The definitive Time machine

a critical edition of H.G. Well's scientific romance Visions

by H. G. Wells

218 pages

English language

Published Aug. 14, 1987 by Indiana University Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-253-31611-0

(213 reviews)

The Time Traveller, 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.

209 editions

Lyteraria reviewed La máquina del tiempo by H. G. Wells (Clásico Sportula)

"La máquina del tiempo"

No rating

"La máquina del tiempo" es simplemente una joya de la ciencia ficción.

El ambiente victoriano de señores en un salón de fumar que hablan de ideas científicas y de su impacto en el mundo, mientras suenan el timbre para llamar a los criados, reproduce lo mejor de la literatura inglesa del sXIX.

Luego esa sociedad se extrapola hacia el futuro, hasta su desenlace natural donde una casta oligárquica es mantenida y cuidada por quienes fueron sus sirvientes, que los visten, los cuidan y los alimentan... como si fueran ganado y luego se los comen.

El análisis es tan lúcido que realmente fue un placer releerla después de tantos años

Leímos "La máquina del tiempo" en las edición número 53 de nuestro Club de #LecturaMastodontica

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Stephanie Jane reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

A Classic narrated by a Treasure!

4 stars

After a couple of duff book choices recently, I plumped for classic sci-fi next and a book I probably should have read twenty-five years ago. H G Wells' The Time Machine was one of the first pairing in this year's SYNC audio giveaway (www.audiobooksync.com). Not only free but also narrated by National Treasure Derek Jacobi - what more does a girl need! I believe The Time Machine was the first time travelling novel and, for a book written almost 120 years ago, it is surprisingly accessible in both its themes and its language. Perhaps the recent emergence of steampunk has attuned me to the style because I could vividly imagine every scene as it was being described to me. Jacobi does a fantastic job of the narration bringing everything from the dining table to the Morlocks alive. I find that I prefer old books on audio because I tend to read 'too fast' thereby sometimes missing out on detail. With audio, the book is revealed at the narrator's pace so is particularly rewarding for richly described stories such as this one. The Time Machine has dated but mostly nicely so. I loved that the artefacts most prized by the Time Traveller were matches, and pink hued clouds had nothing to do with data storage. There is, of course, rampant misogyny and plenty of that particularly English patronising of anyone from Elsewhere. Also I have no idea if any of the science is valid and I don't intend to find out. The magic of the story is enough in its own right and I'm glad I've finally caught up with the rest of the world in discovering H G Wells.

Anthony reviewed La machine à explorer le temps by H. G. Wells

La machine à explorer le temps

4 stars

Ce livre de Herbert George Wells est tellement ancré dans notre imaginaire collectif que je me demandais si je l'avais déjà lu. Le voyage dans le temps n'est guère différent de l'exploration géographique. Nous pourrions tout aussi bien partir à la découverte des Sélénites, sur la lune, comme nous le proposait (Savinien de) Cyrano de Bergerac, avec ainsi la possibilité de décaler un peu le regard sur notre propre société. Fin XIXe, le monde terrestre ayant été largement exploré, il est tentant pour l'écrivain d'élargir son horizon en permettant le voyage temporel. J'ai pour ma part préféré le début du roman, qui fait beaucoup penser à mes lectures de Jules Verne lorsque j'étais enfant. J'ai moins accroché avec la suite des aventures de l'explorateur.

Nuryta reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Fiction, Classics by H. G. Wells

Review of 'The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Fiction, Classics' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

El anhelo del hombre por viajar en el tiempo se ve reflejado en esta magnífica obra, que enmascara en la ciencia ficción una serie de reflexiones sobre política, economía, evolucionismo, ecologismo y en fin, la decadencia de la humanidad.

Un particular científico del siglo XIX ha creado una máquina que es capaz de viajar en el tiempo por lo que se lleva a sí mismo al año 802,701. Le es difícil entender a la gente pequeña que encuentra y empieza a plantear sus hipótesis, basado en sus conocimientos saca conclusiones sobre las posibles consecuencias para la humanidad, a través del tiempo, del capitalismo, el socialismo, la evolución darwiniana y más. Sin embargo, en la medida que va comprendiendo a sus anfitriones debe ir modificando sus conclusiones y su forma de actuar ante amigos y enemigos, que también los hay en el futuro.

Me llama la atención, que cuando H.G. Wells escribió esta obra no se imaginaba que 150 años después ya el hombre habría hecho tanto daño al planeta tierra que será bastante difícil llegar al 802.701 en las condiciones ambientales que él imaginó. En todo caso, los vaivenes de la política y la economía bien podrían evolucionar como lo plantea, solo que, en menos espacio temporal, en eso las cosas siguen sin variar demasiado.

Un clásico más cumplido a pleno gusto. Leído en diciembre de 2022.

Kelson Reads reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Thought-provoking speculation about the future of humanity

5 stars

Content warning Not sure why I'm putting a spoiler alert on a book that's more than a century old, but hey, you might not have seen either of the movies, and even if you did, they might not have made it clear what was going on with the Morlocks and Eloi.

I remember watching the 1960 movie of The Time Machine many times on TV when I was growing up. But somehow I never quite got around to reading the book until now.

It's a bit dry by modern standards, but the framing sequence does draw you in, and of course once he starts telling the story of his trip 800,000 years into the future, there's a wealth of speculation. The narrator self-conciously admits that he's drawing inferences on what's going on beyond what he sees, that the short week he had in that time isn't enough for him to be sure he really understands.

