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suicunejpg's review against another edition
3.0
quality of writing: 8/10 enjoyment: 5/10 pc: 172 this book old as hell. and u can tell cuz that shit is white male centric as fuck. the characters mostly bored me and felt interchangeable but the language was entertaining and funny at times. i did giggle a bit reading this. i haven’t seen the most recent movie but im pretty sure it’s super loosely based bc this had very little of what i know abt the movie. a quick read but kinda boring especially at first. still not a bad time tho
notquiterockstar's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
ab_pye's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
lindsay27's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting story with unexpected horror. The concept was good, I just didn’t love the writing style
aubreymichelle's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I am just an ordinary man...made invisible.
avesmaria's review against another edition
4.0
What a fun read this short book is! A strange man, bundled in clothes and bandages, arrives at a rural English village and attracts the suspicion of his landlady with his bizarre behavior and strange chemical experiments. Thus the drama of this angry and tortured individual unfolds. At its face, it's a short fantastical tale that ends with a great chase scene, but at its heart, it's a story about the consequences of getting what you asked for. Like all of Wells' fiction, I'm always impressed at how prescient his thinking was and how his writing seems to really make my imagination spring to life.
zoesiapie_'s review against another edition
2.0
⭐️ 2.5
Avevo da tempo l'idea di leggere un libro da H.G. Wells. Lo stile di scrittura mi è piaciuto molto, così come il concetto alla base e lo studio accurato sulla scienza dell'epoca.
Una lettura veloce, intensa e molto spesso dettagliata.
La nota negativa del libro io l'ho trovata nel personaggio dell'uomo invisibile: crudele e malvagio senza motivo. Ho trovato che alla fine, il romanzo si sia messo a correre troppo velocemente, considerato specialmente il lungo inizio. C'è stato tanto retroscena sul personaggio dell'uomo invisibile, molto sui suoi giorni legati ai primi esperimenti, ma poco di quello che ne è stato prima e di come l'abbia portato ad essere così indifferente nei confronti della vita.
Avevo da tempo l'idea di leggere un libro da H.G. Wells. Lo stile di scrittura mi è piaciuto molto, così come il concetto alla base e lo studio accurato sulla scienza dell'epoca.
Una lettura veloce, intensa e molto spesso dettagliata.
La nota negativa del libro io l'ho trovata nel personaggio dell'uomo invisibile: crudele e malvagio senza motivo. Ho trovato che alla fine, il romanzo si sia messo a correre troppo velocemente, considerato specialmente il lungo inizio. C'è stato tanto retroscena sul personaggio dell'uomo invisibile, molto sui suoi giorni legati ai primi esperimenti, ma poco di quello che ne è stato prima e di come l'abbia portato ad essere così indifferente nei confronti della vita.
daja57's review against another edition
5.0
A strange guest arrives at an inn in Iping and takes a room. He always appears in a hat and coat; his face is hidden by heavy glasses and bandages. Glimpse by glimpse, the villagers begin to suspect that something is wrong; eventually they realise that, though his clothes can be seen, his body is invisible. He flees from the village and arrives, by chance, at the house of an old acquaintance, now a doctor. Here he seeks help and tells his back story. But his experiences, and his determined and ruthless personality, have made him angry. Now he decides (like a rather stereotypical 'mad scientist' turned megalomaniac) that he will institute a reign of terror over the surrounding countryside. All he needs is an accomplice.
The brilliance of the book is the way the story is so matter of fact. This might be science fiction but everything is utterly realistic (except the invisibility). The chapters are written as if to accumulate evidence for an inquiry. The descriptions are detailed. The setting is really real: Iping is a real village near Midhurst, in Sussex where Wells as a young man was apprenticed to a chemist. The villagers sound like real Sussexers. The 'scientific' explanation of invisibility, when it comes (and Wells knew that this should be left until quite late in the story) is a mixture of real science (refraction etc) and quasi science with the brilliant addition of a mention of Roentgen who announced his discovery of X-rays (which can see through flesh, making it, as it were, invisible) less than two years before The Invisible Man was published. The style is so utterly mundane that all these truths and facts drown out one's whispers of disbelief about invisibility itself (the fundamental problem is that if a man was invisible he couldn't absorb light on his retinas and therefore he couldn't see, he would be blind).
And there are so many little details that render it utterly matter-of-fact. He stumbles going down the stairs because he can't see his feet. He makes footprints. He can be heard, and smelt by dogs. People bump into him and jostle him because they can't see him. And he has to be naked which, in January, in the snow, is not very practicable. Nor can he eat whilst being watched because the food can be seen inside him (presumably as a squalid mush) until he assimilates it.
This is the textbook way of how to write scifi: make everything else so utterly convincing that the fantasy becomes believable.
And it's great fun to read.
The brilliance of the book is the way the story is so matter of fact. This might be science fiction but everything is utterly realistic (except the invisibility). The chapters are written as if to accumulate evidence for an inquiry. The descriptions are detailed. The setting is really real: Iping is a real village near Midhurst, in Sussex where Wells as a young man was apprenticed to a chemist. The villagers sound like real Sussexers. The 'scientific' explanation of invisibility, when it comes (and Wells knew that this should be left until quite late in the story) is a mixture of real science (refraction etc) and quasi science with the brilliant addition of a mention of Roentgen who announced his discovery of X-rays (which can see through flesh, making it, as it were, invisible) less than two years before The Invisible Man was published. The style is so utterly mundane that all these truths and facts drown out one's whispers of disbelief about invisibility itself (the fundamental problem is that if a man was invisible he couldn't absorb light on his retinas and therefore he couldn't see, he would be blind).
And there are so many little details that render it utterly matter-of-fact. He stumbles going down the stairs because he can't see his feet. He makes footprints. He can be heard, and smelt by dogs. People bump into him and jostle him because they can't see him. And he has to be naked which, in January, in the snow, is not very practicable. Nor can he eat whilst being watched because the food can be seen inside him (presumably as a squalid mush) until he assimilates it.
This is the textbook way of how to write scifi: make everything else so utterly convincing that the fantasy becomes believable.
And it's great fun to read.
tregina's review against another edition
4.0
I've actually never read this before, and was surprised both by how detailed the science of the transformation was (though I probably shouldn't have been, because this era was big on the science in science fiction) and how unsympathetic the protagonist was. Enjoyed very much!