The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents by H. G. Wells

Innovative ideas in underdeveloped stories

The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents, a collection of 15 short stories by H. G. Wells, was published in 1895, the same year as his first novel The Time Machine. The stories in the book originally ran in London newspapers over the preceding two years; most of them appeared in the Pall Mall Budget or the Pall Mall Gazette. These are all science fiction or adventure stories, but you won’t find any mention of outer space or time travel, such as one finds in his 1899 collection Tales of Space and Time. Rather, the science in these science fiction stories is mostly within the realms of zoology, botany, or chemistry. The collection also includes a few crime stories concerning thefts or murders of an unusual nature.

The title selection, “The Stolen Bacillus,” is about a terrorist who steals a test tube full of cholera. While that may sound like a terrifying premise, Wells takes a rather comical approach to the idea, turning it into something like a Keystone Cops chase scene. That lighthearted treatment is typical of the stories included here. The books for which Wells is famous—The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man—all have a darker dimension to them that borders on the horror genre, but that harsher edge is missing from almost all of the tales included here.

Most of the selections in this volume are quite short, less than ten pages, which also makes it difficult to get excited about them. Though some of the ideas that Wells comes up with are admirably ingenious, the stories in general feel underdeveloped. Wells spends half the narrative introducing you to his humorous protagonist, then by the time he gets to the science fiction concept it’s already time to wrap up the plot with a hasty ending. As a writer of short stories, Wells is not as adept at developing characters and plot as someone like Arthur Conan Doyle, who also wrote sci-fi and fantasy stories, but Wells has the greater breadth of vision and depth of imagination when it comes to the scientific and fantastical aspects of his fiction. The longest stories in this collection are the most successful, like “Aepyornis Island” and “The Hammerpond Park Burglary,” which are each twice as long as the average entry. The former is about an adventurer hunting for remains of an extinct bird, while the latter is a comical caper in the crime genre. In both cases the longer word count gives Wells the opportunity to satisfyingly engage the reader with interesting characters and a lively plot.

Another problem with this book is the racism. In these stories, Wells brands anyone darker than the White Cliffs of Dover with the n-word, regardless of their land of origin. Wells has a tendency to draw his characters of color as idiots or psychotics, even more so than other writers of his time. This is evident in four or five of the stories included here, which is enough to leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Overall, this collection is fine by the standards of late 19th-century pulp fiction, but it doesn’t really live up to Wells’s esteemed reputation as a science fiction writer or storyteller. These are some of his earliest published writings, so maybe he was still learning to spread his wings and hone his craft. Though there are some creative ideas in these tales, most of the stories suffer from a brevity that ultimately undermines their worth.

Stories in this collection

The Stolen Bacillus

The Flowering of the Strange Orchid

In the Avu Observatory

The Triumphs of a Taxidermist

A Deal in Ostriches

Through a Window

The Temptation of Harringay

The Flying Man

The Diamond Maker

Aepyornis Island

The Remarkable Case of Davidson’s Eyes

The Lord of the Dynamos

The Hammerpond Park Burglary

A Moth—Genus Novo

The Treasure in the Forest

If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.
https://www.amazon.com/review/R35T8NSR5T6CBE/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm