ALMOST

The future was invented fifty times. It just never arrived.

Two thousand years ago, a temple in Alexandria sold holy water from a coin-operated machine. In 1775, an American submarine rowed silently through the dark toward a British warship. In the 1950s, the US Air Force built a flying saucer. And in 2024, a bright orange gadget promised to replace the smartphone - and died the day its company switched off the servers.

Almost tells the true stories of fifty inventions that nearly changed the world - not the famous failures everyone knows, but the hidden ones: brilliant, real, and almost completely forgotten.

Inside you will discover:
• The chess machine that defeated Napoleon - with a man hidden inside it
• The perpetual wheel tested for 54 days behind a locked and sealed door
• The pigeon trained to steer a missile, the bat bombs, and the rocket wheel packed with gunpowder
• The first home video recorder, built in Nottingham in 1963 - and forgotten
• The plan for 840 satellites to cover the whole Earth, of which exactly one was ever launched
• The orange rabbit of 2024, the newest failure of all - and what it has in common with a temple machine from ancient Egypt

Some of these inventors saw the future clearly. Some saw only part of it. Some were beaten by a rival, stopped by politics, or undone by a single small mistake. Every chapter follows the same honest path: the dream, the build, the test - and the one detail that brought it all down. Each story is illustrated with a vintage blueprint-style plate.

Written in clear, simple language that any curious reader from about age twelve up can enjoy, Almost is a book of true wonders - and proof that an idea can be brilliant, work perfectly, and still lose.

The future is usually in the room. It is the room that has to be ready.