Weren't we, perhaps, already in the throes of the last crisis, in that darkest moment of a nightmare's horror before the sleeper will endure no more of it and wakes?H.G. Wells' The World Set Free, written in the shadow of the impending Great War, is a chilling description of a world in the throes of a nuclear battle. Horrified by thedevastating repercussions of radiation and the wide-ranging destruction, the survivors grapple with bringing back some amount of order and sanity.On the other hand, could the catastrophe mean freedom to create a utopia as an end to the ills and ideas of the past?