Showing results by author "H.G. Wells" in All Categories

Bert Smallways, a “kind of bicycle engineer,” is creatively trying to avoid bankruptcy when he meets by chance a certain Mr. Butteridge—the inventor of a new form of aircraft. Butteridge, Bert discovers, has plans to sell his invention either to British Government—or to the Germans, if the British won’t have it. When one of Butteridge’s aircrafts is shot down while Bert is aboard, Bert stumbles across a secret German plot to destroy the United States. As the story unfolds, Bert finds himself in an unexpected position, called upon to perform tasks he never could have foreseen.

Based on H. G. Wells’s own life experience in the drapery trade, this comic novel presents our anti-hero, Alfred Polly, miserable, timid, and without direction, but with a gift for creating incomprehensible conversational “epithets” to express himself. No one quite understands what he has just said to them … Was it a compliment? An insult? Was it profound or absurd?

This coming-of-age novel explores themes including religious skepticism, socialism, ennui, English society, sexual relationships, and metaphysics, as George searches for an ideal to which he can devote his life. Like all Wells’s novels, Tono-Bungay abounds with social critique.

"The Empire of the Ants" is a disturbing tale about a new species of giant ants in South America which have evolved to use tools and weapons, wear clothes, communicate and organize themselves as a deadly fighting machine. And their chosen enemy is mankind...

Who knew mystery better than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Who knew science fiction better than H. G. Wells? Who knew high adventure better than... Escape? Venture into dark forests and darker jungles for suspenseful stories of creatures and curses, trains and treasure, secrets and superstitions. Jack Webb, William Conrad, Paul Frees, Peggy Webber, John Dehner, and Gerald Mohr thrill in tales by Doyle, Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Roald Dahl, Stephen Vincent Benet, and more.

One would think that after the momentous events of 1969 H.G Wells’ science fiction adventure The First Men in the Moon would have lost any fascination for the modern listener. Yet, of course, Wells is never concerned merely with the mechanics of science fiction. It is surely the human reaction to these events that grips us and causes us to return again and again to this story.

The War of the Worlds is a science fiction and a horror story. Published in 1898, the story is still frightening. Imagine your government not being able to protect you, or a nuclear holocaust making you suddenly, should you survive, a refugee with no home, no community services, and very little hope, as you watch the conqueror decimate your country.

The novel tells the story of a journey to the moon undertaken by the two protagonists: a businessman narrator named Mr. Bedford and Mr. Cavor, an eccentric scientist. Bedford and Cavor discover that the moon is inhabited by a sophisticated extraterrestrial civilization of insect-like creatures they call "Selenites".

In Tales of the Unknown, Wells' series of 15 stories investigate "the other side"; that is, a fourth dimension where human beings enter into a world outside or parallel to our own. In the otherworld that Wells describes, it seems we can see others, observe their actions, yet be unable to speak, hear, or touch them.

Marsbewohner landen in New Jersey. Ein Radioreporter berichtet live von ihrem Angriff auf die Bevölkerung. Die Hörer erleben ein beklemmendes Szenario... bis Orson Welles es in der Absage zum Halloween-Scherz erklärt.

There were signs that H. G. Wells wasn’t quite sure how to end his famous story The War of the Worlds, which featured an invasion from the planet Mars. He certainly knew how to do the story itself and pointed out Martians were highly advanced over humans in their technology. Wells used an unnamed narrator telling the tale in first person with input from his brother. The book was published in 1898, and even with the passing of years, there are no present day traces of life on Mars, a reality that would have undoubtedly disappointed the author.

Mr. Polly is an ordinary middle-aged man who is tired of his wife's nagging and his dreary job as the owner of a regional gentleman's outfitters. Faced with the threat of bankruptcy, he concludes that the only way to escape his frustrating existence is by burning his shop to the ground, and killing himself. Unexpected events, however, conspire at the last moment to lead the bewildered Mr. Polly to a bright new future - after he saves a life, fakes his death, and escapes to a life of heroism, hope and ultimate happiness.

Here are legendary director, producer, screenwriter, author, and actor Orson Welles' historic interpretations of excerpts from classic literature. Includes selections from Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince', H.G. Wells' "The Red Room", Saki's "Shredni Vashtar", Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer", Rudyard Kipling's "Riki-Tikii-Tavi", Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Wakefield", Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell Tale Heart", and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde".

Two of the greatest science fiction classics of all time...in one collection! H.G. Wells (1866 -1946) - the master of the genre - created his "scientific romances" and set the standard for futuristic literature that also teemed with both social commentary and a prescient view of the world to come.

A scientist and gentleman inventor in industrialized Victorian England claims to have irrefutable proof that time is not simply a concept - it's a whole other dimension. When he reveals the prototype of a time-traveling machine to his peers, he's met with skepticism at first...until he returns one week later, disheveled, bloody, and with a fantastic story to tell.

This classic early-19th-century science-fiction masterpiece serves as both a wonderful period presentation of the time as well as cautionary tale. Called by many a "chilling novel account of a Martian invasion of London in the 19th century - a science-fiction classic for all time".

Hostile invading Martians wreak havoc and destruction in England. This science-fiction classic has terrified generations of readers!

The Magic Shop (Annotated) by HG Wells. Has an added analysis after the short story by Aery Media's Luis Angel. HG Wells takes you on a journey to see the life a father and son who enter into this mysterious magic shop.

Out for a walk in London one day, Gip and his father happen upon a magic shop. At Gip's urging, the two go in — and things grow more and more curious by the minute. Counters, store fixtures, and mirrors seem to move around the room, and the shopkeeper is most mysterious of all. Gip is thrilled by all he sees, and his father is at first amused, but when things become stranger and sinister father is no longer sure where reality ends and illusion begins.

The shipwrecked Edward Prendick is rescued by the passing ship Ipecacuanha, which is carrying a cargo of animals. On board he comes across Montgomery, who appears to have a grotesque servant named M'ling. They are put ashore onto an island that is owned by Dr. Moreau, formerly an eminent physiologist, who is known for his infamous experiments in vivisection.