Guardian Newspaper 1000 Novels discussion

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The Time Machine
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Time Machine, The - November 2020
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Darren
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Nov 04, 2020 04:15PM

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BTW: I was about to put out an APB on you--hadn't seen you around for a bit.


I've three or four other novels by Wells, but I think this one is my favorite. Most of the other books were easy for me to understand why they were groundbreaking, but it was hard to get into a state of enthusiasm about subjects that have been reworked so many times over the years (and usually worse).
This time, though, even despite the fact that time travel has to be one of the most used tropes in science-fiction, I felt that Well's treatment of it was really transcendent. I've seen both movies that were based on the book, and I still thought Wells was able to evoke some excitement and creepiness to the story I hadn't expected.
It was, at times, a little preachy--I forgive it. I thought the scenes at the end of time were extremely well done--what a sense of melancholy he evokes.
So--my dad bought me this boxed set of Wells books probably about 40 years ago. I'm finally reading this now, which makes me a bit of a time traveler too. (I've still got to read In the Days of the Comet and Food of the Gods.)