Time Machine was required reading for a course I took in college about the history/evolution of science and man's place in nature. Wells' classic, along with Shelley's Frankenstein and Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was written in response to the panic that ensued following Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species. People were freaked out by the idea that we evolved from "lesser creatures" and feared that if evolution explains how humans developed, then "de-eveolution" must also be a possibility. Writing from Victorian England, where the class divide is extreme, Wells contemplates the outcome of continued class divisions that result in two opposing races - the stupid, but blissful Eloi who live above ground in the sunshine, but can do little for themselves, and the devilish, underground-dwelling Morlocks who do every task necessary for the Elois' survival but also prey upon them. Wells expands upon the idea of "de-evolution" in a trippy epilogue.

Back to the Future!



Considering H.G. Well's The Time Machine has the honor of being the book that popularized the idea that humans could use a machine to travel through time, I think he did a good job with the title, no?
But.
Since it was one of the forerunners of this genre, the whole schtick is that time travel happens. The rest of the plot? Eh. There were a few holes.
BUT WHO CARES BECAUSE TIME TRAVEL IS HAPPENING!



It was funny to me that Well's thought one probable outcome of curing disease, poverty, hunger, etc., would be that you'd end up with a bunch of pussies who couldn't fend for themselves.
And, of course, the cannibals who ate them.
{insert your own inappropriate joke here}
Heh.



Ok. But as I'm listening to this, I'm thinking that perhaps there might be some sort of middle ground, you know? I mean, I do think that struggle shapes us as individuals and as a species. But maybe striving to make life better for everyone won't end in one race of willowy dingbats who nap and giggle all day and one race of gross mutants who live underground. <--and yet still make shit for everyone?
Which is just fucking weird in and of itself. What's the idea? This surly race of Dahmer-like factory workers spend all day sewing clothes & crafting beautiful things for the Eloi, and then every now and again they emerge to cull the herd? Why? Why are they still working? Are they getting paid in some way by the people they're chewing on? Their work ethic can't just be functioning on autopilot, because NOBODY would continue to work just to work. Well's must not have understood the working class if he thought it was just somehow bred into our DNA to chug along like idiots for the sake of serving our betters. We're lazy and need motivation - hence the paycheck.
And food!
Where is the Eloi's food source coming from? Because the Morlocks sure as fuck aren't farming anything in those caverns other than nightmares, and the Eloi didn't seem capable of wiping their own asses much less doing a bit of light gardening. And, from what I could tell, the Morlocks weren't eating enough Eloi for all of them to survive on.
Where were those big bastards getting the rest of their protein? Beans?



You know what? It doesn't matter.
And it's also quite possible that all of these questions were addressed and answered and I just didn't pay close enough attention. <--this has been known to happen a lot, especially if the book isn't action-packed and/or doesn't have pictures.
The point is that this professor guy got into his little machine, whooshed forward a bunch of centuries, crash-landed in the future, lost his ride, met an Eloi named Weena & had a rather creepy "friendship" with her, almost got himself eaten by the anti-vegan Morlocks, found his machine (I forgot how), hopped back in & cranked it up, went back to jolly old England, and arrived in time to have tea with a bunch of his sorta-friends.



Oh! Also, he finds out that our sun has a limited warranty.
I knew we should have gone ahead and bought the extra protection from the manufacturer.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!



In all honesty, this was a decent yarn that explored the idea that humans need something to strive towards. And that unless you treat your lower classes well, the end result of utopia will most definitely be the sweaty, unwashed masses in picnic mode - roasting your flimsy, yet delicious, ass over a fire.



Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Edition: Unabridged
Bernard Mayes - Narrator

