This book is a "must have" for any fan of literature, science fiction, or just plain good story telling!

"The Time Machine" is the opening story in this book and starts the reader moving through the world of H.G. Wells. He will entice you with stories that pique the imagination, that range from the ancient past into the far future.

Over sixty short stories adorn this classic work, including:

The Empire of the Ants - killer ants from South America?

The Land Ironclad - land ships with guns can change trench warfare? (written in December 1903)

The Door In The Wall - a man recounts his boyhood memories of a door leading to a magical garden...

The Tempatation of Harringay - an artist is tempted by the devil himself

The Country of the Blind - is the one eyed man King in the land of the blind?

The Flowering of a Strange Orchid - Vampire flowers?

The New Accelerator - a man creates a mixture that allows him to move at ten times normal speed (concept adapted for a "Wild Wild West" episode)

Get the book, you won't be sorry.

(review based on hardback edition)

War of the Worlds is one of the most important science fiction novels, but its importance can be difficult to see without some knowledge of the time in which it was written. Using essays (some by Wells himself) and copious footnotes, this critical edition does a fine job of placing War of the Worlds into its proper context

H.G. Wells was one of those writers who could only be counted as too good for the Nobel Prize, just like James Joyce or Tolstoy or Proust. In 'The Croquet Player' he has not only produced his best book but one of the greatest books ever written.

I would rather not reveal details of the story. It will suffice to say that it concerns the origins of human nature, or rather, of human brutality, selfishness, greed. (In fact, I could hardly reveal any details of the story, since the last chapter negates the entire book!)

What tells it apart from so many treatises on human nature and the origins of evil is that it is narrated by an altogether down-to-earth bloke, the eponimous croquet player, which gives it an even sharper feeling of reality and foreboding. Nothing wrong or criminal actually happens in the croquet player's world, so to speak. And in the story he is told, the contours of evil are elusive: a dog beaten to death; a drunked parson beating up his wife; that dreadful fear and paranoia in a land that never was. That is what makes it ultimately so compelling. So mind-changing as 'Catcher in the rye'. So disquieting.

Jorge Luis Borges, the greatest of Argentinian writers, once made a list of the greatest books ever. In it he included 'The Croquet Player', for reasons that you will find obvious once you read it. As all masterpieces, exactly why is it so good is not entirely explainable. Be warned, though: this book leaves a disquiet behind that can last for days, weeks, even months. Do not read it if you like your books harmless and cosy. Do not read it unless you are unable to agree with Borges: 'in here he [Wells] describes a degenerating society that could be London or Buenos Aires and the guilty ones, my friend, are you and I.'

Wells evaluated the philosophical systems and traced their confusion back to lack of agreed definitions of words - in his book The First and Last Things. The sequel being a similar analysis of religions, was titled God The Invisible King.

Here Wells defines his position as a strong believer in one God and proceeds to evaluate the dogmas of the Christian Churches. He describes the notion of Trinity as an Alexandrian contamination three centuries after Jesus from the Nile, declared into creed in council of Nicea, and made fundament of all Churches of Christianity since then. Well calls the bluff of mysteries of the Triune or trinity, attributing an anti-religion motive to the institution that has been instilling this dogma into children. He describes his own childhood experience and how he was driven away from the Creater by the dogma.

It should be read together with Thomas Paine for a complete perspective of scriptures, institutions and effects on which the religion in the West is based.

It is a pity that the other two boks of Wells which make a series with this one are not included among books offered here. I thought they were missing even among books out of print. These are, as said above, First and Last Things and The Open Conspiracy.

Wells is going to make a spectacular come back in one of these days, to take most established institutions by surprize, as very graphically and prophetically described in When the Sleeper Awakes! Also an immortal book.

Have fun.

