I knew that H. G. Wells has written a number of utopian novels, and read George Orwell's criticism of some, but have never read one before. In this book, the writer and his botanist friend are taking a stroll in the Swiss Alps when they walk into a portal that transports them to another planet beyond Sirius, with the same topography as Earth and inhabited by humans. The planet is ruled by a world government (that people living in different corners of the globe might have different interests, and More...

Condition: Time = Extent (...Olymics Begin)

Olympic flame for London is lit in Greece

By: Associated Press

ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece (AP) — The flame that will burn during the London Games was lit at the birthplace of the ancient Olympics on Thursday, heralding the start of a torch relay that will culminate with the opening ceremony on July 27.

Actress Ino Menegaki, dressed as a high priestess, stood before the 2,600-year-old Temple of Hera, and after an invocation to Apollo, the ancient Greeks' Sun More...

Got this book as a free kindle download from Project Gutenburg(other e-book formats on there too) as such it's difficult to grumble to much...no money was after all spent however I found the book lackluste and in regard to Utopian fiction was a pale body of work compared with Thomas More's Utopia.
H.G.Wells warns in the prologue that this doesn't really work as a form of narrative fiction(the usual form for his more known novels) and it does feel like a bunch of speculative essays held together b More...

I revisited this classic after more than 20 years. It was more compelling for me now than it was back then.

With Rad Bradbury's death, and the renewed interest in literary science fiction, British Author HG Wells is primary figure worth reading.

After this reading of Modern Utopia I worked it into a thought leadership piece using a small component of the book to frame the modern subject of digital media interfaces. The piece was written for non-technical business leaders, and uses Modern Utopia' More...

As I began reading this piece, I found I was forcing myself to keep reading. Though, I thought, "I trust that H. G. Wells will come through in the end." I believe I was correct.
At about the halfway point, I started to be okay with the style of 'A Modern Utopia'. As others have written, including Mr. Wells in his introduction, the book begins in essay format, if you will, but then a story evolved. I felt almost repulsed by this idea of utopia.... the sterile structure, the lack of individuality, More...

Really ambivalent about this book.

I wouldn't recommend the book to most of my friends. Well's writing style would bore most modern readers. the stilted dialog, and his very preachy attitude, are very different from the sort of modern science fiction my friends and I read and discuss.

On the other hand, this book really made me think. Well's vision of an ideal world is so different from mine! He was reacting to the things he disliked about life in 19th c. England, but some of the 'cures' he recom More...

If this book consisted only of the last chapter and perhaps a few excerpts from the ninth, I might have enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it's an awkward, tedious mess of words and dry sociological debate with an adventure into a parallel universe thrown in accidentally amongst the discussions on eugenics and self-cleaning apartments.

Perhaps it was just my mood but right from the beginning, the book and its narrator irritated me. The protagonist is so pompous, you want to club him before you're past th More...

Written in 1905, H.G. Wells' unusual fiction/non-fiction hybrid describes his ideal world state.

"Our business here is to be Utopian, to make vivid and credible, if we can, first this facet and then that, of an imaginary whole and happy world...It is no doubt an optimistic enterprise."

A Modern Utopia, has elements of a classic utopia (a stranger visits an ideally structured, considered society, explores, and returns home), but Wells undertakes his visit to Utopia with unapologetic, intentional p More...

Unsuccessful as a philosophy/fiction hybrid - Wells wrote more essays on his ideas of a utopia, then attempted to write transitions between them as fiction. This would have been much more successful if he had focused on the storytelling and world building while carefully weaving the ideas into the story, instead of breaking to it in every chapter. (And I'm currently reading The Great Divorce, where C.S. Lewis successfully intertwines fiction and theology, which makes A Modern Utopia seem even mo More...

After reading this, I am reminded of how boring utopian literature tends to be. There was some interesting insight here, but so much of what is detailed here pays no mind to human nature or is so utterly naive as to be ridiculous. Did he really think that the best way to organize a global society was to allow only the smart and productive people to have children? And tat a society would actually allow this to happen?

I made it about halfway through this book. It took me some time to wrap my mind around the style, which I could not bring myself to enjoy. By the time I got to the part about the central government determining who is fit to marry and raise children I put it down. I may jump to the final chapters to see his conclusions but it will be a chore.

As much as I admire H.G. Wells, I still always find myself struggling to finish utopian novels. Despite his interesting ideas and the honorific of "classic" and "canonical", I'm afraid that I fell into the same complaints with A Modern Utopia as with many others: it is dry, overly-reliant on description instead of humanity, and prone to far more hastily-accepted assumptions than the bulk of the rest of the genre.

Wells does, to be fair, answer the question that is skirted in most utopias, but ce More...

I certainly enjoyed the prose and characters more than the essay-like portions, particularly the various expositions of the human condition provided by the environment the two characters find themselves in. That said, some of the more academic ideas presented are thought-provoking.

As fiction, this book is disappointing. But, of course, it isn't exactly fiction - it's political philosophy, like Thomas More's 'Utopia' before it. All the same, for a brave new world, this lacks excitement. And over-echoes Plato's 'Republic'. Derivative and dull.

I'm going to be honest, I couldn't bring myself to finish it. I was over half way through, but I couldn't. I hated the narration, and the fact that it was a 300 page essay on why a collectivist world-government would be awesome under the guise of a novel.

interesting ... not earth shatteringly gripping but the section on eugenics was thoroughly thought proviking! current chav population of england would have been a gonner in his Utopia for sure!!! lol

A Modern Utopia is interesting, not because of its political stance or its motivations, but because it takes a different approach to the development and creation of a Utopia. Wells proposes that there is a world much like ours that has developed into a "Utopia" and he has two characters who are plunged into this world from our world. The main protagonist narrates much of the novel and it is very much a manifesto for a political utopia, one very much driven by socialist ideals. It is for that rea More...

I'm writing a paper on Wells, so it seemed like a necessary read if I wanted to thoroughly understand his worldview. It was definitely valuable in that respect, but (like most utopian writing) it was a slog to get through and quite pedantic.

This was slow going and a little sloggy in parts but I enjoyed it overall. I've read enough Wells this year to be interested in the way this fits in with his novels, both early and late. I always enjoy his ideas about overlapping worlds or worlds that exist similtaneously.

H.G Wells Kuului Täydellisten klaaniin..

Takes too long to be of interest. Stick to his other stories.

It never does. While trudging through this book I kept asking myself "when will it get good?" Turns out it. never. does.

I am officially putting this book down for a while. How long of a while, I do not know...

I started reading it because I was going to try joining this book club that focused on utopian fiction, but I didn't get through it it time, and I just don't feel like pushing myself to plow through it.

Maybe it is something I would like to read later, but I guess we'll see.

Concept-wise, this is through the roof. Although Wells has a mind for design like Edward Scissorhands creator.