The Time Machine (1895)

H.G. Wells published this long story—a novella by the technical rules, but many call it a novel—when he was still in his 20s. It’s widely considered his first, based on a story he published in a college newspaper. The Time Machine was serialized, cut off about three-quarters through, and finished later. It's a very early fix-up novel, in a way. It gets credit for launching the time travel branch of science fiction. Many dabbling in the concept still use the term “time machine.” I read it when I was a kid and found the first half thrilling and then got bored with it. Coming back to it more recently I saw how little it actually involves any of the knotty speculative paradoxes more associated with time travel now. It’s an excuse for a moderately interesting fantasy story or allegory based on projecting the specter of class divisions forward. Once our time traveler leaves for points unknown in his machine—I imagine it looking like Fred Flintstone’s car for some reason—he travels a mind-blowing 800,000 years into the future. That’s a long time! It’s amazing anything is recognizable. Even Earth itself would likely have changed radically. That’s where (when?) most of the story takes place, with conflicts (Wells would have us believe) between an aboveground race descended from effete elites and an underground race descended from workers that are notably monstrous. This is from a writer with well-known socialist sympathies. Apparently it’s what society made them into eons on. Later, in the finish that was delayed, the time traveler travels 30 million years into the future to make a significant contribution to the always intriguing “dying earth” subgenre of science fiction. By using such stark geological time spans this way, Wells sidestepped the burden of prediction (seen in utopian and dystopian tales as well as time travel), except in the most general sense, i.e., there will always be class divisions. Most of the problems in this still highly entertaining story are a function now of its century-plus age. H.G. Wells is already an engaging writer, fun to read and full of surprises. I read at least one more by him when I was a kid, War of the Worlds, also worth a look. And I have some ideas of getting to a few more, which I seem to often find enthusiastically touted on booktube (The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau, etc.). Fun project if I can get to it.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.