February 2021: H.G. Wells

ConversazioniMonthly Author Reads

Iscriviti a LibraryThing per pubblicare un messaggio.

February 2021: H.G. Wells

1sweetiegherkin
Modificato: Dic 20, 2020, 10:15 am

For February, we'll discuss the works of H.G. Wells.

For what it's worth, there are five titles by Wells on the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list:

The Time Machine
The Island of Dr. Moreau
The War of the Worlds
Tono-Bungay
The Invisible Man

What is everyone planning to read?

edited to fix touchstones

2sweetiegherkin
Dic 20, 2020, 10:17 am

I read The Time Machine years ago and will probably read one of the other 5 that are considered 'must reads' apparently.

Did we have a previous thread on H.G. Wells at some point?

3sweetiegherkin
Dic 20, 2020, 10:22 am

Ah, yes, we did discuss H.G. Wells back in October 2016, which is why I read The Time Machine at that time. http://www.librarything.com/topic/233450

4lilisin
Dic 21, 2020, 2:29 am

I can see myself joining in on this one. I've already read three of his books: The Island of Dr. Moreau about two years ago and then The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds this past year. I'd like to read The Time Machine next.

5BookConcierge
Dic 21, 2020, 10:25 am

Oh, I just finished The War Of the Worlds a month or so ago.

Had previously read The Time Machine and The Island Of Dr Moreau.

6sweetiegherkin
Dic 25, 2020, 4:59 pm

>4 lilisin:, >5 BookConcierge: Excellent, feel free to discuss the ones you already read as well.

7BookConcierge
Dic 28, 2020, 6:34 pm


The War Of the Worlds by H G Wells
Digital audiobook performed by Christopher Hurt
4****

Classic science-fiction horror. Residents of a small community outside London are puzzled and curious about the “meteor” that has landed in a nearby field. But it’s clearly a manufactured rather than a natural object. And they notice that there is an effort – from the inside – to open the vessel. Thus begins the horror that becomes an invasion from Mars.

I knew the basic premise going in. I knew about the Orson Welles’ radio broadcast that caused panic (despite an introduction advising that this was a dramatic reading of a work of fiction). But I’d never read the original.

The first-person narrative lends a sense of urgency and immediacy to the narrative. The reader feels completely immersed in the story. Wells includes significant tension; while there are a few moments of respite, I found it a very anxiety-producing read. I like that he leaves much to the reader’s imagination, which heightens the suspense.

Christopher Hurt did a fine job narrating the audio book. There’s something about that clipped British accent that just draws me in.

8sweetiegherkin
Dic 29, 2020, 6:57 pm

>7 BookConcierge: I might look for this audiobook version; it sounds good.

9sweetiegherkin
Feb 1, 2021, 8:04 pm

It's officially February! What is everyone reading?

10Yells
Feb 1, 2021, 9:17 pm

I might give Tono-Bongay a go. I’ve read the others on the 1001 list.

11dianelouise100
Feb 3, 2021, 12:20 pm

Just finished The Time Machine, an enjoyable and quick read, or listen, rather. I thought this might be just right for an audiobook, and so it was. The plot was entertaining and the setting in London many thousands of years into the future was adequate to the needs of plot. My first experience of H. G. Wells, and I was pleasantly surprised. Think I’ll finish out this month with more of Octavia Butler, though...

12Tara1Reads
Feb 3, 2021, 5:14 pm

I read my first H.G. Wells book last year and that was The Time Machine. I really enjoyed the book not so much the two movie versions.

For this month I plan to read The War of the Worlds since I have an unread copy on my shelf.

13lilisin
Feb 3, 2021, 6:58 pm

The Time Machine is the only book of Wells that I can't seem to find in bookstores here in Japan so I've ordered it online. Although I don't think it'll get here until the end of the month, since his books are so short I'm sure I'll get to it before the month is over.

In the meantime I'll definitely post my thoughts on the other books I've read by him. (Although not now as I have to get back to work.)

14Tara1Reads
Feb 8, 2021, 11:52 am

I have finished The War of the Worlds as my read for this month. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this book as much as I would have liked. I found much of the book boring and hard to get into. Most of the book was not keeping my attention.

