David Lake is a noted scholar on Wells and author of
Darwin and Doom: H.G. Wells and the
Time Machine wherein he notes that Wells knew of the paradoxes involved in time travel,
but didn’t want to address them in what he saw as a serious story about social trends. So,
Lake says, his own Weena story is a shot at showing “what really happens in backward time
travel,” which in this case is a model where backward time travel causes the universe to
split. Lake handles the idea consistently, although for me, Lake’s afterward to the story
fails to fully acknowledge the history of the split-universe idea, and the afterward does not
give sufficient credit to single timeline alternatives.
On the other hand, I love stories
that tell us what truly happened in another well-known story, and Lake handles that
well, telling us in the voice of the original narrator about what truly happened to the
Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) after he first returned to 1891 and
subsequently set out to rescue Weena.
Well, in its hitherto published form it was partly fiction, because at the
time—1895—I could not write the full truth. The full truth was even more fantastic
than the fiction—too fantastic, surely, to be believed; or if believed, too disturbing
to received notions of Time. And besides, there were living people to protect: in
particular, one young person who was very dear to us.