H. G. Wells Books

War of the Worlds is back in vogue, thanks to two folks you might have heard of: Spielberg and Cruise. Thanks to their efforts, the threat of aliens blowing us up for no good reason at all is once again on our minds. Instead of an attack from above, the movie switched gears to put the killing machines right in our midst. Despite that change, the concept is the same: big fish eat little fish and space is a huge pond.

This sourcebook is meant to bring the setting to life by drawing straight from the source material. This means that it requires a bit of updating for some campaigns unless they are set in the Victorian-era (ooh, maybe D20 Adventure!). It's also a dual-statted book for both the Action! System and the D20 system. Besides the story itself (available for free here http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=98461), there's information on how to play the setting of War of the Worlds as well as rules on weapons, equipment, alien war machines, and of course the Martians themselves.


LIKED: There's nothing quite like getting a blow-by-blow of H.G. Well's original novel. The authors are obviously passionate about the novel and closely adhere to the events in the tale. They also provide information for branching off from the main storyline to create an entire campaign. Throughout, the entire book is illustrated with appropriate black-and-white artwork. It's a handsome book.

DISLIKED: Unfortunately, this is one of those books that gives dual-statted books a bad name. It's not really "dual" at all. Sure, there are D20 stats listed...in Chapter Three: The Martians. Prior to that point, all the rules for new skills, the military, weapons of the era, and the war machines themselves are ONLY for the Action! system. This is a heresy in the publishing world. Want to tick off D20 gamers and ensure they don't buy anything else that's dual-statted? Give D20 short shrift in the book. I wanted stats for the Martian war machines dammit!

A pity. It's a professional book that's tightly focused on the Action! system. In that regard, it's much more useful. But they should have offered the D20 rules as a free supplement as opposed to touting it as a dual-statted book. Bad form.

Not being offered a view of this book before it arrived, I was very disappointed that the cover of it screamed out "Dyslexic Spell-Well Dictionary" and "For Learning Disabilities". I couldn't believe the cover actually stated those phrases! I bought these books for a resource room where there are students with and without disabilities, and one was also placed in the mainstream English room. Many kids have spelling problems, not just students with disabilities, and I feel the labels on the cover limit its use. I think the actual book is a nice tool, but the cover inhibits students of any type from using it. I took permanent marker and covered the offensive phrases before distributing them. I do like the binding, it makes the book easy to use, and my students have used it several times just in the first day. I was also disappointed that the actual definitions of the word were not given, so the students could check to see that they did have the correct word.

These were uncollected for a reason, I think, as on the whole they are not that good.

Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : A Tale of the Twentieth Century - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : Walcote - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : The Devotee of Art - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : The Man With a Nose - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : A Perfect Gentleman on Wheels - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : Wayde's Essence - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : A Misunderstood Artist - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : Le Mari Terrible - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : The Rajah's Treasure - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : The Presence by the Fire - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : Mr. Marshall's Doppelganger - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : The Thing in No. 7 - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : The Thumbmark - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : A Family Elopement - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : Our Little Neighbor - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : How Gabriel Became Thompson - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : How Pingwill Was Routed - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : The Loyalty of Esau Common - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : The Wild Muleends of the Devil - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : Answer to Prayer - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : The Qu33r Story of Brownlow's Newspaper - H. G. Wells
Uncollected Stories. G. Wells : The Country of the Blind - H. G. Wells


Future rail.

3 out of 5


Of parrots and dead men stories.

3.5 out of 5


Painting fiend dream conversation.

3 out of 5


Big honker

3 out of 5


Likes to stay ahead.

3 out of 5


The right medicine.

2.5 out of 5


Food design.

3 out of 5


Collecting scandal.

2.5 out of 5


Booze hoard.

3 out of 5


Wife ghost.

3 out of 5


Mince pies, no ghost.

3 out of t


Dead thief.

3 out of 5


Anarkist analysis.

3.5 out of 5


Theosophy exhibition.

3 out of 5


Upside down and perforated.

