I've always been fascinated by tales of outer space by pre-20th c. authors (OK, this one was published in 1920, but H.G. Wells really belongs to the last century, drawing heavily on that style of the day, for much of which he set the tone!). The first science-fiction story, as best we can tell, was written in ancient Greece (of course), and it's been a popular genre ever since.
The "science" in the science-fiction in Wells's iconic novel is pretty ridiculous, so it's a stretch to take this seriously, but once you get over that, it's a delightful romp. Admittedly, it starts out rather slow - for the first few dozen pages, at least, the story lags excessively for my taste (which might have been better if the detail of the science were explained in greater detail, but I understand why that might have been problematic at the time), but it gets better quickly: it has all the essential elements of 19th-century fiction, sans the romance perhaps, but it's a capable adventure story involving a fantastic journey, discovery, epic battles with the natives, capture, escape, and, a rather odd ending that leaves readers with something of a cliffhanger, possibly entertaining the notion of a sequel? Alas, that never really came about, but it's a creative and revealing look at the way in which people of the day conceived outer space.
As such, this book is something of a primary source unto itself, so it's valuable in that respect as well. It's difficult to remember sometimes that not many decades ago, people weren't really sure whether there was intelligent life even in our own solar system. That had to be something of a pervasive anxiety for many. Our "extraterrestrial" stories are rife with our own anxieties, specifically what we have largely experienced historically here on Earth: the annihilation of indigenous forms of life by invading new ones, sometimes by means of mass extinctions of native flora and fauna, usually by the introduction of non-native, invasive species and disease, but also by intentional conquest a-la 1492 (Independence Day being a recent superlative example), which, of course, is what has occurred throughout our history. This book is no exception, but curiously, it seems that the unwitting invaders are the ones who are eventually sent on the run: revealing of this era, perhaps, they don't even think to bring weapons with them, even for self-defense, and have to improvise when things with the lunar inhabitants take a nasty turn.
Another common element seems to be that the aliens who inhabit other planets are survivors of a formerly-great but now-collapsed civilization, perhaps because they lack the ability to get to Earth. In this story, the situation is similar, in that one traveler, Cavor, when he is found by the Selenites, and is taken in by them, is able to get the machinery buried deep in the moon's cavernous interior to work long enough to send messages to Earth, equipment that was clearly once intended to do much more. That likewise seems to be a common fear among those living in a nascent Industrial Revolution, that of the bursting bubble phenomenon, and that humans would one day likewise destroy their own mighty civilization.
The "science" in the science-fiction in Wells's iconic novel is pretty ridiculous, so it's a stretch to take this seriously, but once you get over that, it's a delightful romp. Admittedly, it starts out rather slow - for the first few dozen pages, at least, the story lags excessively for my taste (which might have been better if the detail of the science were explained in greater detail, but I understand why that might have been problematic at the time), but it gets better quickly: it has all the essential elements of 19th-century fiction, sans the romance perhaps, but it's a capable adventure story involving a fantastic journey, discovery, epic battles with the natives, capture, escape, and, a rather odd ending that leaves readers with something of a cliffhanger, possibly entertaining the notion of a sequel? Alas, that never really came about, but it's a creative and revealing look at the way in which people of the day conceived outer space.
As such, this book is something of a primary source unto itself, so it's valuable in that respect as well. It's difficult to remember sometimes that not many decades ago, people weren't really sure whether there was intelligent life even in our own solar system. That had to be something of a pervasive anxiety for many. Our "extraterrestrial" stories are rife with our own anxieties, specifically what we have largely experienced historically here on Earth: the annihilation of indigenous forms of life by invading new ones, sometimes by means of mass extinctions of native flora and fauna, usually by the introduction of non-native, invasive species and disease, but also by intentional conquest a-la 1492 (Independence Day being a recent superlative example), which, of course, is what has occurred throughout our history. This book is no exception, but curiously, it seems that the unwitting invaders are the ones who are eventually sent on the run: revealing of this era, perhaps, they don't even think to bring weapons with them, even for self-defense, and have to improvise when things with the lunar inhabitants take a nasty turn.
Another common element seems to be that the aliens who inhabit other planets are survivors of a formerly-great but now-collapsed civilization, perhaps because they lack the ability to get to Earth. In this story, the situation is similar, in that one traveler, Cavor, when he is found by the Selenites, and is taken in by them, is able to get the machinery buried deep in the moon's cavernous interior to work long enough to send messages to Earth, equipment that was clearly once intended to do much more. That likewise seems to be a common fear among those living in a nascent Industrial Revolution, that of the bursting bubble phenomenon, and that humans would one day likewise destroy their own mighty civilization.
My copy has a different cover and does not have the intro by Steve McLean.