یک داستانِ علمی-تخیلیِ بسیار زیبا... اچ جی ولز واقعاً ذهنِ خلاقی داشته و البته از مسائل علمی و به خصوص فیزیکی در نوشتن داستانها بهره میبرده.. مانندِ ارتباطِ این داستان با بعدِ چهارم یعنی زمان
به نظرم اصلی ترین نکتۀ این داستان این بود که تنها جانداری که میتونه خودش رو نسبت به شرایطِ محیطِ پیرامونش وقف بده، « انسان» هستش... چون در صفحۀ 38، میگه: مردم آیندۀ دور گیاهخوار بودن و اسب و گوسفند و سگ، مانندِ خزنده ها نسلشون منقرض شده
دوستانِ خردگرا، به نظرتون نامٍ موجوداتی که در این داستان هستن و به قولِ نویسنده دارایِ ظرافتِ جسمانی هستن و فقدانِ هوش،، رو میتوان انسان گذاشت... بدونِ تردید جواب «نه» هستش... انسان بدونِ خرد و اندیشه فرقی با حیوان و یا عرب و تازی نداره
در صفحۀ 108 از کتاب، نویسنده مثالی برایِ زیباییِ مردم روی زمین در گذشته و روزهایِ خوشایند و دلپسندِ آنها میزنه که آنهارو با گلۀ گوسفندان در مزرعه و بدونِ دشمن، مقایسه میکنه... که اصلاً مثالِ خوبی نیست.. شاید نویسنده آرزو داشته که انسان نمیبود و به صورتِ یک گوسفند چشم به جهان میگشود
من با قسمتی از سخنانِ نویسنده مخافم... نویسنده انسانِ کنونی رو ناقص میدونه و معتقدِ که در آینده به تکامل میرسن، در صورتی که به نظرِ من، انسانها نسبت به زمان و مکانی که در آن زندگی میکنن، کامل هستن و به مرور با دگرگونی محیطِ اطرافشون دوباره رشد میکنن و البته ممکن هست این رشد کردن همراه با تغییراتِ ژنتیکی باشه و جسمِ انسانها دستخوشِ تغییراتی بشه... البته نویسنده پیشرفت صعودی انسان رو به یک باره قطع میکنه و شاهدِ سقوطِ انسانیت هستیم

به هرحال داستان تخیلی بوده و نمیشه از اون ایراداتِ علمی و یا فلسفی گرفت.. چیزی که مهم است تجسم سازی و خلاقیتِ نویسنده هستش، این که موجوداتی رو رویِ زمین و عدۀ دیگر زیرِ زمین رو در داستان خلق کرده که خصوصیاتِ متفاوت دارن و حتی آنها که در زیرِ زمین هستند از هوشِ بیشتری برخوردارند ولی انسانیتِ آنها کمتر از رویِ زمینی هاست، برگرفته از ذهنِ بسیار خلاق و استثناییِ «هربرت جرج ولز» هستش

پیروز باشید و ایرانی

The Time Machine was H.G. Wells’ first published novel and it was a development of his previous story The Chronic Argonauts which was first aired in the Science School Journal that he edited as an undergraduate. To me the writing lacked the colourful grammar and language of his later works and at 107 pages it is definitely on the brief side.

At the time H.G. was fascinated by anything scientific and by socialist politics; this storyline gave him an opportunity to include his comments on both.

Since then there have been countless works about time travel but at the time the concept was quite novel. To modern readers his design of a time machine seems rather ridiculous with the traveller seated in the open, exposed to the weather and other physical danger. The science behind it is very weak but as no one has since managed to find a way to travel through time who can say whether he was right or wrong.

The Time Machine gave me a pleasurable read and if you have not yet read The Time Traveller you should take advantage of this Alma Classic publication to do so. I have awarded three stars.

Reviewed by Clive on www.whisperingstories.com

n  “Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.”n

I came to enjoy this more than I first thought I would. If, like me, you're turned off by long paragraphs dealing with the mathematics of time travel and dimensions, then grit your teeth and push through the first chapter of The Time Machine. When I was reading the opening pages and stopping to google scientific terms in nearly every sentence, I couldn't imagine I'd find a way to finish the book.

However, the story moves on from this and becomes quite fascinating. The "time traveller" of this piece is a Victorian scientist who develops a machine to take him through time (and has had a huge influence on sci-fi fiction and movies ever since). He finds himself propelled hundreds of thousands of years into the future, where strange descendants of man roam an unfamiliar world.

He observes the world around him, constantly theorizing on how our current world could have reached this point, and he is many times proven wrong in his theories.

I especially liked the end parts of the book, even though it made me feel quite small and insignificant in the great expanse of time.

Published in 1895, this is considered a groundbreaking classic. The time machine - part of the appeal of this is that it doesn't propose the science, it just concentrates on the outcome! It does give a tidy description of the 4 dimensions at the beginning. There is also a lot of speculation on what has occurred between present time and the year 802,701, where the story is set for the most part.

I also enjoyed the ending, and thought that fitting - although I won't spoil it here.

The writing is overly wordy, and with clunky prose - as you might expect from a late 19th Century novel, and some of the speculation is easily skimmed over, but in principle this is a significant book which influenced the genre of time travel.

A solid 3 old fashioned stars.

