My favourite H.G. Wells story so far, this was a really creepy cool book. A cautionary tale about taking science too far. In some ways a twist on Frankenstein, where science goes wrong.

Dr. Moreau is an exiled scientist who has spent the last ten years populating his island with beings not quite human and not quite animal. I think Wells was a little ahead of his time as far as the idea of these hybrid humanimals he created for this story, but the actual science behind it, a weird sort of vivisection, was pretty off the mark. More like how you make a hybrid plant, not an animal.

The story was narrated by Prendick, a biologist who manages to strand himself on Dr. Moreau's island. I loved reading about his thoughts on the experiments being done. Some of his opinions would still hold up today, but a lot of them would not. Prendick thinks that vivisection is justified if you're studying something important, but believes Moreau has no good reason to be torturing these animals...and at one point he has to leave the laboratory when an animal's screams are getting to him, not because he feels bad for the animal, but because the screams were starting to sound too human.

It was really great to finally read this story. You see it in so many popular culture references that you feel like you've already read it and you're just revisiting an old friend, but for the first time.