The Time Machine - H. G. Wells

Before you read:

I thought I’d start with abook well known and part of the beginning of the Sci-Fi and Fantasy scene. Thisbook moves fairly slowly as most books of its era, but it is well worth the wait. H. G Wells infuses his story with beautiful scenery and an intriguing mystery. It is a story about a man who builds a time machine and travels to 802,701 A.D. where he comes across the Eloi and the Morlocks, the beings that inhabit future earth. The man, who is referred to as the Time Traveler, ends uplosing his time machine and has to fight to get it back. One of the reasons I love this book is because contrary to popular time travel books and movies, the main character’s purpose is not to change the past or use the future to make himself rich or well off; his is an innocent exploration of scientific inquiry. I also love this book because it makes me think and challenges my own idea of the future.

After you read (SPOILER ALERT!): 

It blows my mind to thinkthat when this book was written, nothing like it had ever been written before.  While I was reading it, I imagined the time machine to be just like the collectable time machine that the guys on the TV show Big Bang Theory bought and shared. Come to find out it was actually a portrayal of the time machine I was reading about. After I finished reading the book, I went back and watched the episode of Big Bang Theory and found it five times funnier when Sheldon was dreaming while asleep in the time machine and the white apes with glowing eyes wearing jumpsuits labeling them as “Hungry Morlocks” attacked him.

The difference between the two races, The Eloi and Morlocks, is interesting. In our society now days I have a hard time imagining that humans would ever separate out into two verydifferent races, but after a bit of thought I realized that when this book was written (1895) the classes were much more separated, so it was much easier to conceive a world where they had grown so far apart. I find it a bit horrifying that the Morlocks feed and take care of the Eloi just to eat them later, but I suppose that is what humans do right now so . . . .

I wasa bit frustrated when the Time Traveler loses Weena, I hate when an innocent character dies, but I guess it gives the story more depth and evokes emotion so I suppose it was necessary to make the story as good as it is.