The Science Fiction Novel - Herbert George (H.G.) Wells

H. G. Wells

In my previous posts on this topic, I took a look at Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Today I look at the man who is often called 'the father of Science Fiction'.

H.G. Wells was an English writer, born in Bromley, Kent in 1866 and died in London in 1946. He was a prolific writer and wrote in many genres; novels, short stories, social commentary, history, biography, etc. He was a futurist who saw the advent of tanks, aircraft, space travel, etc. He imagined alien invasion, time travel, genetic manipulation, invisibility. His most notable science fiction works were -

- The Time Machine (1895)
- The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)
- The Invisible Man (1897)
- The War of the Worlds (1898), one of my all-time favorite Sci-Fi novels. I've read many times.

In 1907, he wrote an interesting military Sci-Fi novel, The War in the Air. I've read all of the above novels, as mentioned I've enjoyed The War of the Worlds many times. One of the interesting aspects of his works, and it's something I've found in many of the British Sci-Fi authors I've enjoyed, is the mixing of the common place with the extraordinary in his stories. Martians are invading but are surrounded by the normal ongoing life in England as these events occur. I look at authors like John Wyndham and Nevil Shute for a similar type writing style.

My reviews for the above books (or at least their synopsis) are below.

The Time Machine.

"I'd never actually read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (until now of course, that being 2017). I have seen the movie version starring Rod Taylor and remember enjoying. This was Wells's first novel, written in 1895 and was very successful. It's an interesting tale and told in an interesting manner. Wells doesn't waste time naming his characters; they are The Time Traveller, the Medical Man, the Psychologist.. There is a narrator, the first person 'I'.

The Time Traveller tells his story to his dinner companions, the first night showing them a trial time travelling prototype that he sends away. They don't know what to make of it. When they show up the next week for the next dinner, he is not there, but shows up while they are eating dinner. He is bedraggled, exhausted, starving. He cleans up and joins them for dinner and then later, while they are relaxing after dinner, tells them the story of his travels. It is very much like the movie, with the addition of Wells's view of humanity. He feels the people who live on top, the Eloi, are the Elite from the past generations grown soft and childlike, while the Morlocks, those who live below, were originally the workers of the world, those who were there to care for the Elite.

The story moves along very quickly, is a relatively short story and ends tragically for some. The Traveller moves to the end of time, a depressing part of the book and then returns to tell his story. The epilogue can be either sad or not, depending where the Traveller goes.

Very interesting classic. 3.5 points."

The Invisible Man.

"I reviewed The Time Machine separately. This review covers only The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. While I enjoyed both stories, I preferred The Invisible Man. It was definitely a more exciting story and moved along at almost a breakneck pace.

It follows a stranger who shows up at the small English town of Iping. He is masked with bandages, wears heavy clothing to cover his body and when he arrives at a local inn, demands and receives quarters and the private use of a lounge. He is brusque and rude and demanding and upsets and intrigues the locals who contrive to find out more about him.

His luggage arrives the next day and contains experimental equipment and scientific books. He hides in the lounge for days and avoids any efforts to discover more about him, even his name. Strange things begin to occur, such as a break in at the Vicarage, where the vicar and his wife see furniture moving about, strange voices and yet, no person. Money is stolen and back at the inn, there are further strange happenings.

As things begin to escalate, the invisible man is 'revealed', so to speak and the town and people are upturned. It's all described very well and with, at times, slapstick humour and also full on action. The story moves along very brusquely with the action turning violent and quite scary.

I won't describe anymore as I'd hate to ruin the ending. I'd never read this before and only recently seen part of the original movie, which is fairly faithful to the book. Well worth reading, a classic of the Science Fiction genre. (4 stars)"

The Island of Doctor Moreau.











"A shipwreck in the South Seas, a palmy paradise where a mad doctor conducts vile experiments, animals that become human & then "beastly" in ways they never were before - -it's the stuff of high adventure. It's also a parable about Darwinian theory, a social satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels & a bloody tale of horror.

As Wells himself wrote: "The Island of Dr. Moreau is an exercise in youthful blasphemy. Now & then, tho I rarely admit it, the universe projects itself towards me in a hideous grimace. It grimaced that time, & I did my best to express my vision of the aimless torture in creation." (4 stars)

The War of the Worlds.











"With H.G. Wells’ other novels, The War of the Worlds was one of the first and greatest works of science fiction ever to be written. Even long before man had learned to fly, H.G. Wells wrote this story of the Martian attack on England. These unearthly creatures arrive in huge cylinders, from which they escape as soon as the metal is cool. The first falls near Woking and is regarded as a curiosity rather than a danger until the Martians climb out of it and kill many of the gaping crowd with a Heat-Ray. These unearthly creatures have heads four feet in diameter and colossal round bodies, and by manipulating two terrifying machines – the Handling Machine and the Fighting Machine – they are as versatile as humans and at the same time insuperable. They cause boundless destruction. The inhabitants of the Earth are powerless against them, and it looks as if the end of the World has come. But there is one factor which the Martians, in spite of their superior intelligence, have not reckoned on. It is this which brings about a miraculous conclusion to this famous work of the imagination." (5 stars) 

As I mentioned previously, The War of the Worlds has long been one of my favorite novels. The simplicity of the story told combined with the amazing events makes it even more interesting. The book has been turned into movies, in my mind, mostly disappointing. I will say that of the two I've enjoyed, the early pulp Sci-Fi American version set in California the most. When I heard that Stephen Spielberg was involved in the more recent version starring Tom Cruise, I had high hopes for it. I felt that Spielberg would be more of a traditionalist and be loyal to the original story. Nope. All in all it was just another Tom Cruise action movie and very disappointing. Jeff Wayne also produced an album based on the book in a similar vein to Rick Wakeman's album about Journey to the Center of the Earth. It featured readings from various chapters of the book and great orchestral music. Having Richard Burton as the narrator didn't hinder it at all.

The War in the Air.











"At the beginning of the twentieth century the invention of the airplane revolutionizes warfare and precipitates a devastating world war. Nations race to build armadas of airships; cities across the globe are bombed; flying navies clash above the Alps and India. The United States is invaded from the east and the west. German and American airships duel over the Atlantic, and New York is bombarded by German flying machines. Confederation of Eastern Asia airships soar above the Rockies, soon engaging in deadly dogfights with the German air fleet above Niagara Falls.  In The War in the Air, the astonishingly prophetic vision of H. G. Wells reveals how one invention can change the world. Before the World Wars, Wells predicted that airplanes would be used for bombing, that urban areas would become especially vulnerable to aerial attacks, that dogfights and stealth attacks by air fleets would become a normal part of warfare, and that distance and the expanse of oceans no longer would be guarantors of safety for America or other countries. Visionary in its time and chillingly relevant a century later, The War in the Air continues to remind us that humankind's greatest evil lies in devices of its own making." (3 stars)

All of Wells' books have been made into movies and usually more than once. As one of the originators of the genre, he has had a tremendous influence on those who followed. He is well worth exploring. Some might find the stories somewhat boring, or lacking in action, but the imagination and ideas he presents make them well worth reading.

So who do I look at next?