I haven’t read HG Wells since I received a collection of his stories for my 16th birthday. Of course, what I mostly remembered was The Time Machine, and being fascinated by the Eloi and Morlocks but bored by the rest of it. This particular edition is an audio collection of 10 stories of various quality, including The Time Machine. I expected that my experience with TTM would be entirely different as an adult, but was surprised to find that once again, the section following the encounter with the Eloi and Morlocks was a snoozefest, this time with a little eyeroll over the giant crab things. The difference is that I felt a little sorry for the Morlocks this time around, rather than sharing the narrator’s visceral disgust. I was much more interested in the author’s theories regarding the evolutionary outcome of the current (late 1800s Britain) political, social, and economic climate. I wonder why it never occurred to him that the oppressed industrial workers would revolt and take over as the balance of power shifted with the ruling class becoming increasingly weak and ineffectual with indolence and soft living?

The remainder of the short stories were mostly entertaining. Standouts were The Country of the Blind, The Man Who Could Work Miracles, and The Flowering of the Strange Orchid. The Cone was satisfactorily gory.

Stories in this collection:
1. The Time Machine
2. The Country of the Blind
3. The Diamond Maker
4. The Man Who Could Work Miracles
5. Aepyornis Island
6. The Flowering of the Strange Orchid
7. The Cone
8. The Purple Pileus
9. The Truth About Pyecraft
10. The Door in the Wall

Audiobook, borrowed from my public library. This is the first time I’ve borrowed a book in the playaway format, and I didn’t like it. For one thing, I had to supply my own battery. For another, the rudimentary playing controls made navigating through the short stories somewhat difficult. And lastly, I’m just plain old spoiled by reading apps on my phone, and appalled by how quickly technology becomes obsolete. It wasn’t that long ago that we would have been delighted by an audio coming already loaded in a (sort of) portable digital format, rather than having to keep inserting the CDs into our heavy Sony Walkman/Discman.

Ralph Cosham provides a very good performance. His somehow old-fashioned stylings really fit the stories.
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Four tales comprise this collection, the first of which is the story for which H. G. Wells is most known, The Time Machine. The adventures of a time traveller who builds a machine that propels him 800,000 years into a future that appears utopian only—and quite literally—on the surface has been reprinted thousands of times and adapted into at least a half dozen films that I know of.

However, the other three stories in the collection were new to me: "The Empire of the Ants", "The Country of the Blind", and "The Man Who Could Work Miracles."

Of these, the first is forgettable, the second compelling, and the third entertaining. In "The Country of the Blind," we join professional mountain climber, Núñez, as he survives a fall from Parascotopetl in Ecuador only to discovers a hidden land occupied by a population of blind natives. Núñez learns that these people have been without sight for generations and somewhere along the way, lost all knowledge and belief in the world beyond their own village. Núñez recalls the old adage, "In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." He quickly learns just how wrong he is...

In "The Man Who Could Work Miracles," a nebbish clerk with the unlikely name of George McWhirter Fotheringay does not believe in miracles and is all too happily debating their impossibility in the Long Dragon pub when, to his utter astonishment, he performs a miracle by ordering an oil lamp to turn upside down and continue burning. This leads Fotheringay on a journey of escalating marvels that eventually leads to global consequences... ( )

De in deze bundel bijeengebrachte verhalen behoren voornamelijk tot het humoristische genre waarin H. G. Wells een meester is. Alleen het eerste – De tijdmachine (1895) – dat ook aanzienlijk langer is dan de andere is een fantastisch verhaal dat ons een blik in de verre toekomst schenkt, een voorloper van de tegenwoordige 'science fiction', vol vreemde situaties, schrik en stimulerende verbeelding. Dit is het genre dat Wells in zijn eerste periode zo bekend maakte. Maar ook in de andere verhalen, ofschoon reëler van opzet, is de fantasie geenszins afwezig. Het ene is een vernuftig verhaal van een inbraak op een kasteel, het andere een charmante schets van een mislukte verloving of van een afgewenteld faillissement. Er is er een bij over een toverwinkel, een andere over een geestverschijning op een herensociëteït. Deze verhalen boeiend en met humor geschreven.

What is there to say about classic sci fi? Some hits, some misses, social commentary, urging for personal introspection. Worth the read. Stories include:
The Time Machine
The Country of the Blind
The Diamond Maker
The Man Who Could Work Miracles
Aepyornis Island
The Strange Orchid
The Cone
The Purple Pileus
The Truth About Piecraft
The Door in the Wall ( )