SF Review: The Time Machine is still today a worthy classic, combining an exciting action-hero adventure story with a basketful of ideas deserving of a couple pots of coffee or bottles of wine (depending on your bent). This was Wells' debut novel, more a novella, in which he invented the term "time machine," predating the TARDIS by 70 years. The writing reminded of Arthur Conan Doyle, similarly somewhat stiffly presented but still a quick and easy read for the Indiana Jones moments (our hero armed only with a box of matches). Even more intriguing in The Time Machine is the battle of ideas Wells presents through our adventurer, who is fallible and very human as he explores a world in which humanity may be no more. As with much of the best SF Wells adds a philosophical substrate to his fantasy, one such level being that he finds the battle between capital and labor still on-going and taken to an imaginative extreme, a warning for our future. Footage of the classic (if cheesy) 1960 movie with Yvette Mimieux and Rod Taylor kept playing in my mind while reading, both being entertaining and enjoyable. The Penguin book version is nicely annotated and helpful since I'm not a turn of the century Briton and didn't know what "plough you for the Little-go" or "eke out his modest income with a crossing" meant. The Time Machine is concise, to the point, and rewarding in every way. [5★]
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