3.5 out of 5


Marriage story.

2.5 out of 5


A nuisance.

2 out of 5


Army analysis.

3 out of 5


Demon donkey drive is long.

3 out of 5


Dead plea.

2 out of 5


Future info toasted.

3.5 out of 5


Hard to be King, no matter how many eyes.

4 out of 5

I thought this would be such a great book but it just didn't hold my interest.

It sounds to me as if the editors think these ideas were not only safely sane, but a winning "solution". What makes these ideas any different from what was coming out of Germany at the same time other than the fact that it was written by a wannabe pedestaled white lady?

Quotes from this book can go a long way:

She unabashedly called for the extirpation of "weeds .... overrunning the human garden"; for the segregation of "morons, misfits, and the maladjusted"; and for the sterilization of "genetically inferior races." Later she singled out the Chinese, writing in her autobiography about "the incessant fertility of [the Chinese] millions spread like a plague."

This book helps you to understand the person behind the person, drawing one to ponder questions like, "Is eliminating an inferior race an exercise of the right to choice?" and "Can one get a salesman to pay the price of gold for rocks?"

In concluding that I was one of those births that should have been prevented, I wondered if it was acceptable to reverse the focus, practicing the freedom to choose through elimination one's incubation processors.

I tried to read this book.It's available to read (free) on internet.From the preface, to the last page this is a classic of eugenism.
The preface of this book was wrote by H. G. Wells, then a famous communist and english writer.Like ecologism today, eugenics was a left's political movement, dressed as science.And a very popular in American and every protestant country in the planet.
This book was writen by Margaret Sanger, an american woman.This woman a feminist and popular among leftists and feminists in his times.She was also a deep racist and eugenist.On the book "The War Against the Weake", Mrs. Sanger is described as a good person.In this book you can see how Margaret Sanger, really was.She was a bigot, a liar, a faker,a racist and a bad prophetess.
To exemple, while Lenin was exterminating more than 35 million russians, Mussolini was begining his dictatorship in Italy and Hitler was preaching his speachs in Germany; what kinf meace to the future Mrs. Sanger described in this book?She described a case of an american black woman who had a son, who was a robber!
Except if you are a mad or a bigot, the only real value for this book is to see how bad ideas were belived in America, when this bad book was writen, about 80 years ago.

This book is a worthy read because it shows the REAL Margaret Sanger. She was a white supremacist and a Nazi sympathizer. She is also hailed as a femenist hero at almost any University in the country! She founded "The American Birth Control League" which changed its name after WWII to "Planned Parenthood" (I wonder why?). Oddly enough, Planned Parenthood's website has a little biography about her, calling her a hero. There's even a section titled, "Reaching out to the African-American Community." What? Read this book (HER OWN WORDS) and learn the truth about this "hero."

What a piece of horrible c**p. These CDs are nothing but some cheesey commentary. The sound quality is horrible. I had assumed that there would at least be some parts of stories that would be read but it is just a bunch of incomprehensible mishmash. It was a total waste of money. I gained more satisfaction from destroying the CDs then from trying to listen to them. I did keep the CD case. It was the only thing of value!

This is not for the Wellsian novice: stick with a classics omnibus. Start with "The War of the Worlds," "The Time Machine," "The Invisible Man," "The Island of Dr. Moreau," or "The First Men In The Moon." This book is not that crucial for Wells-awareness or a survey.

This story, however, is a must for the fans of "The Time Machine" in all of its print and cinematic versions, or for a student of the process of creativity in a genius. This story is a rough-draft version of The Time Machine. Essentially this novella hammers down the concept, but not the detail, of "The Time Machine." You see this concept-forming especially in the last section of the novella "The Chronic Argo," which has the same arguments that Wells uses in Chapter One of "The Time Machine." The idea is clearly here, but his execution leaves much to be desired.

