The Time Machine: Then and Now
It's been about fifteen years since I first read The Time Machine . It was so unlike anything I'd read before. Afterwards, I even wrote my own time-travelling story, which was more like fan-fiction than anything else. I don't often reread books, but as I build my H. G. Wells collection, I figured I'd reread each book and see how it held up over time. (No pun intended!) The Time Machine was the first book by Wells I'd read and seemed like a natural starting point. The story begins in Victorian England. A group of friends - a doctor, a journalist, a psychologist, and others - gather at the Time Traveller's house for their customary meal and conversation. The Time Traveller at this stage has just created a model of his machine which he says he can build at full-scale and use to travel through time. The demonstration leaves his guests skeptical, but not long after that, the Time Traveller shows up to one of his own dinners, bedraggled and te...