Come fly with Bert Smallways, a commoner with a comic, tragic, star-crossed, and high-flying fate, into a future that never was. Long out of print! A visionary novel by the author of The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine This classic, full-length novel from H. G. Wells imagines a world of progress stricken by brutal conflict in the sky—written before the actual invention of airplanes. Bert Smallways is a small man in a small town with big dreams. His most fantastic dream—flying—seems improbable. Prototype airplane after airplane crashes and burns. Until one doesn’t. Bert's desire to fly beckons him and combines with implacable fate to sweep him up in a fantastic, dramatic adventure in which he, a pawn of fortune at the center of it all, travels to far lands and distant battles envisioned in The War in the Air. His adventures will have great consequence for the entire world. But will this star-crossed young man find what he really desires?