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halfmanhalfbook's review against another edition
3.0
Set very firmly in the Victorian age, the primary character is a English gentleman and scientist living in Richmond. It starts as a dinner part as he explains to his guests the concept of time and shows them a model of a time machine he has made, and reveals that he has a full size one.
A week later he regals them with his first adventure using the device when he travelled to the year 802,701. In this strange land he comes across the Eloi, a small race of humanoid people, who live in small communities. Their very modern building are looking shabby and they do no work. he concludes that they are peaceful and have adapted to an environment that poses no threats.
Concluding his investigations he returns to his machine and finds it has been stolen. Locating it within a structure nearby, it has been locked away. As night falls he is approached by the sinister Morlocks, an ape like race that live in the dark. He investigates and find that this race are the ones who operate the machinery that enable the Eloi to live as they do. As he tries to recover his machine he gets to know the Eloi better, and explores the locality, find a ancient museum where he finds materials to enable him to recover his machine.
The Morlocks open the structure to trap him, but he uses it to escape to 30 million years in the future, when he sees the last life forms on the earth. He returns to his time, and recounts his tale to the dinner guests. He still has the flowers from this world, which he shows them. One of the guests returns the following day and finds that he is getting ready to travel again. He bids farewell, with promises to return within the hour.
The concept of time travel hadn't really occurred to most people in the Victorian age, most people were still coming to terms with standard time that the railways brought in. Wells uses his vivid imagination to bring to life these new lands that he finds, but there is precious little as to the function and style of the time machine. One that has been on my to read list for a long time, it does show that Wells is an original and innovative writer.
A week later he regals them with his first adventure using the device when he travelled to the year 802,701. In this strange land he comes across the Eloi, a small race of humanoid people, who live in small communities. Their very modern building are looking shabby and they do no work. he concludes that they are peaceful and have adapted to an environment that poses no threats.
Concluding his investigations he returns to his machine and finds it has been stolen. Locating it within a structure nearby, it has been locked away. As night falls he is approached by the sinister Morlocks, an ape like race that live in the dark. He investigates and find that this race are the ones who operate the machinery that enable the Eloi to live as they do. As he tries to recover his machine he gets to know the Eloi better, and explores the locality, find a ancient museum where he finds materials to enable him to recover his machine.
The Morlocks open the structure to trap him, but he uses it to escape to 30 million years in the future, when he sees the last life forms on the earth. He returns to his time, and recounts his tale to the dinner guests. He still has the flowers from this world, which he shows them. One of the guests returns the following day and finds that he is getting ready to travel again. He bids farewell, with promises to return within the hour.
The concept of time travel hadn't really occurred to most people in the Victorian age, most people were still coming to terms with standard time that the railways brought in. Wells uses his vivid imagination to bring to life these new lands that he finds, but there is precious little as to the function and style of the time machine. One that has been on my to read list for a long time, it does show that Wells is an original and innovative writer.
bookmage's review against another edition
2.0
It wasn't anything like I thought it was going to be. The future world was kind of dumb, and it was just like all those utopia/dystopia stories writers were getting into during that time period. I'm kind of sad I didn't like this.
burnsbooks's review against another edition
3.0
I really enjoyed the narrative and the writing style. This is a fun adventure story at its heart. My main complaint is with Wells' classist, racist, and sexist remarks. There pressence seems to be to aid leftist themes in the book which is quite interesting but they feel limited by the language of the time and possible latent mysogeny and pregudice held by the writer.
missymay's review against another edition
5.0
After reading this book, I can see why it's a classic. It definitely stands out on its own due to the imagination of what the future would be like. The last line of the book just really brings it all together. It gives it all a sense of completeness and wholeness. Ill let you find out what the last line is for yourself :)
annyway47's review against another edition
3.0
"The Time Machine" has probably preceded it's time. I'm guessing it laid the foundation for sci-fi, time-travelling and speculative/dystopian literature. And it's beautifully written.
Still, the book left me entirely unimpressed. What may have been awesome in 1895 is no longer as deep or soul-grabbing in 2017. These ideas have been further developed after Wells, and he seems primitive, naive even, in comparison.
Still, the book left me entirely unimpressed. What may have been awesome in 1895 is no longer as deep or soul-grabbing in 2017. These ideas have been further developed after Wells, and he seems primitive, naive even, in comparison.
dachi25's review against another edition
5.0
This is a classic I hadn't read, I watched one movie adaptation (I belive from the early 2000s it was good) so I knew the gist of it, or so I thought because this book is actually pretty smart, and it's spooky how it predicts the future. Well, more like it warns us of the evil of class estratification and of the gap in wealth and privilege (also this book takes the 'eat the rich' to a whole new level xD) and that’s always nice on any book. Really short read but still so worth it.
camilleisreading's review against another edition
3.0
I may have read this before...? But not really memorable if I did .
Audio. Loved the narrator
Audio. Loved the narrator
missybblio's review against another edition
5.0
In the year 802,701 humanity has split into two separate species. One has become the predator, and one the prey.
With an insight and imagination that seems truly ahead of his time, H. G. Wells imagines a future where the separation between the working class and the upper class has taken (what he sees as) the natural path of becoming so extreme as to drive the working class underground. In the Time Travelers (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) reality, this separation between human classes for the past 800,000 years or so caused the human species to evolve into two separate mammals, with the once lower class now preying on the week and feeble upper class. The Time Traveler then goes on to visit the earth at the very end of its life cycle, and to describe the types of creatures living in this wasteland.
Taken at face value, this is an amazingly creative piece of science fiction. It is made better by the lack of hard to imagine futuristic machinery which I feel takes from the reliability of some science fiction. Then take into consideration this book was published a mere 40 (ish) years after Darwin published his theory On the Origin of Species, and you have a piece of fiction and imagination that seems very ahead of its time. This would be a must read for any sci-fi buff.
With an insight and imagination that seems truly ahead of his time, H. G. Wells imagines a future where the separation between the working class and the upper class has taken (what he sees as) the natural path of becoming so extreme as to drive the working class underground. In the Time Travelers (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) reality, this separation between human classes for the past 800,000 years or so caused the human species to evolve into two separate mammals, with the once lower class now preying on the week and feeble upper class. The Time Traveler then goes on to visit the earth at the very end of its life cycle, and to describe the types of creatures living in this wasteland.
Taken at face value, this is an amazingly creative piece of science fiction. It is made better by the lack of hard to imagine futuristic machinery which I feel takes from the reliability of some science fiction. Then take into consideration this book was published a mere 40 (ish) years after Darwin published his theory On the Origin of Species, and you have a piece of fiction and imagination that seems very ahead of its time. This would be a must read for any sci-fi buff.