I've read a few H.G. Wells novels over the last year or so, and just finished another one. So, a few words about an author whose reputation perhaps obscures the actual work.

First off, if you only know it by the various movie, tv or radio versions, you don't know The War Of The Worlds (1898) at all. Read the original -- you owe it to yourself. Hordes of overwhelmingly powerful Martian war machines rain down on the English countryside and proceed to tear it apart piecemeal. An unnamed first-person narrator provides our viewpoint, scrambling from place to place, trying to dodge extermination. Unlike the big, booming movie versions, it's all very human-scaled, with an eerie verisimilitude. In the narrator's observations and interactions with various other people on the run, Wells also sneaks in his usual social commentary, including a low-key parallel to Victorian colonialism. "Ulla, ulla, ulla," indeed.

Wells' first novel, The Time Machine (1895), also differs a good bit from the film versions -- especially the 2002 hack job (which is so violently altered, one wonders why they bothered to claim any connection to Wells). While Wells' theories on time seem pretty darned advanced for 1895, the social commentary is the driving engine of the whole thing, as the time traveller moves into the future and discovers the horrid ultimate results of a hardline social schism between the working class and the idle rich (paybacks are hell, but unpleasant for all concerned). Usually omitted from film versions is the traveller's following exploration farther into the future, painted with some splendidly bleak scenes. Also, while the movies usually concoct a starlet love interest among the effete Eloi, in the book, the Eloi are four foot tall simpletons.

Compared to those two, The Invisible Man (1897) is pretty much of a hoot, as a mysterious stranger, swathed in bandages and big, blue spectacles arrives at a country inn and moves in as a very annoying new tenant. In a lot of horror stories, the monster is the most sympathetic character, but forget that old tune here. The Invisible Man is simply an obnoxious bastard, and when we finally get his back story, we see that his experiments had little to do with it -- he was always a sociopathic pill. Not a lot of social commentary here -- a lot of classic dry British comedy instead.

So there y'go. If you've never read Wells, go grab some -- if it's been a while, time for a fresh reading. And here's a bountiful selection of links which includes his later non-fiction.