I think H.G. Wells' decision to tell the story from the future looking back on the past hampered the story and killed almost all the suspense for the reader. Since the narrator is telling the story from the future looking back on the past, we already know he survives anything that is going to happen in the book. And same thing for the narrator telling us about his brother. We already know the brother survives or the brother never would have never been able to tell the narrator how he dealt with the Martian invasion since the narrator and his brother were not together throughout the story. So all we were left wondering was whether the wife and family members the narrator left behind survived and who won in the end the humans or the Martians? And I was not on the edge of my seat waiting to find out the answers to either of those questions. Too much of the book was taken up by scenery descriptions, the narrator moving from place to place in search of food and water, or the narrator being annoyed by the curate. The narrator was not focused on getting back to his wife and seeing if she was okay. The narrator barely mentions her for most of the book and at one point even says his focus is on his own immediate survival. He finally mentions his wife again at the very end of the book. So I wasn't too concerned for her throughout the book. And about 2/3 of the way through the book the narrator gives information that human scientists find out about the Martians later through dissection/autopsy. So that kills suspense about the humans versus Martians battle before we're even to the end of the book.H.G. Wells gave too much away when he didn't have to. He could have told the same story, in terms of events, but told it in present tense and I think that would have added to the suspense.

I also found the narrator's and the brother's stories incredibly unbelievable. It seems so unrealistic that the narrator and the brother, both, separately, would be able to survive the numerous close-calls they have with death either from the Martians, encounters with armed humans, or from lack of food and water.

I did like the very final ending though and it does seem realistic to me. I thought it was fitting that the Martians end up dying from their exposure to Earth's microorganisms. It makes sense that the Martians would not have any defenses to things they had not been exposed to before especially since they did not have immune systems or digestive systems that we humans have with colonies of microorganisms living inside us. It makes sense that exposure to novel microorganisms would be a concern with any interplanetary travel, but I hadn't thought about it before!

I'm sorry my review is so full of spoilers but it's difficult to express what I did not like about the book without going into the spoilery parts of the book.

>7 BookConcierge: It's crazy that we have such opposite opinions on the same book! That's what makes reading with others interesting.

15john257hopper
Feb 22, 2021, 11:18 am

I have posted a review of The Invisible Man in another thread (http://www.librarything.com/topic/327914#unread):

This is a re-read of one of the quartet of classic science fiction novels which propelled H G Wells to fame in the mid to late 1890s. For me, this is the least good of them, and is nowhere near as gripping or thought-provoking as The Time Machine, War of the Worlds or The Island of Dr Moreau. An unscrupulous scientist Griffin seeks to become invisible before realising the disadvantages and strives to hide from society and avoid exposure. Much of the novel is comedic and it is only when Griffin explains the science behind it and how it happened to a doctor, Kemp, and then decides to take revenge and unleash a reign of terror on the local town, that the action hots up and the final struggle is quite violent and dramatic. Despite some interesting reflections on the amorality of the potential application of some scientific ideas, this is not, for me, one of Wells's strongest novels.

16AnnieMod
Feb 22, 2021, 8:13 pm

I just posted a review of The Time Machine over in https://www.librarything.com/topic/327792#7431838 (and on the work page).

I thought I had read it before, I am not so sure anymore and I enjoyed it a lot. I may be able to squeeze one more novel this month. It is the first time travel novel and it actually does not sound dated (except for the science and technology - but even today there is a lot of that happening in novels - hand waving in the place of science is a valid trope). But that does not make the novel weaker - because as most good time travel stories, the time travel is the means to a goal and not the story itself.

17lilisin
Modificato: Mar 16, 2021, 4:23 am

I'm back as I finally wrote down my thoughts on The Time Machine.

I have now read four books by Wells and I would rank them as such (publication date in parantheses):
1) The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)
2) The Time Machine (1895)
3) The Invisible Man (1897)
4) The War of the Worlds (1898)

I've ranked this one high because I liked the return to the darkness that was in Moreau - return as in I read it after reading Moreau. This book is about exactly what the title states: a time traveler who has returned from his travels and tells of his nearly deadly adventure. He has managed to travel to the year 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a creature so advanced that it is no longer human, and no longer follows a society as we humans had established. The night that he gets to know the Eloi creatures, his time machine has been stolen and he must begin to search for it, upon which he stumbles upon the Morlocks; the creatures who fear the light and thus live underground. The Eloi seem to have only one fear and that is the Morlocks, which our time traveler has to figure out why.

I liked this one due to the darkness that lingered in this story. Our adventurer initially has fairly naive ideas about this new civilization and is quick to assume that we have finally managed to create a utopia. Only to discover that this society is actually divided still by class and there is a payment to be made if the Eloi are to live peacefully.

I also enjoyed his further travels 30 million years into the future where he witnesses the end of all living creatures. I found the traveler's reflections quite serene, in a way, despite the sadness that comes with the idea of the death of our planet.

In any case, I enjoyed this one. It's interesting, now that I've looked up the publication dates that his most famous works are also his first.