YMMV / H. G. Wells

• Harsher in Hindsight: "The War in the Air" and "The Shape of Things to Come" were written as extremely dark proto-examples of World War III^note the former of which was written before World War One had even happened! and After the End fiction to begin with, but in an era where much of their content reads like Alternate History rather than speculation, a number of predictions achieve this status:
  • The rise of toxic nationalism and jingoism.
  • The collapse of the old-world empires through bloody uprisings of subjugated peoples.
  • The persecution of native citizens who happen to share an ethnicity with the current enemy.
  • The near-leveling of major cities by airborne carpet bombing.
  • Future wars becoming an ever-escalating arms race fought in research laboratories and factories while battlefields become increasingly hellish meat grinders.
  • The development of atomic weapons capable of destroying modern civilization entirely.
  • "The War in the Air" describes people going out in the morning to see "air-fleets passing overhead, dripping death - dripping death!" Thirty-three years after the book was written, the Battle of Britain was started. Also, while not actually dark like the other examples here, "The War in the Air" correctly predicted China and Japan becoming technologically advanced industrial superpowers as well.
  • And the fact that “The Shape of Things to Come” ends with the populace so horrified by what militarism had wrought upon the world that they renounce war altogether and set up a pacifist utopia. No such event occurred after real wars.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the short story "A Vision of Judgement", the unnamed narrator is revived on Judgement Day, and before being swept up to face said judgement, grumbles in passing about what a lousy little gravestone he was given. In real life, Wells was cremated after death and his ashes scattered at sea.
  • The abovementioned "The War in the Air" is prophetic with the (thankfully fictional) Signature Scene of a bomber airship fleet carrying out a surprise attack on American cities. While the zeppelins in question are German, not Soviet, otherwise this looks identical to the famous Red Alert 2 intro.
  • The post-war anarchy described in the same book is probably the ur-example of The Apunkalypse, with marauders dressed like Rummage Sale Rejects (including in aviator goggles and masks) riding Improbably Cool Cars and motorcycles. Yes, this was written exactly 70 years before the first Mad Max film came out.