Synopses & Reviews
Ive had a most amazing time....”
So begins the Time Travellers astonishing firsthand account of his journey eight hundred thousand years beyond his own eraand the story that launched H. G. Wellss successful career and earned him the reputation as the father of science fiction. With a speculative leap that still fires the imagination, Wells sends his brave explorer to face a future burdened with our greatest hopes...and our darkest fears. A pull of the Time Machines lever propels him to the age of a slowly dying Earth. There he discovers two bizarre racesthe ethereal Eloi and the subterranean Morlockswho not only symbolize the duality of human nature, but offer a terrifying portrait of tomorrow as well.
Published in 1895, this masterpiece of invention captivated readers on the threshold of a new century. Thanks to Wellss expert storytelling and provocative insight, The Time Machine will continue to enthrall readers for generations to come.
With an Introduction by Greg Bear
and a New Afterword
Synopsis
The ultimate science fiction classic
For more than one hundred years this compelling tale of the Martian invasion of Earth has enthralled readers with a combination of imagination and incisive commentary on the imbalance of power that continues to be relevant today
About the Author
Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, England, on September 21, 1866. His father was a professional cricketer and sometime shopkeeper, his mother a former ladys maid. Although Bertie” left school at fourteen to become a drapers apprentice (a life he detested), he later won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London, where he studied with the famous Thomas Henry Huxley. He began to sell articles and short stories regularly in 1893. In 1895, his immediately successful novel
The Time Machine rescued him from a life of penury on a schoolteachers salary. His other scientific romances”
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896),
The Invisible Man (1897),
The War of the Worlds (1898),
The First Men in the Moon (1901), and
The War in the Air (1908)won him distinction as the father of science fiction. Henry James saw in Wells the most gifted writer of the age, but Wells, having coined the phrase the war that will end war” to describe World War I, became increasingly disillusioned and focused his attention on educating mankind with his bestselling
Outline of History (1920) and his later utopian works. Living until 1946, Wells witnessed a world more terrible than any of his imaginative visions, and he bitterly observed: Reality has taken a leaf from my book and set itself to supercede me.”
Greg Bears novels and stories have appeared in more than twenty languages worldwide and have won numerous prizes, including two Hugos, five Nebulas, and the Prix Apollo. His novels include Darwins Radio (winner of the Nebula and Endeavor awards), Darwins Children, Vitals, Blood Music, Eon, Queen of Angels, and Moving Mars. He has served as a consultant and a lecturer on space and defense policy, biotechnology and bioterrorism, multimedia entertainment, and Internet issues.