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Title: First Men in the Moon (Everyman Paperback Classics) by H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke ISBN: 0-460-87304-0 Publisher: Everymans Library Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Memorable Adventure with Surprising Underpinnings
Comment: Born in Victorian England, H.G. Wells had very strong ideas about the advantages and disadvantages of a society built on fixed social classes and endless imperialism--and these ideas would inform virtually everything he wrote over his long and distinguished career. Even in the handful of science fiction novels for which he is chiefly recalled today, Wells would return to these issues again, combining them with then-emerging scientific concepts to remarkably provocative effect.
In some respects THE FIRST MEN ON THE MOON is likely his most accessible novel to modern readers, for it is lighter in tone than such Wells novels as THE TIME MACHINE and THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, and it reads like an exceptionally well-written pulp adventure of the era. But the underpinnings are the same: class, conquest, and--as in THE WAR OF THE WORLDS--Darwin's controversial theories on natural selection and evolution.
In this novel Wells relies significantly on fantasy, presenting us with Professor Cavor, an eccentric (and quite comical) scientist determined to create a substance that is "opaque" to gravity, what we would today call an antigravity material. Cavor is interested in the work for the sake of knowledge pure and simple, but bankrupt businessman Bedford realizes the commercial implications and attaches himself to the project--and when the material is perfected the two men create a sphere that launches them to the moon!
If this is clearly the stuff of fantasy (Jules Verne sneered at it), what the two men find on the moon is not, or at least was not considered so at the time. In 1901 little was known about the moon, and many notable scientists thought it might hold life. Upon their arrival, Cavor and Bedford find an atmosphere of sorts, a host of strange plants, and ultimately an insect-like race of beings that reside inside the moon itself, beings who practice forced evolution upon their own kind in order to create a rigid, hive-like social structure.
As the nature of the "Selenite" society reflects Victorian concepts of fixed social classes taken to a logical and unpleasant extreme, so do the two humans reflect opposing points of sociopolitical view. Cavor is clearly an instrument of science, less interested in practicalities than in knowledge for its own sake--a point of view that Wells seems to hold in considerable sympathy. But for all this, Cavor is ineffectual; he must rely on Bedford's smash-and-grab imperialistic temperament to see them through. As in many Wells novels, the resulting clash of ideology is stalemate: both extremes need each other, but they are incapable of building compromise and neither is able to overcome the other to reach an outcome that will be satisfactory to any one concerned.
All of this sounds terribly dry and dusty, but the book itself isn't. THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON is a remarkably lively novel, a fast-paced quick read that will appeal greatly to most readers as it balances its philosphical questions with great chunks of pulse-pounding adventure. And even though we know that Wells was off the mark re lunar atmosphere, flora, and fauna, it is easy to suspend our disbelief to enjoy the ride. Recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Rating: 5
Summary: Two men left for the moon...but only one will come back...
Comment: Cavor, a genius, invents a material that allows him to build a Gravity-Defying Sphere. Soon he and a young, and very greedy, businessman use it to go to the moon. They find not only life, but the Selenites, a culture who can change their shape to fit their jobs. In other words, form is designed for the function of their class or in this case their caste. Over them rules the Grand Lunar, a being whose large brain gives him awesome power and foresight beyond even the businessman who tells us the story. Both characters show their human merits and their very human flaws. Not science fiction as much as a book on society.
Rating: 5
Summary: Rousing adventure & thoughtful allegory
Comment: A British scientist and his neighbor travel to the Moon, where they run afoul of the local Selenites and find themselves on the run for their lives. Wells does an exceptional job of extrapolation on the science of his day. The lunar ecology is fascinating and poetic: each sundown all the plant life dies and the air falls to the ground like snow. Wells betrays his interest in class once again: the Selenites have a society based on that of social insects, with each member possessing specializations necessary to its function, an idea that was no doubt fresher then than it is now.
The first part of this novel is a rousing adventure, as Wells makes imaginative use of the fact that the Earthlings are virtual supermen in the 1/6 gravity of the Moon. No doubt this novel was greatly influential to later adventure writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs. The second part is more thoughtful and subtle, yet perhaps more horrifying, as a man alone among the Selenites strives to prevent their leader from deducing the greedy and expansionist nature of mankind for fear of his life.
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Title: The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ISBN: 0812564839 Publisher: Tor Classics Pub. Date: 15 June, 1997 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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Title: H.G. Wells' Classic the Invisible Man by Inc Alien Voices, Leonard Nimoy, John De Lancie, H. G. Wells, John de Lancie ISBN: 0671581058 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells ISBN: 0812505042 Publisher: Tor Classics Pub. Date: 15 December, 1992 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne ISBN: 0140022651 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1965 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: Spock vs. Q Gift Set by Alien voices ISBN: 0743509463 Publisher: Audioworks Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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