The Time Machine - H.G. Wells - A Short Summary & Review

The Time Machine - H.G. Wells - A Short Summary & Review

By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures

A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review

What the future of humanity holds.

A short summary:

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells sends a Victorian scientist hurtling into the far future, where humanity has diverged into distinct species shaped by comfort, labor, and neglect. What initially appears to be a peaceful utopia quickly reveals a darker truth about evolution, class, and the long-term consequences of inequality.

Wells uses time travel not as spectacle, but as a lens, stripping away contemporary assumptions to ask what becomes of humanity when struggle disappears, and convenience reigns unchecked. The future he imagines is both imaginative and unsettling, a cautionary vision rather than a promise.

My favorite quote from the book:

"I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been. It had committed suicide."

- H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

Questions to ponder while reading:

Is this perhaps plausible?

Would you eat the meat?

My review:

At some point, humans will change, and Wells insists that change is not automatically progress.

The Time Machine argues that life needs challenge to remain vital. Remove resistance, responsibility, and effort, and what’s left may look peaceful, but it’s hollow. Wells’s future isn’t a triumph of technology; it’s a warning about complacency and the quiet decay that follows when curiosity and striving disappear.

The novel is brisk, readable, and still startlingly relevant. Beneath its adventure is a sober meditation on class, entropy, and moral drift, delivered without sermonizing. And yes, it’s much better than Bill & Ted’s (amusing as they are): fewer jokes, far more bite.

This is foundational science fiction doing what it does best, using imagination to challenge comfortable assumptions about where we’re headed and why.

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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life

She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.

You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.

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