#38. THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON By H G Wells

Published : 1901
Pages : 186
Overall Mark : 7/10

Published exactly 100 years ago, this is one of Well's greatest novels, and the only one of his scientific romances to embrace space travel. Thanks to the discovery of an anti-gravity metal, Cavorite, two Victorian Englishmen travel to the Moon, where they encounter the extraordinary underground world of the Selenites, insect-like aliens living in a rigidly organised hive society.

H. G. WELLS (1866-1946)
The son of a shopkeeper, Wells began to publish fiction in the 1890s. The Time Machine, published in 1895, heralded an extraordinary period of 6 years in which he published almost all the 'scientific romances' which made his fame. An early member of the Fabian Society (from which developed the Labour Party), he was for the last four decades of his life a world-famous writer and thinker.

VERDICT
It's hard to believe that this is written almost seventy years before man actually landed on the moon. Granted, a lot of the science that Wells describes is well off, but the fun and energy he employs in his stories makes this an entertaining tale that is very enjoyable, even if you only take it as a view of what people at the turn of the century thought the moon might be like.