So far I've read "The Time Machine," "War of the Worlds," and "First Men in the Moon." I'll finish the other stories at a later date.

Big time investment but worth it.

War of the Worlds - quintessential science fiction, one of the defining novels of the genre in the 19th century. [5/5]

Time Machine - another absolute classic with imaginative speculation about the future and sophisticated thought into future societal structures. [5/5]

Invisible Man - More of a social novel yet fantastic. [4.5/5]

Island of Dr. Moreau - intriguing story with a great twist and plenty of fodder for bioethical debate. [4.7/5]

First Men in the Moon - I like pre-1969 books about the Moon. This one is imaginative both in the device of transport and the flora/fauna of the moon. [4.0/5]

Food of the Gods - This one is pretty lame and suffers from Wells's failure to account for the mass square law. The social commentary was mediocre and the engineer was the best character. [3.0/5]

Days of the Comet - comet hits earth and turns it into a socialist paradise. The book kept building up "the Change" but ended up being anticlimactic. Well developed characters, though. [3.3/5]

Composite Score: 4.2/5

I'm actually reading the 1934 edition (first US printing) of this collection, set in a rather unusual two-column format. I don't know that I will read all seven stories, but classic Sci-fi just felt right for the first read of the summer. And it has been whispering to me from the shelf by the pool table triangle for so long now. Every evening when Chris and I play our usual cocktail hour best of three, it beckons me with its heft, its rough faded green binding and smoooooth tissue thin pages, its promise of "old book" smell. I could no longer resist its siren call.

(sorry, could not figure out how to work in sense of taste without going really overboard).

First up, The Time Machine. 5 stars.
I have a vague sense of the plot of this story from a movie I must have seen years ago. And of course, the movie must have been quite different, so a corner of my mind was always struggling with these half formed contradictions. But that is not the fault of the original, so full 5 stars!

Actually, I found the plot of the story to be the secondary element. More interesting was the Time Traveller's evolving hypotheses on the world that greeted him in the year 802,701. His 1890s understanding of humanity had to be dismantled element by element before he could accurately grasp this future world. As a true scientist, he embraced each new understanding as it came, and would chastise himself each time a bias would slip into his theories. The Time Traveller was likeable and believable.

HG Wells' future vision was handled with a light touch. Although descriptive passages were needed to set the scene, this did not feel like a lecture or dissertation like many utopian / dystopian stories can. Wells created enough surprises and interesting but believable twists to make it feel like a truly new world, without getting carried away. The Time Traveller remained the focus of the story, as he should. Good Sci Fi isn't about the the science. Like all good fiction, it's still about the person.

I'm up for another ... The Island of Dr Moreau, perhaps?

The Island of Dr. Moreau. 5 stars
Started a little slow, but then it picked up nicely. If you rewrote Dr. Moreau as a gene-splicer rather than a vivisectionist, you would have a current day plot with current event topicality.

The theme, again, is really about humanity. The line between human and beast is a little blurrier and a lot thinner than we may think ...

So, was Dr. Moreau the original mad scientist living on a deserted island with a volcano at its center, and with an odd, lisping assistant? It's funny when something is SUCH a cliche that even the (possibly) original upon which all others are based makes you roll your eyes. Someone had to be the first...

I am skipping The Invisible Man. 3 stars. I read it awhile ago. I recall the main character did entirely too much yelling and crashing about.

But, War of the Worlds? can't pass up that one ...

Wow. War of the Worlds Can I give 6 stars? That was so interesting to read from the perspective of a jumping-off point in literature. It seems all alien invasion stories are in some fashion derivative of this story. So well thought out, so believable in every phase of people's reaction to the invasion, so many interesting tidbits (like the incidental invasive red weed). And then on top of it, it was simply a really great story! A really great story. He even had his narrator suffer from PTSD. The only downside was that I might have understood a little better if I had a better understanding of the geography of the greater London area.

I think that's enough HG Wells for now. I fear I will be disappointed by any other story.

So my understanding is that this edition of this collection is out of print and because of that most people are selling it for about $100. I just found it from someone on Ebay for $34. They made a huge mistake or were just very nice. I don't care which.

A great collection of classic science fiction written by HG Wells and put together in a B&N Leather* bound edition. The seven included stories are, The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon, The Food of the Gods and In the Days of the Comet. Many of these have been made into movies (and subsequently remakes of those movies and in a few cases remakes of the remakes of the remakes – real original Hollywood).

The cover seems a bit cheesy to me, but you know what they say about books and covers, right? If you don’t like it, open it up and read the words inside. The stories are very well written and incredibly interesting and entertaining, but as with all classics the wording and technology portrayed will seem a little dated to some readers.

The Time Machine is a story about a scientist who invents a time machine to save the love of his life and comes to the realization that some things happen for a reason and some things cannot change or be undone no matter how hard you try.

The Island of Doctor Moreau is an incredibly gripping story about genetic engineering

The Invisible Man is of course about a man who becomes invisible and suffers a bit of insanity

A very well put together collection and worth grabbing a copy for your book shelf, even if the cover looks a bit like something from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Five stars all around for this book, mainly for the re-readability factor.

All 7 books are good in their own way. Obviously, the first 4 are more popular than the last 3 for a reason, but all are interesting stories that show that Wells was ahead of his time in many facets of thinking.

It may have been the late hour I paused in the middle of The Time Machine, flipping back to the preface of this anthology, but the book quickly gained value to me after reading that introduction. In it H.G. Wells observes the selections, suggesting they be read out of their chronological order. I encountered his wit and charm in what felt a very honest and personable account of his writings and their place in time, carrying that prescience by commentary so reputed in his novels. I instantly wished I had met the man.

[Originally posted to Amazon review, August 4, 2004.]

Chosen as school prize in 1978. Loved these stories, though found Moreau rather unsettling, I recall!

test

All in one. The seven best novels from the master of 19c sci fi. Read them to appreciate his genius in predicting the future and how man raised to its challenges. Always good to read again especially The Invisible Man which has been portrayed in movies as humourous and sometimes otherwise when in fact the man was selfish and tortured.

Bought the book to read "Food of the Gods". It's very different from how I remember it from reading it in the Seventies. Their is almost no real science fiction. It's all politics and social strife that comes from science that is more like magical fantasy. So it was a bit disappointing.
Not only that. But it was disheartening to find out that Books-A-Million does not in fact have a million books. Nor do they keep classics like the books of H.G. Wells or Jules Verne in stock. And, even worse, the staff of the bookstore do not stock shelves in anything like alphabetical order. It took a divining rod to find even one book by H.G. Wells. You would think that "Wells" would be among the "W"'s, wouldn't you? It was somewhere near the "L"'s. Oy vey . . .