There's a bit of adventure, a bit of travelogue, a side trip to the last days of Earth before the expanding red giant sun swallows it up. But time travel isn't really the point. It's just the mechanism to comment on 19th century western society.

Eat the Rich:

The division between labor and capital, or working class and aristocracy, has become full-on speciation. Humanity has split into the beautiful, childlike, idle Eloi and the monstrous, brutal Morlocks who maintain the vast underground machines that provide the Eloi everything they need.

Ironically, the socialist Wells sets up his protagonist and his audience to have more in common with the Eloi than the Morlocks. The time traveler is upper class, has servants, and has the money and time to spend years tinkering with inventions. His friends gather for formal dinner parties, though they're mostly professionals rather than idlers. He pities the Eloi for their complete uselessness, identifies with them as they look more like today's humans, and of course has nothing to fear from them. The Morlocks look more monstrous to him, and you get the impression that even if they weren't attacking the Eloi at night and stealing the time machine, he'd still be horrified rather than pity their fate.

(Interesting side note: the description of the Morlocks in the book is awfully similar to the way Weta Digital designed Gollum. And yet Bilbo and Frodo both found it in their hearts to pity him.)

It's a cautionary tale of what happens when you treat whole classes as subhuman, and still insist that they do all the work for you.

hyperborea.org/reviews/books/time-machine/

ospalh reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Fiction, Classics by H. G. Wells

Review of 'The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Fiction, Classics' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Eh. What everibody else says. It’s a comment on Victorian class society.

But i think the Time Traveler was a bit of an idiot.
Starting out without supplies? Maybe
But climbing into an underground world where yu know there are scary creatures without a torch or lamp? Silly.

P.S.: Forget all the movies where the machine has a flat seat. It clearly has a saddle in the original.

Sankara reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Fiction, Classics by H. G. Wells

Review of 'The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Fiction, Classics' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

So far my least favorite in the collection. The whole story is written with a lot of surmise and conjecture projecting the society of Wells' era into the future which didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.

ManyRoads reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Fiction, Classics by H. G. Wells

Review of 'The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Fiction, Classics' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

It was election night 2020, I could not sleep; so, I re-read this novel with my cat nearby and purring like a motor boat. Of those 4 items, I enjoyed 'the big guy's' purring the most.

I had read this novel in some far away past; I had forgotten that earlier reading until last night. I didn't care for the story back in 'olden times'; it is still not a favorite. Although, it probably was better than watching the talking heads on election night. I suppose I should mention that HG Wells writing is quite good.

Zéro Janvier reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Review of "The Time Machine: H.G. Wells' Groundbreaking Time Travel Tale, Classic Science Fiction" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Après avoir [b:Vingt mille lieues sous les mers|355944|Vingt mille lieues sous les mers|Jules Verne|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1454514587l/355944.SY75.jpg|1112418] de Jules Vernes, j'ai enfin lu cet autre classique de la science-fiction, ou de la proto-SF pour les puristes.

Ce roman de H. G. Wells est bien connu, il introduit le voyage dans le temps et la figure du voyageur dans le temps.

Le récit est plaisant et interroge surtout sur la société du XIXe siècle, son évolution possible, et plus globalement sur l'avenir de l'humanité et de la planète.

C'est un court roman qui se lit facilement mais qui pour autant est certainement plus profond qu'une première approche pourrait le laisser penser. Un grand et excellent classique des prémisses de la science-fiction.

Marsha Woerner reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Review of 'The Time Machine' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

What an intriguing and pleasant trip down memory lane. "Why is it intriguing?" you may ask? I thought I read the book 10 or 15 years ago on top of having seen the movie when I was seven or eight – over 50 years ago, but I clearly do not have memories of the book! I think I just didn't read it :-(, it's so different from the movie and my memories from 50+ years ago! As is often the case, the movie is intrinsically different than the book, and my own belief is that the book is far better. Interactions between the narrator (the "time traveler"), and the residents of the year 8000+ are definitely not as simple in the book as in the movie, and the overall society is painted as being more complex in the end in the book. Actually, it's not that society overall is more …

greeny reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Fiction, Classics by H. G. Wells

Review of 'The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, Fiction, Classics' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A great science fiction novel from H. G. Wells. I really enjoyed reading it, especially the way he critices the social structure of the industrial age.

fallaciousreasoning reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (Illustrated Classics)

Review of 'The Time Machine' on 'GoodReads'

5 stars

Enjoyed it heaps more than war of the worlds

UncoveredMyths reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Review of 'The Time Machine' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A childhood favorite re-visited.

Is the story as good as I remember? – Yes

What ages would I recommend it too? – Ten and up.

Length? – Most of a day’s read.

Characters? – Memorable, several characters.

Setting? – Real world, alternate time.

Written approximately? – The reprinted 1980 edition.

Does the story leave questions in the readers mind? – Ready to read more.

Any issues the author (or a more recent publisher) should cover? No.

Short storyline: A male builds a time machine and travels to the future.

Notes for the reader: At the time this was originally written, males had no respect for women, and it shows. Also, interestingly, none of the original characters have a name, only an occupation. The time traveler has no name at all, only an underline in place of a name.

The Gnome King reviewed The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Review of "The Time Machine: H.G. Wells' Groundbreaking Time Travel Tale, Classic Science Fiction" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Read this ages ago and I expect this rating is more to do with the original movie than the book itself. I remember being terrified of the Morlocks. The book was pretty good from what I can remember, Wells is really good at describing the sciencey side of things in his books. The first book I read on time travel and probably the easiest to understand.