W. Warren Wagar has proved himself time and again in his works to be the greatest analyst of political futures currently active and this book, his first, must be his greatest contribution of all. H.G. Wells exemplifies futures studies, having dipped his toe into all the ponds of predictive research, in fiction and non-fiction, journalism, politics, novels and films. This all comes out in Wagar's panoramic study. The only fault - it is 39 years old! To do justice to the more research scholarship and in light of the fact that much Wells material has been published since 1961 a reassessment by a younger mind would be refreshing. Having said that, anyone interested in Wells, fiction or non-fiction, ought to read this study and read it again.

...who did not write "Journey to the Center of the Earth", as the publisher says above - it was written by by Jules Verne. I have read "The Time Machine", "War of the Worlds", and "First Men in the Moon"; all are excellent. I can't comment on this format since I haven't purchased it. By the way all of Jules Verne's novels are excellent also.

This is one of the most remarkable and insightful pieces of autobiography ever written. Wells was a massive, prolific writer with a central vision - the non-utopian harmonious World State that would ensure mankind's survival - but he was also prolific in his capacities as raconteur and romancer. Here, in this unmissable novel-paced addendum to Experiment in Autobiography (also recommended and findable in two fine Faber&Faber volumes), he enthusiastically recounts his promiscous life in terms of a mortal, and moral, imperative. That his prose is so elegant only enhances and endears - and perhaps distracts from the one questionable weakness of the work: namely the ease with which he dispenses intimate revelations of his lovers' personal lives. But the overwhelming grace of the narrative is in its self-critical honesty and Darwinian clarity. He sidesteps nothing, declaring frankly who he loved (only his two wives and Moura Budberg), where the sensual trade-offs sufficed, how his sex life was subsidiary to his work, and his work to his politico-social vision, and his vision to the vagaries of living - his depressions, lapses of faith (in life's fundamental worth), his diabetes. The book's writing took him (takes us) to his deathbed. Formally and gracefully in the closing pages he hands over to his son to complete the work, prophesying his own demise by heart attack in the night (he was almost right: he died in the afternoon). The last footnote he penned is fascinating, and utterly optimistic of the human spirit despite his despair in the face of World War 2. He cannot conclude an autobiography, he insists, without admitting - against his better judgement - a sense of predetermined life. He feels honor-bound to record this dissenting whisper, but insists that free will has the edge, that it is the fuel of individuality and the mandate for creative action that must take man-the-animal from the destruction of uncontrolled appetites to survival. The anatomizing of Wells' own sensual appetites, and of human relations generally, leaves one with the warm reassurance of benevolent sexuality, a notion that has become so politically unfashionable as to read like divine revelation.

A history of mankind, prologued with the creation & prehistory of the world and epilogued with the future of mankind after the world war.

His views of the world and history reflect the author's Victorian mindset; very educated for his day.

He commences his history of mankind with the beginnings of races, language and their migrations.

Unique and different from any writings today. A must read for all history buffs, and refreshing in originality.

Extremely well written, sequential and easy to absorb.

As always, brilliant writing by HG Wells. A most convincing plot - Wells almost makes you believe there could be an invisible man!

John Baldwin

La maquina del tiempo De:G. H. WELLS.

Esta es una obra sumamente entretenida, escrita por un hombre de una muy buena imaginación. La historia es corta y precisa, se mantiene muy bien hasta el final, y esta impregnada de esa sobriedad de las obras inglesas, de esa calmada y curiosa personalidad de los personajes ingleses. El libro nos cuenta la historia de un hombre que viaja hacia el futuro y encuentra a la raza humana con sus ideales ya hechos y su falta de interés en la vida. La raza se ha divido en dos, los ricos y tontos Eloy y los pobres pero igual de tontos, los morlocks. Los primeros viven sobre la tierra y son el alimento principal de los segundos que viven debajo, en cuevas. Según el autor, cada raza representa lo que será en los últimos años la raza humana antes de la extinción, cuando los humanos vuelvan a ser como niños que no necesitan de la inteligencia para sobrevivir y pueden prescindir de ella. Se ha criticado que esta obra es usada por el autor para defender teorías comunistas. Es cierto, y eso no le quita de ser una buena novela. Muy entretenida y un clásico de la literatura inglesa...

Luis Mendez