(i) HG Wells' The War In The Air (1908) warned against air warfare and Wells added Prefaces in 1921 and 1941, the latter ending:
"'I told you so. You damned fools.'"
-HG Wells, The War In The Air (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1973), p. 8.
(ii) In Poul Anderson's "Kings Who Die" (1962), devastation on Earth is avoided by moving war into space. See "War, Wells And Anderson," here.
In his Technic History, Anderson describes space warfare as if he were a veteran. See Hyperdrive And Combat.
(iii) Edmund Cooper's Seed Of Light (1959) is in the Wellsian tradition in that it begins with a Preface about the threat of nuclear warfare.
Addendum: Of course I should have added that HG Wells describes limited use of atomic bombs in The World Set Free (1914), that many sf writers present post-nuclear war scenarios and that Anderson presents several. These posts are sometimes published in haste between other activities and are frequently incomplete. Christmas preparations have started.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Actually, I think Rudyard Kipling came close to beating Wells to speculating about the possibilities of aerial warfare in stories like "With The Night Mail" (1909) and "As Easy As A.B.C." (1917). But I would need to reread them to be sure. And I would have pointed out to Wells that air power alone will not be DECISIVE if two contending states are basically equally in their air forces. I recall reading about the chagrin and disappointment felt by the Americans and British after WW II when they discovered how little good their "strategic bombing" of Germany had done them. It took GROUND forces to defeat Germany.
And I don't think nuclear missiles counts as AIR POWER as that is generally understood.
Sean
Sean,
The theme of this post was war in SF in 3 stages: air; space; nuclear.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then I misunderstood you!
Sean
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