April 2025 BofM: Pre-1940, The Photo and Pulp Eras, "The First Men in the Moon" by H.G. Wells > Likes and Comments

When penniless businessman Mr Bedford retreats to the Kent coast to write a play, he meets by chance the brilliant Dr Cavor, an absent-minded scientist on the brink of developing a material that blocks gravity. Cavor soon succeeds in his experiments, only to tell a stunned Bedford the invention makes possible one of the oldest dreams of humanity: a journey to the moon. With Bedford motivated by money, and Cavor by the desire for knowledge, the two embark on the expedition. But neither are prepared for what they find - a world of freezing nights, boiling days and sinister alien life, on which they may be trapped forever.

I finished reading Wells just before I started reading John Scalzi's new book in which the Moon turns into cheese—an eerie coincidence.

I started the book. I guess Wells tries to be funny here, but it doesn't exactly work.

Wow, those guys must have had some incredibly special glass! Who builds a spaceship out of glass anyway? Not good for the rapid temperature changes, nor for the rough landings. Also slippery to walk around on.

Ed, I gave WellsWells credit for knowing they needed a pressure hull. Was I wrong about that?

I’ve read quite a few Well’s books. Don’t recall this one being one of his best, although books like this always make me chuckle. There is an innocence about them that I find refreshing.

I guess you have to be kind when considering the technology involved. The early parts were serialised during the Victorian era.

It was a step up from the fireworks powered machine used by Cyrano de Bergerac in Journey to the Moon.

Ten years later Burroughs didn’t even try to explain John Carter’s trip to Mars. It wasn’t until the 1920’s that he even attempted to articulate a technology capable of travelling to Barsoom (in The Moon Trilogy).

A copy of Well’s The Shape of Things to Come has been sitting on my ‘to be read’ shelf for years. That’s his main attempt at being Nostradamus and appears to contain some prophetic gems. More interested in reading Stephen Baxter’s sequel to The Time Machine, though, which is also on my shelf. His sequel to The War of the Worlds did the book justice so I’m expecting more of the same.

I'm over 4/5th and it actually grew on me. Yes, it is often simplistic like checking whether there is oxygen doesn't equal to a non-poisonous atmosphere (10% carbon 90% oxygen still kills), or old-fashioned lack of sanitary facilities in the ship.

Sometimes it reads like a parody on colonialist stories, up to "white man's burden"

Thomas wrote: "Ed, I gave WellsWells credit for knowing they needed a pressure hull. Was I wrong about that?"

I don't really understand the question. As I understand it, it was a glass globe with some Cavorite™ wrapped around it. It didn't even have flat floors to sit on. And they didn't even tie-down their supplies before lift off, just allowed them to float around. I know that scientific plausibility wasn't a main goal here and that's fine. But glass?

My review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Thomas, your comment about your two reads is hilarious!

I think The First Men . . . is not Wells's strongest work. The spaceship oddly steers itself? A little boy is lost forever after stepping inside? And poor Cavor can never return?

I thought it interesting that in the end, we have a discussion with the aliens about how flawed men are. This comes up often in works earlier and of that general time period (Out of the Silent Planet, Herland, etc). It's funny to me that new people/aliens would be more noble or proper.

Natalie wrote: "I thought it interesting that in the end, we have a discussion with the aliens about how flawed men are. "

I guess that the 'flawed' discussion has two levels - our real flaws e.g. war or imperial expansion and our imaginary flaws, like why we live on the surface and don't go inside

Andrew wrote: "More interested in reading Stephen Baxter’s sequel to The Time Machine, though, which is also on my shelf. His sequel to The War of the Worlds did the book justice so I’m expecting more of the same ..."

The Time Ships is great! I gave it 4 stars and reviewed it LINK HERE

I'm in the opposite position to you, so evidently now should read Stephen Baxter's other sequel to H.G. Wells. Thanks Andrew!

Does anyone know where the moon being made from cheese comes from? It just makes me think of Wallace and Gromit's "A Grand Day Out"! 🤣(Are they known outside the UK?)

Oleksandr wrote: "I started the book. I guess Wells tries to be funny here, but it doesn't exactly work."

I know the humour grew on you, (thanks for your review Oleksandr!) but it is very whimsical humour, I think. When it's dramatised for modern audiences it can be tricky. There's a film from 1964 with Edward Judd and Lionel Jeffries which I really like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_M...

Nigel Kneale wrote the screenplay from H.G. Wells's novel, and casting Lionel Jeffries as Cavor was inspired. Not only was he a great director himself, but he excelled at subtle comedy. And the special effect were by the irreplaceable Ray Harryhausen. But when all's said and done it was 1964 ...

There was also a good BBC radio serial in 1981 with James Bolam as Bedford. It had great sound effects, and as it was radio it left everything to our imaginations, as the book does.

Perhaps the best for modern audiences is the adaptation in 2010. It's a television drama written by Mark Gatiss (who seems to excel at everything he does!) and also stars him as Cavor. Rory Kinnear (son of the comedian Roy Kinnear) is Bedford. Here's that one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fir....

