imaginative visions, and he bitterly observed: "Reality has taken a leaf from my book and set itself to supercede me." "The War of the Worlds" wasn't the only masterpiece that H.G. Wells wrote with the words "The War" in the title. "The War in the Air," which came out 10 years later, in 1908, is surely a lesser-known title by this great author, but most certainly, in my humble opinion, a masterpiece nonetheless. In this prophetic book, Wells not only predicts World War I--which wouldn't start for another six years--but also prophesies how the advent of navigable balloons and heavier-than-air flying craft would make that war inevitable. Mind you, this book was written in 1907, only four years after the Wright Brothers' historic flights at Kitty Hawk, and two years BEFORE their airplane design was sold to the U.S. Army for military purposes. In "The War in the Air," Wells also foresees air battles, as well as engagements between naval and aerial armadas. His gift of peering into the future is at times uncanny. We see this worldwide war through the eyes of Bert Smallways, a not terribly bright Cockney Everyman who is accidentally whisked away in a balloon and lands in Germany right on the eve of that country's departure for war. Bert is brought on board one of the German airships, and so personally witnesses a titanic battle in the North Atlantic; the Battle of New York (in which the length of Broadway is destroyed and many buildings