembered that the book was written for the primary purpose of entertainment, though its sly commentary (if a little simplistic) is engaging and appropriate. It's more readable than Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and in the best tradition of Wells' scientific romances makes the reader consider alternative options to reality. This is a good book for those who want to read more Wells, beyond the usual Time Machine and War of the Worlds. Recommended.