•  If a friend told you they had a machine capable of travelling through time, would you climb aboard?  🕰 🚀 

“That is just where the whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave.” 

• What are your first impressions of the book? Does this statement resonate with you? 

• What is your favourite invention from the Victorian era? 

• Who are your favourite and least favourite characters? ❤ 

• Is there a quote from The Time Machine that resonated with you?  ⏳ 

• What is the most interesting thing you have learnt from our fascinating guide notes? ✨ 

• What are your initial impressions of Wells’ descriptions of this future world? Do you think it suggests an end, utopic destination, or continuous innovation that humans are struggling to adapt to? 

• Our guide, Ellis, talks about how the time traveller notes that the future people are all vegetarian, that single households have disappeared in preference for, he assumes, “Communism,” and that gender has become obsolete.  What do you think about this in light of how the world has changed in just the past century or so since this book was written (in 1895)? 🌱 

• Ellis also discusses Wells’ friend, E. Ray Lankester’s views: “Any new set of conditions occurring to an animal which render its food and safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule to Degeneration.” How does Lankester’s theory fit with your view of humanity today? How is this idea explored in the Eloi? 

• What do you think about Weena’s character? Why do you think Weens is one of the only named characters in the book? 🌸 

• Is Weena just a plot device to enable the time traveller to have a romance, or is she there for Wells to critique Victorian society with regard to the treatment of women? 

• Are you curious to read Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells based on Erika's description?  💪 

• What do you think of Wells’ discussion about “upper-worlders” and “under-grounders” in the context of social class and what we know so far about the Eloi and the Morlocks? 

• Our guide, Ellis, highlights how the upper class, represented by the Eloi, have become dependent on the labour of the lower class, the Morlocks. What do you think Wells is saying about class and progress with the extreme differences in the book? 

“Clearly, at some time in the Long-Ago of human decay the Morkocks’ food had run short. Possibly they had lived on rats and such-like vermin. Even now man is far less discriminating and exclusive in his food than he was—far less than any monkey. His prejudice against human flesh is no deep-seated instinct. And so these inhuman sons of men— —!” 

• How do you feel reading the descriptions of the Morlocks? Were you expecting to see cannibalism in the year 802,701 based on reading The Time Machine so far? 

• Do you think Wells’ prediction about “the mere memory of Man… (being) swept out of existence” is realistic, that all the structures that exist today as a result of what we consider progress will be wiped out in the distant future? If so, why would this happen? 

• Has anyone in our listen-along been to Richmond, where the novel is set in 1890? 

• Imagine your own city, town, or neighbourhood in the year 2225. What has changed? What remains the same?  

• Our guide, Ellis, discusses the dual nature of fire, a pivotal element in human evolution and progress, as a force that can both save and destroy lives. Ellis also refers to Karan Magu’s article which highlights how a box of matches encapsulates one of the key dichotomies of the novel: technological progress and degeneration. What are your thoughts on this, or perhaps another example of technological progress that has served as a catalyst for change, growth and new beginnings while also posing the potential for destruction and devastation?  🔥 

• How do you feel about Weena's fate?

• Our guide, Ellis, explains possible theories for where the names Eloi and Morlocks came from. Do you see parallels between the Eloi and Morlocks and other “enemy” groups from across religious texts and mythologies? 

• Our guest guide, Heather, highlights how The Time Machine poignantly conveys a sense of the futility and ultimate danger of human attempts at controlling nature and the parallels with climate change issues today. How do you feel reading Wells’ prediction of the future (albeit much further in the future than we are now) knowing what we know now about environmental degradation and climate change?  🌍 🔥 

• Were you surprised that he travelled into the future again, rather than returning to his present day (in the book)?  ⌛  🚀 

“The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned.” 

• What did you think of the ending? What do you think happened to the Time Traveller? 

• How do you think an experience of travelling to the future would change your life and outlook once back in the “present”? ⌛

• What is the most interesting thing you have learnt from our fascinating guide notes? 

• Is the Time Machine a timeless classic, for you? What is your overall rating for this book, out of 5?  ⭐ 

• Review our version of The Time Machine on the StoryGraph ⭐  
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