The Food of the Gods
by H.G. Wells
Narrated by Alan Munro
Why Listen to This Audiobook?
Beneath the absurdity of giant rats and enormous children, Wells is quietly furious about something — and it isn't the science.
- Great if you want: classic Wells social satire wrapped in pulpy sci-fi chaos
- Listening experience: uneven — playful creature chaos gives way to heavy allegory
- Narration: Munro's measured delivery suits Wells' dry, sardonic authorial voice
- Skip if: you came for horror — this is a social treatise wearing a monster mask
About This Audiobook
Two scientists develop a growth compound they call Herakleophorbia, intended as a benefit for agriculture and livestock, and discover too late that its effects are uncontrollable and irreversible. Giant chickens, wasps, and rats plague the countryside; children fed the compound grow to enormous size and exceptional intelligence; and the resulting generation of giants finds themselves locked out of a society that fears and resents them. H.G. Wells uses the premise to examine questions of social progress, fear of the Other, and the violence that ordinary people are capable of toward anything that threatens their normalcy.
Alan Munro narrates with the measured cadence of a man reading a cautionary tale that has already come true, which is the appropriate register for Wells' social comedy. His voice gives the scientists' initial enthusiasm and mounting horror equal conviction, and he handles the satirical portraits of rural England's reaction to giant chickens with the dry wit the material requires. The audiobook's length suits Wells' tendency to embed his social arguments in extended incident.