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=                           Men_Like_Gods                            =
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                            Introduction
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'Men Like Gods' (1923) is a novel, referred to by the author as a
"scientific fantasy", by English writer H. G. Wells. It features a
utopia located in a parallel universe.


                            Plot summary
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'Men Like Gods' is set in the summer of 1921. Its protagonist is Mr.
Barnstaple (his first name is either Alfred or William), a journalist
working in London and living in Sydenham. He has grown dispirited at a
newspaper called 'The Liberal' and resolves to take a holiday. Taking
leave of his wife and family, his plans are disrupted when his and two
other automobiles are accidentally transported with their passengers
into "another world," which the "Earthlings" call Utopia.

A sort of advanced Earth, Utopia is some three thousand years ahead of
humanity in its development. For the 200,000,000 Utopians who inhabit
this world, the "Days of Confusion" are a distant period studied in
history books, but their past resembles humanity's in its essentials,
differing only in incidental details: their Christ, for example, died
on the wheel, not on the cross.  Utopia lacks any world government and
functions as a successfully realised anarchy. "Our education is our
government," a Utopian named Lion says. Sectarian religion, like
politics, has died away, and advanced scientific research flourishes.
Life in Utopia is governed by "the Five Principles of Liberty", which
are privacy, free movement, unlimited knowledge, truthfulness, and
free discussion (allowing criticism).

'Men Like Gods' is divided into three books. Details of life in Utopia
are given in Books I and III. In Book II, the Earthlings are
quarantined on a rocky crag after infections they have brought cause a
brief epidemic in Utopia. There they begin to plot the conquest of
Utopia, despite Mr. Barnstaple's protests. He betrays them when his
fellows try to take two Utopians hostage, forcing Mr. Barnstaple to
escape execution for treason by fleeing perilously.

In Book III, Mr. Barnstaple longs to stay, but when he asks how he can
best serve Utopia, he is told that he can do this "by returning to
your own world". Regretfully he accepts and ends his month-long stay
in Utopia. But he brings with him back to Earth a renewed
determination to contribute to the effort to make a terrestrial
Utopia: "[H]e belonged now soul and body to the Revolution, to the
Great Revolution that is afoot on Earth; that marches and will never
desist nor rest again until old Earth is one city and Utopia set up
therein. He knew clearly that this Revolution is life, and that all
other living is a trafficking of life with death."


                         Critical response
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Contemporary reviews of the novel were largely positive, though some
found the story weakly plotted. As is often the case in his later
fiction, Wells's utopian enthusiasm exceeded his interest in
scientific romance or fantasy (his own terms for what is now called
science fiction). The novel was yet another vehicle for Wells to
propagate ideas of a possible better future society, also attempted in
several other works, notably in 'A Modern Utopia' (1905). 'Men Like
Gods' and other novels like it provoked Aldous Huxley to write 'Brave
New World' (1932), a parody and critique of Wellsian utopian ideas.

Wells himself later commented on the novel: "It did not horrify or
frighten, was not much of a success, and by that time, I had tired of
talking in playful parables to a world engaged in destroying itself."


                               Themes
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Several characters in the novel are directly taken from the politics
of the 1920s. Rupert Catskill probably represents Winston Churchill,
as he was seen at that time: a reckless adventurer. Catskill is
depicted as a reactionary ideologue, criticises Utopia for its
apparent decadence, and leads the attempted conquest of Utopia. Wells
had once been a political ally of Churchill, who admired his novels
and was a social reformer earlier in his career, and had endorsed him
in the 1908 Manchester North West by-election. By 1923 he had become
disillusioned with him over his role in the Dardanelles Campaign and
the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.

'Men Like Gods' is notable for a number of set pieces:  a description
of telepathy, which has become the standard means of communication
among Utopians and which enables them to communicate in the languages
of the Earthlings (English and French); a meditation on mortality; a
reflection on the continuing distinctions between the races in Utopia,
there being little interbreeding as a matter of individual choice,
although social intercourse is free; a description of how society
could function without money; a denunciation of Marxism; a description
of a wireless communication device; and several discussions of
multiple universes.


                              See also
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* Communalism (political philosophy)
* Utopia


                           External links
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* [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200221.txt 'Men like Gods' on
Project Gutenberg Australia]
*


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