Kevin's Watch

I tried a search of the forums and didn't see this, so hopefully I'm not repeating a previous thread. Has anyone read the H.G. Wells short story titled 'A Dream of Armageddon'?

I only ask because, first, I found it to be amazingly moving in the beginning, the idea of being more attached to the existence one has in a dream than the one they have in their waking hours (it reminded me of that SRD short story in RTJ) and second, because the 'being' in two realities that are entirely different from each other is as interesting in 'Dream' as in the first Thomas Covenant stories.

I think it's also interesting somewhat as an (a priori?) metaphor for Europe leading up to World War 2, eventhough the story was written about forty years ahead of that time, well ahead of all the precursors that kind of shaped the way Europe responded initially to Hitler.

Well, if any of you get the chance, and if you're fans of the TC trilogies, you should give it a try. I have it in a collection of short stories that Ursula LeGuin assembled, but I imagine it should be available in several other collections as well.

Are you sure it's not called 'A Dream of Armageddon'? I ask only because Project Gutenberg has that short story, but not the one you mentioned... of course, that could just mean that it was written late enough to fall under copyright laws!

I think you're right. A quick search turns up this thread as the number one result for the title given in the thread.

But your title turns up lots of searches.

(Damn, we index quick. )

(Hmmm...Y'know, we index so quick that doing a "site:kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/ search term" search in Google is probably more effective than using the built in search.)

Anyway, to get back on topic, if Gutenberg has it, I'll definitely check it out.

--A

Oopsie...changing the title of the thread now, lol. Checked the book and realised I'd switched semi-synonyms.

I'm a big Well's fan and I first read ADOA as a kid years ago. I was really moved and awed by it back then and I re-read it about a year ago now and still find it a fantastic story. Well's grew to be a pessimist about the future and I recall reading he died thinking the end of the world (of western civ) was around the corner. But yes, ADOA is full of (now) accurate predictions of future warfare. I still think of that story often, especially when I have a lucid dream.

I have a few collections of his; someone is always throwing various of his 100s of tales togeather under one or another theme. I recently got a collection called "ADOA: the Complete Supernatural Tales" and there are some stories in there that are also really really good. I highly recommend that book for a great collection of Wells stories. I just finished "The Plattner Story" and it reminds me alot of H.P Lovecraft, another dark story teller whom I love to read. I don't think Well's is known as a dark story teller, but seems alot of his short stories I've read are just that.

What moved me initially was the idea of the storyteller/dreamer talking about a passionate love that not only was bittersweet in the world of his sleep, but in the end was especially bittersweet in his day to day life, he knew it but knew that it would never exist again. It starts off as this tale of romantic bliss, also of the star crossed sort of love. But then you introduce war, and the dreamer being tired of all the banaal things he would have to do to prevent it, because he was so wrapped up in his personal bliss. And the story goes from a romance to a metaphor for all sorts of things in life that kind of add up to the same equation.