Monday, May 28, 2012

Teaser Tuesday 133: The Time Machine

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current book or recent read.
* Share a few "teaser" sentences from somewhere in the book.
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away. You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author so that other participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teaser!


One of the June group reads for TNBBC is the short sci-fi classic The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. Though I have seen the 1960 movie a couple times, I have never actually read it. Since I have an ereader version and it is indeed short (just over 100 pages), I figured I would get a head start on it. Here is an actual two-sentence teaser from near the end of chapter one.


I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal.




ABOUT THE BOOK (from GoodReads):

"I’ve had a most amazing time...."

So begins the Time Traveller’s astonishing firsthand account of his journey 800,000 years beyond his own era—and the story that launched H.G. Wells’s successful career and earned him the reputation as the father of science fiction. With a speculative leap that still fires the imagination, Wells sends his brave explorer to face a future burdened with our greatest hopes...and our darkest fears. A pull of the Time Machine’s lever propels him to the age of a slowly dying Earth. There he discovers two bizarre races—the ethereal Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks—who not only symbolize the duality of human nature, but offer a terrifying portrait of the men of tomorrow as well.

Published in 1895, this masterpiece of invention captivated readers on the threshold of a new century. Thanks to Wells’s expert storytelling and provocative insight, The Time Machine will continue to enthrall readers for generations to come.




14 comments:

Alice Audrey said...

I remember thinking the book was so unrealistic with all it's clank and clatter. Now I'm a bit more forgiving.

Heather said...

Alice: Clank and clatter, huh? Since it's so short, I'm sure I'll get to it before long.

Jenny Q said...

Great teaser! I've got a copy of this, I need to pull it out and read it sometime! Thanks for visiting my teaser today :)

Laurel-Rain Snow said...

This one sounds really good! I've never read it, either, but it sounds like I should.

Enjoy!

And thanks for visiting my blog.

Heather said...

Jenny Q: Thank you. It's one I have thought about reading for some time now. I've found group reads encouraging in that regard.

Laurel-Rain: I don't usually care for sci-fi, but it's good to get out of our comfort zones once in a while...right?

Kathy Martin said...

Thanks for visiting my teaser Tuesdays. I don't think I have ever read The Time Machine. I think the only thing contemporary to it that I hve read was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. The writing style certainly was different, wasn't it?

Heather said...

Kathy: Now that is one I have not read, though it too has been on the "some day" list for quite a while. The writing style of that time was definitely different. For one, they took it for granted that readers actually had a vocabulary. ;-)

Shelley Munro said...

I've never read this one. I have trouble with the classics - the language drives me to distraction after a while.

Heather said...

Hi Shelley! The language of the classics doesn't really bother me anymore, not since I started making an effort to read more of them. It's overly-long (page or more) paragraphs that tend to irritate me, lol.

Nise' said...

I have not read the book either. Hope you enjoy it!

Jan said...

Sounds like a good book, and it looks like most of us have it on our "someday" list. Thanks for sharing this one.

Heather said...

Nise': It is actually quite a fast read--I am already more than halfway through and feeling thoroughly engrossed in the story.

Janet Ruth: I wonder if it is the fact it is a 'classic' or the fact that it is science fiction that has people putting it off to "someday"? In any case, it really is a good book--and short, too!

Anonymous said...

Very cool book - a classic:)

Heather said...

Tania: Ah, I take you've read it? I am about 50% done so far.