Publisher's Synopsis
Since the appearance of the anonymous "Reign of George VI" in 1763, the fiction of future warfare has always enjoyed a wide readership. This is an updated edition of a comprehensive study of all brances of the genre, that takes the story right up to such current series as "The Amtrack Wars".;"The Battle of Dorking" (1871), which exposed Britain's unreadiness to repel the Prussians, established the "invasion" sub-genre; later enemies ranged from the Russians to the Martians. The industrial developments of the nineteenth-century inspired the likes of H.G. Wells and Conan Doyle (who were far ahead of the generals and the scientists) to write of proto-aeroplanes, submarines, and interplanetary war. The fears and themes of the Nuclear Age were reflected in Huxley's "Ape and Essence" and Neville Shute's "On the Beach", while "Farenheit 451" and "Dune" anticipate perils that might still lie ahead of us.;Completing this survey is a checklist of all major future war fiction published in France and Germany as well as Britain and America, since the 18th century.