Listened to this one on LibriVox. The language and storytelling is great. It's complex enough to be intellectually engaging, but simple enough to be listened to while doing chores around the house.

I really enjoy the style of writing from this period, so I probably liked it a lot more than if it had been written in the modern day.

Not really sure what I expected going into this. In parts it is very dated - obviously, we are more knowledgeable about the universe than we were in Mr. Wells' time. But, the kicker is that this is still a really entertaining read.

If you're a tv/movie buff, then it is sort of like watching the original tv series of Lost In Space today, in a time when our movies run rampant with CGI and space is made in a Hollywood basement (thank you, Chilli Peppers). You can still watch Lost In Space and be well entertained, but you will not get the special effects as with The Time Machine. There are no Flux capacitors, no Matrix pulled over our real world and certainly no terminators. In fact, this is possibly one of the only books/movies where it is not really about meeting impending doom at the hands of previously never before discovered creatures or events - think Alien, The Event Horizon, and even Armageddon.

In fact, this book parallels Dracula by Bram Stoker in some ways. Going on today's world you expect Dracula to be a bloodthirsty vampire horror in the traditions of Anne Rice but those who have read it know that it is nothing like that. A book called the Time Machine conjures up images of landing in unknown times to be ripped apart by dinosaurs (if in past) or horrendous aliens (if in the future) and this simply doesn't happen.

The Time Machine is credited with being the thought process behind Dr. Who's tardis but there is really very little said about the machine itself. The predominant theme is one futuristic travel that the narrator undertakes and spends a week, still on Earth, but a very different one. There is a little good vs evil side play but read this book for what it is, a Sci-Fi classic, and enjoy it!

I freaking loved this little story.

It’s not the most exciting science fiction, and the style that this story is told in will likely hinder a lot of people’s experience when reading this. It’s told as a story that our narrator is transcribing as it’s being told, which means every single paragraph starts with quotation marks, and there is rarely any dialogue. So in that sense, I can understand why some people may hate it.

But thinking about what HG Wells did for the science fiction genre, specifically with this story, was incredibly important and groundbreaking. And reading this nearly 130 years after is was published, I still feel like it totally holds up.

This is a short novel, but it really says a lot. What HG Wells prophesied here on the future of humanity is fascinating. Looking at our class systems, and looking at our constant fight for peace, and building upon a far distant future world that these systems have evolved into, I was blown away by it.

Plus, I found that there was a shockingly wonderful human connection in this story.

Time travel is such a familiar fictive concept nowadays that it’s easy to forget how new the idea of a time machine was in 1895, when the then 29-year-old H.G. Wells wrote a short novel titled The Time Machine. And 125 years later, this concise little masterpiece of science fiction has lost none of its power; if anything, it seems more and more prophetic as we all continue forward through the 4th dimension.

The Time Machine is, at its heart, a framed tale. It begins with a conversation among a group of well-educated gentlemen of Victorian England, at the elegant Richmond home of a scientist and inventor who is known simply as “the Time Traveller.” Most of his friends, in a somewhat clumsy characterological development, are likewise referred to in terms of their occupations – “the Editor,” “the Journalist,” “the Medical Man,” “the Provincial Mayor,” “the Psychologist.” At one otherwise ordinary Thursday gathering, the Time Traveller (hereafter T.T.) announces that he has invented a machine that can travel through time; and the following Thursday, a noticeably disheveled and much-the-worse-for-wear T.T. shares with the assembled company, through an extended flashback, the story of his journey through time.

T.T. makes his journeys not back to ancient Egypt or Greece or Rome, or forward to some comprehensible future year like 1984 or 2001, but rather all the way forward to the year 802,701 A.D.! This daring move gives Wells total creative freedom to set forth the far future exactly as he likes; after all, none of us will be around to point fingers and complain that Wells got this or that detail wrong regarding life 800,000 years from now.

And given all that fictive room for free play, Wells makes the most of the opportunity to exercise his extraordinary imagination. Wells may be poking good-natured fun at his own affinity for socialism - or at the average 19th-century Englishman's impressions of socialism - when he records T.T.’s initial response to the world at which he has arrived: “Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape, had disappeared. ‘Communism,’ I said to myself” (p. 29). Well – no, T.T. What’s happening in the year 802,701 A.D., in what was once England, is not communism; it’s something different, and much worse.

