The Invisible Man - H.G. Wells

Overview The original tale of the invisible man: A mysterious long-coated spectre strides into a rural English village, an experiment that works all too well, low mutterings about the new stranger in town. Yes its dark, portentuous territory we're in as H.G. wells spins yet another cautionary yarn about the potential dangers of progressive science, as well as his customary delve, deep into the misty depths of the human psyche. Or, a little book about a man that makes himself invisible. And then goes mad. Review We've all seen films about The invisible man or some invisible man or another. At some point or another everyone has wondered what it would ...  Read the complete review

H G Wells is the man popularly credited with having created science-fiction and, frankly, his supporters are viciferous enough that no one's ever really bothered to point out that, never mind Jules Verne, what about Frankenstein? In any case, there's no doubt that Herbert got in early, producing novels looking at the science-fiction staples of alien invasion, time travel and space travel. Talk about cornering the market. The Invisible Man is one of those books that people don't read but think they know. They've seen the film, the stage play, the various reworkings of the story, and possibly had to read a few extracts at school. The everyday tale of ...  Read the complete review

For those who enjoy such petty sub-divisions, there are two kinds of science fiction. The first deals with the effects of new technology upon society, and as such we might describe it as ‘social’ fiction. It may follow a satiric or dystopian model, and thereby comment on our current situation; or it may posit new forms of social interaction in a kind of literary sociological experiment. Orwell’s ‘1984’ is a good example of the former, while Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Mars’ novels typify the latter strand. Most classic science fiction, from Asimov’s robotics to Heinlein’s crypto-fascist militarism, is, in this ...  Read the complete review