This Wells collection looks really nice. (It does not look like the picture on this page.)

A nice and very inexpensive package of five classic sci-fi novels. One could also call it cheap, it's definitively lo-fi printing and binding, but it does its job. As to the content, I had my problems with H.G.'s style. He is essentially a 19th century man, with the usual optimism and belief in technology to solve humanity's problems (which I don't share). Although he is, indeed, critical, he nonetheless believes.

But my biggest gripe is his slow and pompous Victorian style. Again, it's not as bad as other authors, and he nearly always has wonderful passages; but I always had to fight myself through the novels, though they aren't even that long.

Though some of the sci-fi stuff is comically outdated (I don't blame him), all the novels are really interesting from a philosophical standpoint, and they do formulate essential human problems.

All in all, I can recommend it to friends of both philosophical and classic sci-fi; but I think the mainstream sci-fi geek will find this a bit dry and slow.

Favourite stories: The Island of Doctor Moreau (1895) and The War of the Worlds (1898); the latter's great rock opera version was my personal introduction to Wells, some 30 years ago. Gee, my style probably will also seem slow and pompous to the hip noughters of today.