It's on DVD, and I think the first two are still available as well.

Bionic Jean wrote: "Does anyone know where the moon being made from cheese comes from? It just makes me think of Wallace and Gromit's "A Grand Day Out"! 🤣(Are they know outside the UK?)"

Yes, they are pretty well-known now in the US, especially with the last two full-length movies and Chicken Run. I discovered them 20 years ago when my kids were young.

Oh good! I thought you might all think I was barmy ... 😆

Here is a pretty exhaustive Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moo...

Thanks Stephen! I suspected it might have ancient roots, but had no idea how widespread the belief (or suggestion of credulity) was.

Bionic Jean wrote: "it is very whimsical humour."

I agree.

Thanks for linking movie adaptations, I haven't thought there are any

You're welcome Oleksandr.

I'm picturing them being tossed about and bumping into each other and the items floating about as they land on the moon. Cavor could have designed the interior cabin a lot better. Even with the lighter gravity, it would still hurt!

This book started out with elements of humour but then became much more serious after they forget to keep track of where they were going. The book gets darker towards the end-much darker.

I intend to read this, but I haven’t started it yet. I just wanted to mention an interesting recent story that is full of references to the Wells novel. “The Dark Ride” by John Kessel was published maybe 3 or 4 years ago in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and then in a story collection entitled “The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel”. The story centres on a historical character, Leon Czolgosz, who assassinated President William McKinley in Buffalo, NY in 1901, the year the novel was published. In the story he wanders around Buffalo and also somehow gets involved in travel to Wells’s moon and has adventures there. I read it in the magazine and would like to read it again. I find I don’t have much of a sense of the role of the Wells material in the story.

That's really interesting; thanks Stephen!

I am quite fond of this quote:

It is within the right of every British citizen, provided he does not commit damage nor indecorum, to appear suddenly wherever he pleases, and as ragged and filthy as he pleases, and with whatever amount of virgin gold he sees fit to encumber himself, and no one has any right at all to hinder and detain him in this procedure.

Hey I mean who can knock Wells too hard. His batting average is outstanding. Good Super-Retro-Futurism must be hard to come by. The Selenites were enjoyable enough.

A side note - the Selenites shown both ant-like and male-dominated, but biologically all ants except breeders are XX i.e. female :)

Wells does talk about the genders of real ants. But it seems that he understands them as male, female, and neither:

He does not mention the ant, but throughout his allusions the ant is continually being brought before my mind, in its sleepless activity, in its intelligence and social organisation, in its structure, and more particularly in the fact that it displays, in addition to the two forms, the male and the female form, that almost all other animals possess, a number of other sexless creatures, workers, soldiers, and the like, differing from one another in structure, character, power, and use, and yet all members of the same species. For these Selenites, also, have a great variety of forms. Of course they are not only colossally greater in size than ants, but also, in Cavor’s opinion at least, in intelligence, morality, and social wisdom are they colossally greater than men. And instead of the four or five different forms of ant that are found, there are almost innumerably different forms of Selenite. ... The moon is, indeed, a sort of vast ant-hill, only, instead of there being only four or five sorts of ant, there are many hundred different sorts of Selenite, and almost every gradation between one sort and another.

I was surprised in the book about how new and exciting radio was. It is hard to remember how recent the invention of radio is.

Even more shocking how recent bicycles are. They seem like such a simple invention. And they had a much larger impact on society than you might think. See: Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle. (Wells was an early enthusiast of the bicycle and wrote some books about them, as well as mentioning them in this book.)

Good point about bicycles and radio!

Ed wrote: "Wells does talk about the genders of real ants. But it seems that he understands them as male, female, and neither:."

Yes, he notes that most ants do not reproduce, so they are neuters. At the same time:

‘My alternative route takes me round by a huge, shadowy cavern, very crowded and clamorous, and here it is I see peering out of the hexagonal openings of a sort of honeycomb wall, or parading a large open space behind, or selecting the toys and amulets made to please them by the dainty-tentacled jewellers who work in kennels below, the mothers of the moon world — the queen bees, as it were, of the hive. They are noble-looking beings, fantastically and sometimes quite beautifully adorned, with a proud carriage, and, save for their mouths, almost microscopic heads.

Bionic Jean wrote: "The Time Ships is great! I gave it 4 stars
"

You motivated me to move this to the front of my reading queue. I've finished it now and quite liked it. He really did keep the style close to the original, which is not easy considering he touches on science and events that were unknown to the original character/author.

I gave him special props for squeezing in bouncing bomb inventor Barnes Wallis, who was beaten to the invention in this novel by those dastardly germans. But in the novel he does admit that he considered it.

In context of this thread, it was also noteworthy that he described the inhabitants of the green moon as Selenites.

Andrew wrote: "You motivated me to move this to the front of my reading queue. I've finished it now and quite liked it ..."

I'm so pleased Andrew! (Gosh, the responsibility! I'm always a little worried when I write a negative review of a classic as well 😆)

Yes there were some nice details such as the Selenites, and I agree he kept the authentic voice of H.G. Wells quite well.