In these 'scientific romances' HG Wells sees the present reflected in the future and the future in the present. His aim is to provoke rather than predict. The Sleeper falls into a trance, waking up two centuries later as the richest man in a world of new technologies, power-greedy leaders, sensual elites, and brutalized industrial slaves. Arriving in the year 802,701, the Time-Traveler finds that humanity has evolved into two drastically different species; going farther still, he witnesses the ultimate fate of the solar system. The Chronic Argonauts , the original version of The Time Machine, pits a scientist with daring views of time and space against superstitious villagers. In all three works Wells laces vivid adventure stories with the latest ideas in biology and physics.