Review: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)

In 2013, I put on my reading resolution to read science fiction classics. Finally, I am picking up The Time Machine for my weekend read. This book also fits my recent trend of time travel-related shows, films, and prose.

The Time Machine
by H.G. Wells
First published 1895
Published May 2011 by Atria Books
ISBN 978-1-4516-5886-6

The Time Traveler, a dreamer obsessed with traveling through time, builds himself a time machine and, much to his surprise, travels over 800,000 years into the future. He lands in the year 802701: the world has been transformed by a society living in apparent harmony and bliss, but as the Traveler stays in the future he discovers a hidden barbaric and depraved subterranean class. Wells’s transparent commentary on the capitalist society was an instant bestseller and launched the time-travel genre.

This may be source material for all the time-travel stories I read or watched. This was also adapted in films multiple times. The one that I watched was The Time Machine (2002). I can now see why the original material is short. The film has to add more material to flesh out scenes and add characters. While I can see the enthusiasm of the Time Traveler, which was unnamed in the book, almost all characters are unrelatable. The story uses the first person point of view, with which the point of view character is not the Time Traveler. Because of this, the Time Traveler narrated his adventures instead, and Wells used this to inject his social commentaries. I prefer “show,” not “tell”. And I like my commentaries subtle, not out there.

Overall, I still liked this book. I will continue reading classics.

Quick rating:  3 out of 5. (I like it.)

: https://promdigeek.blog/2017/09/18/review-the-time-machine-by-h-g-wells-1895/