In just three years, “H.G. Wells wrote four science fiction masterpieces —The Time Machine, The Island of Dr Moreau, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds,” but he didn’t get a lot of respect for them from other writers, observes Bryan Appleyard. “Then, as now, SF was seen as not quite respectable by literary types. The vile George Bernard Shaw sneered at Wells, and even his own literary patron, W E Henley, told him: ‘You could also do better — far better & to begin with, you must begin by taking yourself more seriously.” Even today, says Appleyard, “Margaret Atwood has turned her nose up at SF.” In a review of Wells for The New Statesman, Appleyard observes that “In truth, a form that has produced, among others, Stanislaw Lem, J G Ballard, the Strugatsky brothers and, above all, Herbert George Wells has nothing to apologise for.” So why do people always look down on science fiction as a lesser literary form?