This was the first book I read by HG Wells, at the age of 12. (I saw the film first.) After taking a trip into the future, a Time Traveller returns to the 19th century and tells his colleagues what he saw.

In the distant future there is nothing, not a trace, of our world left. The Time Travller discovers a new society and finds that we have evolved into a puny, ineffectual race called Eloi. At night he discovers the other half of the society, the hideous, carniverous Morlocks. The Eloi live simple lives and play in the sun. They are food for the Morlocks, who live underground, operating machinery. The Time Traveller goes even further into the future, to a depressing world where the sun is dying and monstrous creatures roam the surface.

Getting away from the point for a moment, there was once a "Doctor Who" story called "Timelash". In that story the Doctor travels back in time and meets a young writer called Herbert, who accompanies the Doctor on a journey to the future on another planet. There are monsters called Morlox. At the end of the story the young writer gives the Doctor one of his cards, which has the name HG Wells. The story implied that HG Wells' novel was inspired by the Doctor! But in reality "The Time Machine" paved the way for "Doctor Who", one of my favourite childhood shows. So we owe a lot to Wells.

Time travel looks like a fun thing to do but sometimes it's best if the future is left unknown. Would you want to know your own future and find it's not what you hoped for?

HG Wells' Sci Fi classic, about a Victorian scientist's trip forward in Time, differs greatly from the movie version, so if you don't recognize the details of the story in this review, it's because I am referring the original. The tale is narrated at the beginng and very end by a good friend of the Time Traveler--whose name we never learn. Nor in fact are his skeptical dinner guests named, for the emphasis sis Not on the present. Ninety percent of the short novel, however, is a direct narration by the Time Traveler himself, of his incredible journey into the future. The year is hard to credit: 208,701!

Wells loses no opportunity to expound on his theories of Mankind's self-destructive and degenerative "progress." He launches into fervid warnings about the separation of diametrically opposed yet critically enmeshed aspects of human nature--both vital while openly at war--which result in the total Human Being. Yet he never considers what Right his hero has to go back the Future, in a vain, foolish and risky attempt to alter the bovine existence of the beautiful people called ELOI or to reduce the subterranean population of the hideous MORLOCKS who repel us with their bestial behavior? (No Prime Directives here about not meddling with the Past or the Future!) We can only guess at Weena's grim fate, but why did Wells include an eerie chapter with the TT contemplating the primoridal tide at the end of Time itself? Still spell-binding despite the intervening years, The Time Machine enthralls us with its daring concepts of futuristic invention and social speculation. Despite uneven literary pacing, these pages offer great Sci Fi reading for all ages!

OK, we've all seen at least one of the movie versions of H.G. Well's The Time Machine, but none of them truly compare with the oringinal Sci-Fi classic. The book tells the story of the Time Traveler's journey nearly a million years into the future and the very unexpected and disturbing society he finds there. The Time Traveler formulates various theories based on what he observes of the society, which each, in turn, prove to be oh, so wrong! [Warning: mild spoiler] In the end, his realization of the future is especially terrifying considering it is the result of our current social structure (or H.G. Well's, anyway).

I especially recommend this book for those of us with short attention spans - it's only 140 pages (and that's the large print version). But don't get the wrong idea, this book still has more depth and creativity than most 500 page books i've read and is a great read, even compared with today's science fiction standards.

This book has to be considered a classic considering it spawned a whole genre of time traveling books, movies, and tv shows whcih imitated it. Get a hold of a copy and read it today!

I've been catching up on Wells' work lately, and up to this point, I've been fairly impressed. His best work, written at the turn of the century, holds up fairly well: it's entertaining and thought-provoking (The Time Machine, War of the Worlds).

I wasn't very impressed with this book, however. It doesn't read like his other works. The story probably could have been told in 20 or so pages, definitely a short-story candidate. I was amazed that Wells stretched this out to its present length, as the middle 40-odd pages were quite dull and really didn't go anywhere.

