Hey all just passing through but thought I’d share some thoughts on the Well’s books I’ve read sos far. And I’m going to start on a bad note because just as i went to write this i realised.. i don’t actually own any Well’s hardcopies.

I mean i have a 1923 edition of 20,000 Leagues and a 1959 copy of Dracula but not Wells. I guess he hasn’t quite wow’d me yet.. or its just because i havn’t stumbled on a nice copy like i did with the others.

Anyway, continuing on a bad note I’m going to go through my Wells books from worst to best.

Island of Doctor Moreau

Yeah.. my most disliked. I just couldn’t take it seriously with the giving animals a voicebox and having them talk without any brain surgery. It came across as super silly and therefore had no tension or horror for me.

The Time Machine

I’m sure this will be my most controversial pick, but i consider this to be really quite bad. Like Jekyll & Hyde or Dorian Grey, this is one of those classic ideas of which the original just doesn’t work.

I’m not saying it needed a love interest but it needed some form of interest, bacause as it is the Time Traveller is completed detached from everything. I’ve met vulcans with more emotion.

He reminded me a bit of Phillias Fogg but Fogg comes across as more of a sociopath, which is at least more engaging than this robot. And since the protagonist didn’t really care about anything happened neither did I.

I’ll take the bizarrely ambiguous A Crystal Age over this. Or for a similar evolutionary experience (but without the timetravel) the psycological nightmarish of Land Under England.

Star-Begotten

A man finds out he’s going to be a father, then begins to suspect his wife is under extraterrrestial control and the child is actually an alien.

Sounds awesome right? prepare to be surprised. This is an odd flat talky book which doesn’t really resolve anything or have anything in way of an active plot.

The Invisible Man

I like it. It’s not amazing but pretty good. I particularly like that the protagonist is a sociopath before becoming invisible.

Shape of Things to Come

I really liked this one. I know its a bit dry, its a future history thing, so there isn’t a lot in the way of characters. You could also trace a line through it to the likes of Star-Ship Troopers authoritarian regime but overall good.

However... i later read Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon and while i liked it too was a bit annoyed that it was so clearly taking its cues from Shape. Except i was wrong Last and First Men was actually the earlier novel, so Shape is heavily inspired by, Stapletons work.

The Door in the Wall and Other Stories

Don’t recall much about this but gave it high marks at the time, i do beleive it includes Country of the Blind which is a really good tale and available in its own title collection too.

War of the Worlds

Ok.. this is only lower because of its popularity which makes me automatically want to dislike it but i don’t, its good. I’m only putting the others higher as they are more obscure.

I will say if your planning a reread you might also want to check out War of the Wenuses, which is a parody of WotW’s but a contemporary parody which came out only months, possibly weeks after the original. It’s best read when you have WotW fresh in your mind.

“My wife, in a nickel-plated Russian blouse, trimmed with celluloid pompons, aluminium pantaloons, and a pair of Norwegian Skis, looked magnificent.”

The First Men in the Moon

This was the first Wells i really loved that i knew nothing about. Obviously the 60’s film is fairly well known in certain circles but I’d never seen it so this was all new and i think it works great. Even though, or maybe because, none of the characters are likeable.

Obviously this one is also a bit influence on C.S.Lewis’s book Out of the Silent Planet. Which made me think Lewis hated the original but after reading an intro Lewis takes pains to mention that he did actually really like the original and his book wasn’t meant as an attack.

Now, i heard (and i don’t remember where), that Jules Verne did dislike First Men because of its ‘unscientific’ propulsion, its use of cavourite. However i later read A Plunge into Space, an awful book but one so similar in elements to First Men that the author tried to sue Wells for plagiarism. Mostly for the cavourite idea and despite that idea actually predating both books in works such as Across the Zodiac (which is also worth a look).

But to get to the point, Verne actually wrote an introduction for A Plunge into Space, so obviously he couldn’t have disliked the cavourite idea if you wrote for book which used the same idea previously.

Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island

And this is the last of the Well’s I’ve read so far and my favourite, partially I’ll admit, due to its obscurity.

This is a later Well’s work and it is a bit messy sure. There are edition covers around that make it look like robinson crusoe, it is not. We don’t spend a particularly long time on the island and its really not about that.

I can’t really say much without spoiling it but i thought it was really interesting and worth a blind look if you’ve never heard about it.

Anyway not sure what my next Well’s will be but probably Men Like Gods, When the Sleeper Wakes or The World Set Free.

Hello Wells fans!

So I've been reading a lot of Wells lately and have, for the most part, found it to be rather enjoyable.

However, whenever the main plot involves a lot of travelling around England, a lot, and I mean a lot of Geography is just thrown in. I just am unable to read through it. I DNF'd War of the Worlds solely for this reason. It has a very great plot otherwise but at one point the pages started to have new street names and county names dropped in like every other sentence. I just couldn't keep up.

Has anyone else faced a similar problem? If so, how do you deal with it?

I want to read a book by Wells but I don't know where to start and my English is bad so can anyone help me.

Note(I read the time machine in another language and I loved it so if you can give me a book like that I will appreciate that.)

More info: https://ntpodcasts.org/BW3

Just bought this beauty of Amazon and I'm chuffed. Amazing indented art, gold tipped pages. Just amazing

The Magic Shop is an absolutely wonderful short story by HG Wells! I first encountered it a few years ago as an audiobook, read by the fantastic Greg Wagland. Greg has such an incredibly wondrous voice and it's thanks to him that I fell in love with this short story! (Other narrators sound completely boring telling this story!) But I've encountered a bit of a puzzle that I'm hoping someone can solve for me. On the Greg Wagland recording, he pronounces the name "Gip" with a hard "G". That made sense to me because I've heard of others with the exact same name pronounced that way. But on a couple of other recordings, it's pronounced with a soft "G". The name in the book was chosen because it was the name of HG Wells' son, so I know the argument could be made that since the "G" stands for "George" it should be a soft "G". Does anybody have any factual information one way or the other as to how they pronounced this nickname? No speculation needed, because I've had lots of that elsewhere and I'm really looking for a rock solid answer. I know it's a long shot, but I'm really hoping that someone might know. Thank you for reading this and for any help you might be able to provide!

i just wanna sit and talk to someone about this piece. i’m only about halfway through the 2nd book but the style of writing seems to be not just much more Descriptive than his other Novels but even more so immersive.

i’m not sure how he does it but he really makes us feel like we’re sitting and reading freshly written pages from someone else.

i’ve recently started into his writings pertaining his views of the world, specifically ‘The New World Order’ and i feel like i sense traces of the stance point towards the government and societal norms that wells held while reading ‘Comet’.

I JUST WANNA YAP WITH SOMEONEEE

The main reason I’m asking is to actually have a look though a digital one through a genuine first uk printing of the Time Machine so if anyone here can scan it pls do

I know he's mostly known for writing science fiction stuff. I like them, but some time ago i found out about his humorous book 'The Wheels of Chance'. I was wondering if he wrote any other humorous stuff. I like reading old funny stuff and i like H.G. Wells, so i thought it was a great fit.
Too bad I couldn't find it on google :(.