The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth
Title page of the first edition
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| Author | H. G. Wells |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction, Romance novel |
| Published | 1904 (Macmillan) |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 317 |
The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1904. Wells called it "a fantasia on the change of scale in human affairs. . . . I had hit upon [the idea] while working out the possibilities of the near future in a book of speculations called Anticipations (1901)." There have been various B-movie adaptations. The novel is about a group of scientists who invent a food that accelerates the growth of children and turns them into giants when they become adults.
The Food of the Gods is divided into three "books": "Book I: The Discovery of the Food"; "Book II: The Food in the Village"; and "Book III: The Harvest of the Food."
Book I begins with satirical remarks on "scientists," then introduces Mr. Bensington, a research chemist specialising in "the More Toxic Alkaloids," and Professor Redwood, who after studying reaction times takes an interest in "Growth." Redwood's suggestion "that the process of growth probably demanded the presence of a considerable quantity of some necessary substance in the blood that was only formed very slowly" causes Bensington to begin searching for such a substance. After a year of research and experiment, he finds a way to make what he calls in his initial enthusiasm "the Food of the Gods," but later more soberly dubs Herakleophorbia IV. Their first experimental success is with chickens that grow to about six times normal size on an experimental farm at Hickleybrow, near Urshot in Kent (where H.G. Wells was born and raised).
Unfortunately Mr. and Mrs. Skinner, the slovenly couple hired to feed and monitor the chickens, allow Herakleophorbia IV to enter the local food chain, and the other creatures that get the food grow to six or seven times their normal size: not only plants, but also wasps, earwigs, and rats. The chickens escape, over-running a nearby town. Bensington and Redwood, impractical researchers, do nothing until a decisive and efficient "well-known civil engineer" of their acquaintance named Cossar arrives to organise a party of eight to ("Obviously!") destroy the wasps' nest, hunt down the monstrous vermin, and burn the experimental farm to the ground.
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