The science behind the story (while iffy, of course), is fascinating. Griffin is a great character, but more could have been done with him, besides his spending so much time having to convince people that he IS, in fact, invisible ("I am invisible. I really am an invisible man", etc, etc). It gets mind-numbing after a while. I guess the biggest let-down of the book is the fact that the title gives everything away. Once you've seen the cover, you pretty much have it; no real surprises. Yep, he's invisible, and there ya go.

What a great idea to assemble scifi icons from Star Trek to perform various H.G. Wells's classics! Of the works they've performed are: The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, The First Men in the Moon, and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

This audio recording of The Invisible Man was easy listening, and fun too. It's definitely worth a listen. I'm going to have to check out the others!

One side note, obviously the original work was abridged and adapted for audio drama. You'll still want to read the classic.

Okay, so Wells didn't load the book with the violence seen in the recent movie Hollow Man. Consider when the book was written, and what was comparable at the time. I, for one, was engrossed in the book and read it in about three sittings.

Wells excellently portrayed Griffin (Invisible Man) as a man crossing back and forth from sanity to madness. You may catch yourself considering how you would overcome his difficulties, or how you might abuse his power.

What really stood out for me was the tongue-in-cheek undertones Wells incorporated into the story, such as the cockney dialect and rustic behavior of the people of Iping. Also, consider Wells' narration during intense moments, such as the fight between Griffin and the people of Iping...
"...[Huxter's] shin was caught in some mysterious fashion, and he was no longer running, but flying with inconceivable rapidity through the air. He saw the ground suddenly close to his face. The world seemed to splash into a million whirling specks of light, and subsequent proceedings interested him no more."
Later elaboration of the events included the terrifying realization that Griffin was "smiting and overthrowing, for the mere satisfaction of hurting."

If you find the book difficult to follow, try the version adapted by Malvina Vogel, complete with illustrations by Pablo Marcos. It's not as powerful, but easier to understand.

One of the most famous science fiction books to date is H. G. Wells' classic War of the Worlds, which has become national paranoia in the late 30's with Orson Welles over the radio. And later in the 50's become a national hit with the movie goers. Well, neither the radio broadcast or movie rendition really took the book to its letter by letter copy, but rather improvised like most non-literal entertainers. The book begins with suspicion, suspense and wonder as a meteor passes the sky without any real notice to anyone. While the book is told in the perspective of the scientist (whose name I cant seem to recall at the moment), later, somewhere after the mid-point the gears switch and we learn what the scientists brother is doing elsewhere. For the majority of the book, once the aliens have control over the earth, which is within the first 4 chapters, things calm down and become a bit stale. Only after we come back to the scientist from the brothers story, things pick up, but mind you, they pick up slowly. I am happy I got the chance to read this book, but was a little dissapointed in how the story unfolded which is why I gave this book 4 stars. Nonetheless, certainly a required reading for science fiction fans, and even now, amongst those persuing literature.

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own...." Thus begins The War of the Worlds, written by science-fiction mastermind H. G. Wells, who brought you other incredible novels, such as The Time Machine.

This suspenseful story of Martians invading Earth is full of surprises. The narrator tells of his encounters with the powerful Martians and their stunning technologically advanced weapons and machines, which range from iron-melting heat rays to death serving war machines.

This novel has its ups and downs. One down is that the author sometimes describes the surroundings too much. But, the book does have the eerieness of a suspenseful book, keeping you on the edge of your seat, wondering what will happen next. Will mankind survive? Will the invading Martians take over the Earth? Will the Martians destroy the Earth? Find out when you read the spectacular book, The War of the Worlds.

This is the book that got me interested in Science-Fiction in the first place, and i've never really read anything else that has drawn me in in quite the same way. It is along with two other H.G. Wells books (The Invisible Man, The Time Machine) quite possibly the blueprints for everything else that followed. For me the only apocolyptic books that came even come close to War Of The Worlds, are The Stand and The Day Of The Triffids.

It works on a number of levels. You can read it as a novel about a Martian Invasion and it works, or you can reads it as a political commentary on the British empire and it still works. It also gives you a pretty good account of life and attitudes in England a century ago.

Quite simply in my humble opinion it is the best piece of literature written in the last 150 years. Now if only Hollywood would make a proper adaption of it. One set in England in the 1890's and with proper tripod fighting machines.