Four complete novels
(Book)

In The Time Machine the Time Traveler journeys to a futuristic environment and people. There he finds that humanity has evolved into two races: the peaceful Eloi--vegetarians who tire easily--and the carnivorous, predatory Morlocks; thus symbolizing the duality of human nature, as these turned upon each other in a primal display of horror. After narrowly escaping from the Morlocks, the Time Traveller undertakes another journey even further into the future where he finds the earth growing bitterly cold as the heat and energy of the sun wane. Horrified, he returns to the present, but soon departs again on his final journey. This science fiction classic raises profound questions about progress and social order.

Written in 1896, The Island of Dr. Moreau is one of the earliest scientific romances. An instant sensation, it was meant as a commentary on Darwin's theory of evolution, which H.G. Wells stoutly believed. The story centers on the depraved Dr. Moreau, a scientist expelled from his homeland for conducting unspeakable animal experiments. He finds a deserted island where he can create a race of pseudo-humans out of the animals he found living there. Edward Prendick, an English-man whose misfortunes bring him to the island, is witness to the Beast Folk's strange civilization. Initially they befriend him. But as the stress of the abuse they endure continues, he witnesses the terrifying result of their struggle between the animal instinct and man's facade of civility, until they regress back to their original nonhuman nature and worse. While gene-splicing and bioengineering are common practices today, readers are still astounded at Wells's haunting vision and the ethical questions he raised a century before our time. This is one of Well's earliest and most sinister personifications of the scientific quest to control and manipulate the natural world, and, ultimate, human nature itself.

In the Invisible Man, once a brilliant scientist, Griffin has been gradually consumed by his research. He theorizes that if a person's refractive index is changed to exactly that of air, and his body does not absorb or reflect light, then he will be invisible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but to his initial horror he cannot become visible again. He wants desperately to find the antidote, but a side effect of the drug is driving him insane until is he departs from any sense of humanity. He feels no remorse in using his invisibility to gratify his increasing desires. As he gradually loses his mind, it is hard to determine if it is a result of his chemical concoction, or a simple continuation of his moral decline. At a time when science fiction was depicting what wonders the future would bring, H.G. Wells was one the first writers to explore the dark side of science and portray how easily mortal man could be corrupted when tempted by seemingly unlimited power.

In the War of the Worlds a Martian spacecraft lands on Woking Common. They came from a depleted, dying planet seeking the riches of a moist, green Earth. Mankind is terrorised by aliens in tall, armoured capsules which stalk the countryside on three legs. With horrifyingly advanced machines of destruction, they began their inexorable conquest. They wreak havoc on London and the Southern Counties, and survivors are driven underground. Scientist John Nicholson tells how he was plunged into a paralyzing nightmare of stark terror, savage madness and utter destruction. Mankind is in the greatest danger in all its history. Can anyone-or anything-save our world?