H. G. Wells is known the world over for his science fiction, which has often been adapted for the radio and the silver screen. Wells had an uncanny ability to extrapolate from trends current in his day, and project them into the future – which involved creating secular prophecies. But he also had an authoritarian strand in his personality, and wished, as a frustrated intellectual, that people like him – technocrats – would one day wield tremendous power in the world.