Zealot Script

Next on my reading list this year was another HG Wells classic, albeit one of his lesser known works. The Food of the Gods is a typical example of the classic Science Fiction building block “What If?”

It takes a scientifically known principle and extrapolates a resonating scenario on top of it. All known life grows in “stages”. Growth spurts in humans, seasonality in plants. What if someone worked out how to keep growth consistent throughout the adolescent process?

In Wells’ narrative the discoverers are Professor Redwood and Mr. Bensington. They manage to synthesise a substance, catchily named “Herakleophorbia” (Hercules-food), which when fed to an adolescent keeps them growing to six times their intended size by bypassing the dormant stages in the growth cycle and keeping a continuous growth pattern going.

Wells’ style, when read over a hundred years later, is always a little eccentric when read against the backdrop of modern books. A modern novel will (mostly) follow a proven and established formula, something akin to “The Hero’s Journey”, and a reader in 2025 will subconciously expect these conventions to be followed. Even a story with a non-linear plot and multiple points of view will adhere to a certain method of storytelling. The Food of the Gods does not do this. Not to be intentionally controversial, but because he was writing this book before the modern styles were established.

I mentioned in my review of The Invisible Man, that Wells’ style is closer to traditional storytelling than modern writing, and that holds true here, but it feels less polished. The Food of the Gods jumps from narrative point to narrative point, sometimes abruptly, and while this can be jarring it does lead the story in unexpected directions. He deals with the exit of one character in such a beautiful manner that I felt compelled to quote it directly:

This little man who started the whole thing passes out of the story, and after a time he passed altogether out of the world of significant activities. But because he started the whole thing it is seemly to give his exit an intercalary page of attention.

Wells then goes on to explain, in just a few paragraphs, that he retired to a spa hotel in Tunbridge Wells and then, true to his word, never mentions him again.

The first part of the book deals with the pair of scientists, Redwood and Bensington, discovering their miracle food and beginning testing. They choose a less than scrupulous partner to manage the hands-on application of the food to some chickens and events predictably go awry when the food is not properly secured. We then get the excellent Science Fiction trope of giant rats and wasps running amok through a sleepy English village, and the resulting action-packed confrontation that inevitably ensues.

But this is not the main story, just a prelude. The real meat of the story begins after this. These “outbreaks” are deemed inevitable when producing Herakleophorbia, Wells’ (or rather his characters) renames this to the eponymous and catchier “Food of the Gods” very briefly before settling on “Boomfood” for the rest of the narrative, and the real “What If” question is yet to be answered. What if Boomfood exists and outbreaks into the environment are inevitable?

What follows is much more interesting than simply giant rats, but a much more insightful view on how this would fundamentally change society. Those trying to financially and politically benefit from the substance, either by supporting or opposing it, provide the backdrop to the majority of the novel. It’s not a story about fighting giant rats, but about the inexorable progress of society in unexpected ways and the impact each of these major changes can have on humanity itself.

Wells raises interesting questions, and certainly doesn’t answer them all, with the end of the book coming abruptly at the point of tensions boiling over. Stakes are raised, the scene is set, and the we are left to ourselves as readers to decide the “What if” of where the story turns next.

As always, I try to avoid spoilers in these reviews, even when the book is over 120 years old so I won’t dive into any further plot details here. It is a fascinating read, but it is easy to see why it has a less lauded reputation that Wells’ true Masterworks.