Cover Image: Classics Reimagined, The Time Machine

Classics Reimagined, The Time Machine

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I read The Time Machine when I was younger, so I was familiar with the plot. This is the original story, with illustrations added to enhance the telling.

The story itself is one that well crafted, and piques your interest. No matter what your opinion on time travel is, the ideas presented in The Time Machine are creative and entertaining. The details paint a picture of what goes on, and it is these details that are drawn out in the added illustrations.

These pictures are nicely drawn and very colorful. They help show the characters and events in the story. The colors are subdued, which lends an air of mystery and reflects the uncertainty the narrator has in retelling what he has heard.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

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I haven't read The Time Machine since I was really young, probably since high school and I gotta say I still love it just as much.

and the illustrations in this are absolutely stunning! I can't wait to own a physical copy of this version since the one I do have is sooooo old..

Over all of course im going to recommend this one The Time Machine is a timeless classic and should be read by everyone, this one just happens to have really pretty pictures!

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H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine" is a classic work of literature, and not only one of the first time travel stories, but one that is well known in some facets by many many people. It is presented here in a new edition with brilliantly colored illustrations throughout that emphasizes points of the story and offers a break from reading the expository paragraphs.

Having not read his work in decades, it was almost like opening it up for the first time and, for a work from pre-1900, it was a remarkably easy read, well -thought out and well presented. It presents so many themes that have been echoed by successive science fiction writers over and over again. And, it is fueled by Wells' fascination with class disparities and eugenics. He posits a dystopian future where humans have evolved into two groups, very different, one above ground, the Eloi, childlike, gender-neutral, vegetarian, and placid. The other, the Morlocks, live underground in darkness among machines.

The Time Traveler has various theories about the development of these groups. He has concerns, sociological concerns about what a life of leisure has done to stunt human evolution. He posits that progress comes from struggle and from necessity.

What is really great about this classic work is the wonder and amazement conveyed about the discovery of these new societies 800,000 years in the future.

It's a rather short work, at least as compared to the giant monster books published today, but well worth a read, even better with illustrations.

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This is a fabulous illustrated version of the classic time travel story. The pictures are very classic horror and add a lovely touch to the story. This would be a great first version of this story, and I'll be watching out for others in the series, as I'd love to see what illustrations they have.

I was given an ARC and chose to give an honest review.

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Published under the banner of "Classics Reimagined", this is a reproduction of the text of HG Wells 1895 novella. I requested this for review mistakenly thinking it was a graphic novel. It isn't; it's an illustrated novella. In it, a man who is never named in the story, but referred to simply as 'the Time Traveller' (note that this is in an era when characters in stories were often named "Mr B_____" or Mrs "M______", or whatever, builds himself a time machine and travels to the year 802,701.

Why that particular year, I have no idea, but by then London, his starting point, has long gone, as has every vestige of the society he knew. In its place is what appears to be a purely natural world in which dwell two peoples, the childlike androgynous Eloi, and the subterranean-dwelling predatory, and of course ugly, Morlocks, who groom the Eloi as their prey. The time traveller befriends one of the Eloi who is unfortunately named Weena, which sounds to me like some sort of sausage. Why Wells made the predators ugly was to me a bad piece of writing. If you looka t nature, the apex predators are enver ugly - theylre sleek and admirably-appointed - think of the lion, the tiger, the leopard, the jaguar, the cheetah. Often it's the prey who look stupid or behave, well, like cattle. But each writer to their own.

Much of the story is spent with the time traveller blundering-around trying to find his time machine which has been hidden by the Morlocks, but later they use it to lure him into their clutches, not grasping that he can escape in it. For some reason, he next travels some 30 million years into the future where the Earth is dying (this was a little premature by Wells, but he was writing in some scientific ignorance, let's not forget). In that future, the Sun is dying, and Earth is degenerating, exhibiting only lower life forms. After he has returned and told his story, he takes off again, promising to come back, but he never does.

The story is told in a frame set by the time traveller's return from this expedition, where he narrates this entire story, never once interrupted by his guest audience, and his eidetic recollection is miraculous given what he went through, so there's a certain falsity or lack of authenticity about it. It was never one of my personal favorites, and the sad thing for me is that the only difference between this 'updated' version and the original is that it has some artwork added, created by the studio team of 'Ale + Ale'. While the art is quite good in its own right, it really contributes nothing to the story, and the story itself is unchanged. Indeed, the art is false too in some regards, because the Eloi depicted in the art don't match Wells's description in the text, which I found strange. If you're going to leave the text totally unchanged, why add art which differs and detracts from it?

Another problem with it for me was the formatting. There was random block-cap text at various points in the middle of the narrative (a quote from the regular text), and which was larger than the regular text font. It was inserted into the main text like this was some cheap tabloid newspaper with sensationalist headlines. This interrupted the original text and I found it annoying, especially since it was in different font sizes which often stepped on the toes of the rest of the text in the same quote. I saw only the ebook version of this so I cannot comment on the print version (assuming there is one), but to me, the ebook looked messy and unappealing, and that along with the rambling story and mismatched artwork made for a disappointing experience. I cannot commend this as a worthy read.

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The classic tale of The Time Machine by HG Wells.

It re-tells of the time traveller and his journey to the future, where he meets Weena, the Eloi and morlocks, but on the way he see the changes in the world and the effect man has had on the planet.....

It is stunningly illustrated and brings this classic to a new generation.

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Illustrations lovely but unfortunately text alignment and issues with the file format made it hard to appreciate, but the time machine is one of my favourites, a shame the document wasn’t well developed before sending for reviews

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

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'The Time Machine' is in my Top 5 books of all time and this illustrated edition was refreshing. The illustration style really suits the story and the setting and I would highly recommend it.

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