Read a selected few for uni - I enjoyed wells style of writing and think although his stories are fiction there are some messages within them that are still relevant in modern society.

As in any compilation, some stories are really good and some others really meh! Anyway Wells' creativity and inteligence is highly palpable in every single page I've read of his works, it doesn't matter if I ended liking them or not. A true sci-fi writter.


Me encantan las ideas Sci-Fi viejitas, entre más leo a los autores clásicos menos quiero leer a los nuevos. Y es que sus ideas mezclaban perfecto realidad y ciencia con ficción, al grado que no se leen ridículas o imposibles si no simplemente visionarias, cualidad que no todos los autores actuales poseen o que cambian por algo meramente ostentoso.

Lo que más disfrute de Wells este año y medio que leí mucho de su trabajo es precisamente eso, su visión tan única incluso en sus novelas que no me terminaban agradando mucho. En cada historia corta y en cada novela había algo que me impresionaba y definitivamente seguiré buscando sus demás trabajos.

Recomiendo mucho al autor para cualquier persona amante del género y de las largas descripciones.

Although most of hg's settings were either 19th century England or Brazil, he never failed in bringing vivid imagination to his stories.

"The Magic Shop" — 5/5 Twilight zone style fantasy would've been a great episode, influence several of them
"The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes" — 3/5 enjoyable SF weird tale.
"The Door in the Wall" — 5/5 one of the best stories ever. haunting nostalgia with a point.
"The Man Who Could Work Miracles" — 4/5 The only reason I can think this not a Twilight zone episode is because there was a movie about it already. It's got all the hallmarks of a good TZ episode.
"The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham" — 5/5 Another fun fantasy, though it is actually dark.
"The Diamond Maker" — 3/5 Not a lot to it but it's got enough to keep you thinking about it.
"Miss Winchelsea's Heart" — 3/5 complete change of pace from most stories other than the irony, it's pretty funny though, social mores humor.
"A Moonlight Fable" — 4/5 Short bittersweet
"The Red Room" — 4/5 nice ambiguous horror
"The Star" — 5/5 great ending, another one that had much influence on Twilight Zone
"The Land Ironclads" — 3/5 some decent moments but drags getting to the end.
"The Jilting of Jane" — 3/5 another parody of social mores of the time. witty.
"The Cone" — 3/5 Almost too straightforward though there is one point has a poetic justice to it.

A Dream of Armageddon -3/5 Another one about war that is bit too long for it's own good but it does the job and has so me good lines.
Sea raiders - 4/5 Very straightforward creature horror but action packed.
In the Avu Observatory - 3/5 simple but effective story
The Plattner Story - 3/5 Well this is the weirdest one. Kind of resonantes after watching The Good Place though.
The Stolen Bacillus -4/5 Science based thriller and irony
Aepyornis Island - 4/5 scientific based travel story, surprisingly bittersweet
The Purple Pileus - 3/5 Long drive to a clever ending
The Flowering of the Strange Orchid 3/5 predictable creature horror
The Moth - 4/5 Nice weird ironic story.
The Crystal Egg - 4/5 intriguing set up and weird follow up
The Triumphs of a Taxidermist - 2/5 seems like really nothing piece. I had to actually research it a bit to figure out where this came from. figuring that out was half the enjoyment.
the obliterated Man - 2/5 it's not bad just half-formed. it's just a dead simple idea without anything else.
The Inexperienced Ghost - 2/5 unique idea but predictable ending
Next:
The Stolen Body
The Argonauts of the Air
The Treasure in the Forest
A Slip Under the Microscope
The Temptation of Harringay
The Reconciliation
The Catastrophe
The Truth About Pyecraft
Mr Skelmersdale in Fairyland
Mr Brisher's Treasure
The New Accelerator
In the Modern Vein-An Unsympathetic Love Story'
Under the Knife

This was part of my GSE O Level syllabus in my first year of college age 16. Enjoyed the short stories very much so much so I read them all again afterwards.

I read selected stories in here. His ability to see the future is worth the price of admission. Many stories are dated and lose savor. He is prolific like King and often not much better. I enjoy both men.

I read the story "The Star" it is about Neptune and was really good.

I knew that H.G. Wells had an excellent imagination from his novels, but the short story is truly a much more expressive location for his thoughts. The stories range from mere anecdotes to novelas, with a vast array of subjects: science fiction, history, romance... basically anything you can think of. And the few duds in here are completely smothered by the many great stories. There is a definite improvement in writing style over the course of Wells' career, and there are extremely diverse shifts between tones from one story to the next. At almost 1000 pages, there's enough in here for anyone, even if you want to plow straight through it or you would rather pick and choose.

BoB: 82 W
Bestilt 2014-01-31

Wow! I wouldn't even know where to start with a review, since I could say something about each story, and this review would go on for days...I read The Time Machine and War of the Worlds awhile ago, and never knew H.G. Wells wrote short stories until I happened upon them. After reading a few of them, I was greatly impressed, and look where that got me...900 and some pages later! I adore H.G. Wells and he now ranks among my favorite authors. His stories are bizarre but don't always touch on the macabre. They are interesting as far as comparing his visions of the future to that future which is now my present. It's amazing to see how much he got right. Reading the Complete Short Story Omnibus was as delightfully episodic as reading The Arabian Nights or Alice in Wonderland, or some other such collection of diverting and adventurous quests.

First published in 1927, 'HG Wells Complete Short Stories' contains 63 stories, mostly quite short but also including some novellas including the well-known 'The Time Machine' and the less well-known 'A Story of the Days to Come'. The title is misleading - this is nowhere near all of the authors short stories, but they are very good, barring a couple of duds. My copy is the 1970 21st edition, and contains five collections of short stories plus five other stories. The stories are products of their time, so you must expect numerous instances of casual racism, sexism and crazy science. A terrific snapshot of fiction from another age.

A surprisingly varied collection, this. There’s some very good comedy and horror, some nicely allusive fables and some decent speculative fiction. Of course there are stories that are not to my taste – I don’t, as a rule, enjoy a pre-historic setting and Wells’ efforts here seem particularly plodding and didactic – but the proportion of good to bad is unusually high.

When it comes to Wells’ science fiction it has to be said he’s a very good and very bad prophet. Nothing dates faster than the future and on a technical level he’s pretty dreadful. Even when he gets the drift of technological progress broadly right, the details are badly off. That’s a natural consequence of extrapolating from Victorian/Edwardian science. Worst: he sometimes lets the dry description of a cool piece of tech obliterate his plot. This is not uncommon in science fiction but does lead to what C. S. Lewis rather sniffily described as engineer’s science fiction.

On the other hand, if treating him as Mystic Meg is a hiding to nothing, it’s worth considering some of his stories as a warning of what might happen. Just as Orwell’s 1984 tells us more about the preoccupations of the mid-twentieth century than the late, Wells’ future says more about the late Victorian world (and the Fabian Society) than it does about the far future. He looks at the consequences of unrestrained capitalism and pushes those to a logical extreme. On a social level where he’s wrong he is at least interestingly wrong, particularly when he remembers he’s writing story rather than essay.

I’m going to rate this as a three because I had to drag myself through some of it, but if I could tear a few pages out it would have a much higher rating.