At first, T.T. feels as if he has emerged into an earthly paradise. The beings he meets are recognizably human, albeit of smaller size, and they seem to live a life of ease in which they eat delicious fruits, play together all the day long, and never have to work or worry. The Eloi – for T.T. learns that that is their name – are singularly lacking in curiosity, but they are just as singularly benign, and T.T. soon comes to believe that this is the stage to which humanity has evolved in 800,000 years. When T.T. rescues a drowning Eloi girl named Weena, and she thanks him, child-like, with a garland of flowers, he begins to feel a sort of fatherly affection toward her.

But the Eloi are not the only people in town. T.T. finds that his Time Machine has been removed from where he left it! And in a darkened gallery of a long-ruined building, T.T. encounters a creature that is “dull white, and had strange large greyish-red eyes”, along with “flaxen hair on its head and down its back” (p. 45). This moment represents T.T.’s first encounter with the Morlocks, the other of the two species into which humankind has divided itself over the eons.

The Morlocks live underground, and work great machines in their network of caverns beneath the surface of the earth. At first, T.T. thinks that the Morlocks work for the Eloi; after all, the industrial labourers of his own time do their work hidden from the sun, in settings like factories and coal mines, producing wealth that goes to an aristocracy up on the surface. Yet it turns out that the relationship between the Eloi and the Morlocks is actually quite different.

Situational irony of a particularly grim kind abounds; T.T., reconnoitering the Morlocks’ underground lair, notices “a faint halitus of freshly shed blood” and a “red joint” of meat on a table laid for dinner. The reader senses the significance of these clues long before T.T. does – and a potent metaphor emerges for a 19th-century British society that Wells sees devouring itself through its class divisions.

Wells’s pessimism regarding the prospects for human progress comes through clearly in the passages shortly before T.T.’s return to 1895 – when, as T.T. sits in a golden chair atop a high hill, he engages in bitter recollections: “I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been. It had committed suicide” (p. 78). It is against the backdrop of such somber reflections that T.T. makes one last descent into the Morlock abyss in search of his time machine – and then hurtles even further forward into time! You think that traveling to 802,701 A.D. sounds extreme? Try traveling to 30,000,000 A.D., and see where that takes you!

This edition of The Time Machine benefits from the inclusion of Wells’s 1931 preface to a reprint of the novel. While tending to be rather dismissive of The Time Machine as a juvenile effort on the part of a very young writer, Wells nonetheless sounds like a thoroughly contemporary theoretical physicist when he sets forth “the idea that Time is a fourth dimension and that the normal present is a three-dimensional section of a four-dimensional universe” (p. 94).

As mentioned at the beginning of this review, time-travel narratives have become a familiar thing in our, well, time. We are all used to how Terminator movies, Back to the Future movies – even Santa Clause movies – explore the potential paradoxes of time travel. But no one engaged the possibilities of time travel earlier, or better, than H.G. Wells. The Time Machine travels through time by surviving the test of time.

3.5
La máquina del tiempo fue una novela escrita por H.G Wells, uno de los padres de la ciencia ficción.

Esta obra marcó un antes y un después en nuestra cultura. Todas las películas, series, novelas que utilizan los viajes en el tiempo, todos tienen su origen en este relato de dieciséis capítulos y un epilogo.

Siendo sincera, yo hasta hace bien poco no sabía que el concepto de la máquina del tiempo era una novela y más de este señor. Si ya pensaba que vivía en mi mundo aparte, esto lo confirma.

Tenía una serie de expectativas en cuanto a la novela y me encontré con otras totalmente diferentes. Me pareció una historia un poco pesada al principio, no entendía nada cuando hablaban de física, pero al final estuvo interesante. No me arrepiento de haberla leído.

2019 re-read.

One of my favorites from HS (more than 30 years ago) this did not time travel as well as I remembered but still a good read and to consider his vision when writing (first published in 1895) this was steampunk before there was steampunk.

The dodgy old guys huddled up listening to the dusty time traveler relate his story was a popular vehicle back then (see Joseph Conrad) but still works well, even if the language is stilted and overly formal.

What I recall best and what still thrills are the Morlocks and of course my perception is skewed by the 2002 Simon Wells film starring Jeremy Irons as the Uber-Morlock. While the film divulged from HG Wells vision as far as the Morlocks are concerned, the idea that humanity splits after 800,000 years into the peaceful but dimwitted Eloi and the bestial and carnivorous under dwellers makes this far more entertaining than it would be otherwise.

Out of date and somewhat out of touch, this is still foundational SF and a must read for fans of the genre.