The Plattner Story by H. G. Wells Episode #65
H. G. Wells | April 3, 2023-
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The Plattner Story by H. G. Wells Episode #65
H. G. Wells
THE PLATTNER STORY
Episode #65 · Written by H. G. Wells · Narrated by Scott Miller
Gottfried Plattner is an unremarkable schoolmaster living an ordinary life—until a chemistry experiment ends in an explosion that erases him completely. There is no body, no debris, and no explanation. For nine days, Plattner simply does not exist.
When he reappears just as abruptly, doctors discover something impossible. His internal organs are reversed, his coordination altered, and even old photographs suggest he was once arranged differently. Science can confirm the facts, but not their cause.
Pressed for answers, Plattner reluctantly describes a place beyond ordinary space. It is a shadowed world lit by a strange green glow, where familiar locations overlap with something vast and alien. There, he encounters silent watchers, observes moments from human lives, and senses forces that operate beyond time and death.
The Plattner Story is not presented as fantasy, but as testimony supported by witnesses, photographs, and medical examination. H.G. Wells carefully balances skepticism and wonder, allowing the reader to decide whether Plattner’s experience was truth, illusion, or something far more unsettling.
Rather than offering easy explanations, the story raises disturbing questions. What exists beyond the limits of human perception? Are our lives observed in ways we cannot detect? And what consequences follow when someone crosses the boundary and returns?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
H.G. Wells was a pioneer who helped define science fiction as a serious literary form. Trained in science, he brought rigor and plausibility to ideas that had previously belonged to fantasy or myth.
Throughout his career, Wells explored time travel, parallel worlds, invisibility, and alien intelligence. His stories often focus less on spectacle and more on how extraordinary events expose human fear, responsibility, and moral consequence.
The Plattner Story exemplifies Wells at his most precise and unsettling. It combines scientific reasoning, psychological realism, and cosmic speculation into a narrative that continues to influence science fiction more than a century after its publication.
LISTEN TO THE STORY
Listen to The Plattner Story by H. G. Wells — a vintage science fiction short story exploring parallel worlds, strange physics, and unsettling consequences beyond space.
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H. G. WELLS SHORT STORIES
Few writers stand at the true beginning of classic science fiction the way H. G. Wells does.
Before rockets filled magazine covers and robots stalked chrome cities, Wells was already tearing holes in reality. He sent men tumbling into parallel dimensions, opened doors to lost childhood Edens, hurled wandering stars toward Earth, and let ordinary shopkeepers toy with godlike power. His stories feel startlingly modern, yet they carry the sharp Victorian edge of a writer who understood both scientific possibility and human frailty.
On The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast we’ve explored the astonishing breadth of his shorter fiction. In The Star, a rogue celestial body drifts toward Earth, and the quiet calculations of astronomers collide with the terror of a watching world. The Crystal Egg offers a glimpse across space itself, peering toward Mars through an object no one fully understands. The Plattner Story thrusts a chemistry teacher into an inverted universe where left becomes right and life hangs by a thread.
Wells could be playful and unsettling in the same breath. The Man Who Could Work Miracles hands unlimited power to a very limited man—with chaotic results. The Door in the Wall tempts a statesman with a green door that leads to wonder, beauty, and regret. A Moth narrows its focus to a single, maddening presence that chips away at a rational mind.
And then there is the darker current running beneath his work. The Red Room traps us in a chamber where fear itself becomes the antagonist. The Sea Raiders drags something ancient and intelligent from the ocean depths onto the quiet shores of England. Whether gazing at the cosmos or listening for footsteps in a lonely house, Wells never lost sight of the human reaction to the unknown. Explore the stories below and return to the wellspring of vintage science fiction.
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The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast is the most listened-to vintage science fiction podcast in the world. Ranked the #1 Science Fiction Podcast in 43 countries and heard in more than 190 countries, the show has surpassed 4.2 million listens.
Each episode features carefully selected stories from the Golden Age of science fiction, professionally narrated. Timeless storytelling the way it was meant to be heard.
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