Le Feu

An extraordinary story of a mechanic carried off in a balloon; ".is a remarkable rarity in being a future war novel which uses the viewpoint of ordinary people and deals primarily with the effects of aerial warfare on those ordinary people. the shape of Wells's argument brings him to a conclusion very different from that characteristic of the future war novels written before 1914: civilization is virtually obliterated, and the Scientific Age is brought to an end."
- Stableford, Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950, p. 72.