I like to read literary classics every now and then but recently, I’ve been somewhat hindered by Project Gutenberg completely blocking German visitors after a German court has ruled that they must not make certain works available in Germany. Shame on the S. Fisher publishing house and I will certainly never buy anything from them again.
In any case, there are ways around the embargo, so when a short vacation came up, I made good use of the platform and downloaded a couple of books, including H. G. Wells’s ‘The Time Machine’.
I remember watching the 1960’s movie but couldn’t quite remember the storyline anymore. The book is around 120 pages long, perfect for a short vacation with little time to read longer volumes. If you are interested in the plot, head over to Wikipedia where you can also find more information on the background of this fantastic novel, written back in 1895.
From a historical point of view I found it quite interesting that Wells mentioned Kodak photography so it must have already existed back then. A quick look again on Wikipedia confirms that Kodak was founded in 1888, i.e. not too many years before the book was written. Looks like the company must have been an immediate success.
A wonderfully written book, highly recommended if you want to delve into science fiction for an afternoon or two!
The great thing about Wells is that almost all of his books are science fiction, with fiction emphasized. It is almost certain that we can never build a time machine that goes back in time which breaks causality (though it is theoretically possible to travel to future). Invisible man is another one worth to read on a vacation.