As a work of art, this novella is sub-spectacular. He uses a stock Victorian-Gothic mad scientist along the lines of Drs. Frankenstein or Caligari, or even his own Dr. Moreau. Jules Verne never had this problem, but this type of stereotyping was the hobgoblin of Wells earlier works. Personally, I picture Dr. Moses Nebogipfel as the unnamed Time Traveler's uncle or rival cousin, as opposed to being the same person.

Additionally, you see Wells anti-religiosity become very apparent with the rival Rev. Elijah Ulysses Cook. The good reverend and the good doctor are both mad scientists in their own spheres and elements, but Dr. Nebogipfe clearly has the upper hand: he raptures the reverend into the future with his time machine, as opposed to the reverend translating the good doctor into the kingdom of the dear Son. For a Christian, we are stuck with Lewis's "Space Trilogy."

But $12.44 for a 48 page book? Come on! Print it out yourself from one the on-line sources, and give the remainder to charity.

This was a very poor sequel to H.G. Wells' classic 1895 book "The Time Machine." I recommend it for only the most ardent fans of the original and suggest others to skip it.

Friedell's work was originally written in the 1940's in German and translated into English in the 1970's. Because Wells was still alive at the time of writing, Friedell begins his narrative with fictitous correspondence between himself and Wells and then between himself and the Time Traveler who was supposedly still living in London. The Time Traveler reveals his other mishaps with time travel--an ill-fated trip to 1995.

There are many problems with this book. First, Friedell has no underlying message for society as did Wells. The story is frivolous. It spends too much time talking about the pseudo-scientific difficulties of time travel without saying anything of benefit for real thought. Second, like many early SF writers, Friedell does not place his story far enough into the future for sustained believablity. According to the book, the London of 1995 is suspended high in the clouds and the earth is tended by holographic gardners. Wells at least put his story way way into the distant future. Lastly, the book does not pick up where Wells concluded--with the Time Traveler having disappeared without word since. There is no word of the Eloi or Morlocks, about the progress of humankind toward similiar or divergent ends, or even about travels into the past. The Time Traveler of Friedell's book is content to take a few short jonts, meet a woman, and give up time traveling in favor of playing husband.

For a better sequel to H.G. Well's original, see Baxter's book "Time Ships" (1995).

The poor quality of this book is indicated by the author's statement that I did not attempt to contact Martha Gellhorn during my research for a biography of her Even a cursory reading of the first edition of Nothing Ever Happens to the Brave: The Story of Martha Gellhorn shows that I did indeed contact Gellhorn, and that I received a reply. Correction: The author of this book points to an error in my comment on it. Lynn did not write that I failed to contact Gellhorn; rather she speculated that perhaps I did not ask for an interview. Readers of my Gellhorn biography (first edition) can have little doubt that I intended to interview Gellhorn. But more to the point, for a writer to speculate that perhaps I did not ask for an interview is slipshod. All she had to do was contact me to resolve any doubts she had.

I bought this book expecting little; the company that released this title released dozens of others on the same day. Whenever you see a small company trying to do such a large scale item dump, you have to be weary.

The first thing you notice in this book is that it is a cheap copy of, apparently, the Webster version of the book. Only without, you know, looking like a the type of quality you'd expect from Websters.

The second thing is that this was obviously NOT WRITTEN BY A GUY THAT SPEAKS FARSI and is, in fact only using a dictionary (perhaps Websters?) The letters in the words are right to left, as they should be, but THE WORDS ARE LEFT TO RIGHT. so they are technically correct, only almost impossible to read.

The third thing is that the publisher apparently has extremely good eyesight and expects the same from his readers. The Persian terms at the bottom of the pages are tiny; about size 4 font. Also, the words are stretched worse then any streching I've seen before now making it truly painful to read any of the Persian word list.

The Fourth issue is that they must have expected longer pages because they actually cut off the last line or so (who knows, there not there to count) of the Persian word list of each page.

In short, the idea is great; a good American book with some Persian vocabulary on the bottom of the page. Only the idea was so poorly executed as to make the idea worthless. I've worked in language libaries and I've never before seen a book this amazingly thoughtlessly put together.