The Food of the Gods

Finally finished reading The Food of the Gods and How It Came To Earth (free at Feedbooks). It’s one of H.G. Wells’ lesser known works about two scientists who develop a so-called “food of the gods” that makes living creatures gigantic! It starts out being quite cute with giant baby chicks, but it quickly contaminates other flora and fauna, including rats, vines, and eventually people.

Then the book quickly turned into obvious political commentary about the state trying to repress minorities and all that. I have to be honest, I’m not terribly interested in political theory and thought Wells kind of overdid it in Food of the Gods. Still an interesting premise though.

The Time Machine

The Time Machine is a novella by H.G. Wells (free at Feedbooks) which is basically the birth of the idea of a machine which allows one to travel through time. Now that’s innovative.

Anyway the “Time Traveller” goes to the year 802,701 and finds the human race, or its descendants rather, in a state of deterioration. After having solved all of man’s problems with science, there is no more spirit of endurance or hard work, or anything that really makes man what it is. He eventually discovers that humans evolved into two sets of creatures, the Eloi and the Morlocks, who are different but also both no longer quite human. He spends quite a bit of time trying to recover the time machine as well since it disappears from where he had “landed”. Obviously we know he lived to tell the tale because well, he’s telling the tale. But no more spoilers! Read it and understand the roots of basically all time travel literature!

The War of the Worlds

Sorry, since I’ve been on spring break I suppose I should be reading and writing MORE, but the truth is, my boyfriend is spending half of break here at my house & we’re going to his house for the rest of it so I’ve neglected to read and post for a bit. Oh but I bought him his Kindle and it just arrived the other day! So now Guy has a little buddy to play with, Ford Prefect.

Anyway I’ve finished This Side of Paradise (although really, what paradise? Amory Blaine is nearly as depressing as Werther) and moved on to The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (free at Feedbooks). Really excited! I’ve never seen any adaptation (and never plan to, damnit Tom Cruise) but I think mostly everyone is pretty familiar with the whole premise. I’ve only read a few chapters but I’ll post again when I’ve gotten farther in. I’ve always wondered though, if some strange object from outer space landed in some field, I would not be among the people who stick around and try to catch a glimpse. I’d be very, very far away indeed!

The Island of Doctor Moreau

I just finished The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells (free at Amazon). I must say, how freaking terrifying! Edward Prendick gets stranded on a seemingly deserted island, but is actually some sinister laboratory for the infamous Dr. Moreau’s crazy experiments. At first it seems like Moreau is experimenting on humans, but what he’s actually doing is dissecting and vivisecting animals with one another to make them “more human”. This insane obsession with creating humans is pretty horrifying; it’s like a perverse version of our world, and he’s an awful and careless God who makes animals for his own edification.

Before, they had been beasts, their instincts fitly adapted to their surroundings, and happy as living things may be. Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not understand; their mock-human experience, begun in an agony, was one long internal struggle, one long dread of Moreau – and for what? It was the wantonness of it that stirred me. (Location 1164)

What’s scary about this is… doesn’t that sound horrifyingly familiar? Sometimes, in times of crisis or chaos it feels somehow that we’re only living a mock-human experience, like we’re always on the verge of reverting to our animalistic ways. And who’s to say that God did create us lovingly, with a purpose and order of life? We’d like to believe it, but this all sort of us makes you wonder whether we’re as special and intelligent as we think we are.

An excellent read, but scary as anything!