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A shipwreck in the South Seas, a palm-tree paradise where a mad doctor conducts vile experiments, animals that become human and then "beastly" in ways they never were before--it's the stuff of high adventure. It's also a parable about Darwinian theory, a social satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels), and a bloody tale of horror. Or, as H. G. Wells himself wrote about this story, "The Island of Dr. Moreau is an exercise in youthful blasphemy. Now and then, though I rarely admit it, the universe projects itself towards me in a hideous grimace. It grimaced that time, and I did my best to express my vision of the aimless torture in creation." This colorful tale by the author of The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds lit a firestorm of controversy at the time of its publication in 1896.
Book Description
Ranked among the classic novels of the English language and the inspiration for several unforgettable movies, this early work of H. G. Wells was greeted in 1896 by howls of protest from reviewers, who found it horrifying and blasphemous. They wanted to know more about the wondrous possibilities of science shown in his first book, The Time Machine, not its potential for misuse and terror. In The Island of Dr. Moreau a shipwrecked gentleman named Edward Prendick, stranded on a Pacific island lorded over by the notorious Dr. Moreau, confronts dark secrets, strange creatures, and a reason to run for his life.
While this riveting tale was intended to be a commentary on evolution, divine creation, and the tension between human nature and culture, modern readers familiar with genetic engineering will marvel at Wells’s prediction of the ethical issues raised by producing “smarter” human beings or bringing back extinct species. These levels of interpretation add a richness to Prendick’s adventures on Dr. Moreau’s island of lost souls without distracting from what is still a rip-roaring good read.
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BUT the islanders, seeing that I was really adrift, took pity on me. I drifted very slowly to the eastward, approaching the island slantingly; and presently I saw, with hysterical relief, the launch come round and return towards me.
Customer Reviews:
Worth reading carefully.......2007-10-06
I went through this book pretty quickly, and read it the way you'd read a Dan Brown book. As a result, when I finished it I thought of it as a freaky adventure story with a few comments on evolution.
However, after reading the afterword by Brian Aldiss, I realized how deep the rabbit hole really goes with this thing. H.G. Wells has not only talked about evolution and weird science, but tied in religion, the human capacity for reason, the abuse of knowledge, and enough other deep thoughts to make your head spin. I might have to give it a second read sometime.
If you can pace yourself while reading it to let the ideas sink, then I recommend the read.
Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
An Englishman is rescued twice, once from a shipwreck, and once from being abandoned by the captain of the ship who rescued him.
Dr. Moreau takes him into his home, and slowly it dawns on the
horrified individual that Moreau is basically insane, and has been
experimenting with enhancing animal intelligence. The relationship
between the creations and Moreau is very warped, and a large part of
the horror.
Staggeringly good!.......2007-08-28
I thought the book was more about what happens to Society when the thought of a central God is removed. We have moved into a world where Christianity is a million miles away from how it mattered to people in 1896, and there is confusion and hostility with those to whom religion matters a great deal. The Society of the Beasts surely mirrors what Wells thought we were all heading for in 1896? He was, in part, quite right. A book which has many interpretations, and amazingly gains more as the decades pass.
Cheap reprint from public domain.......2007-08-28
Filiquarian Publishing, LLC published this book under the idea that it is in "public domain status." Meaning, it is not any better than you would find online. The book is readable, but emphasis (bold or italics) are done by an underscore before and after the word(s). Example: "_His_ is the lightning flash, we sang. _His_ is the deep, salt sea." (page 82) To me, it is annoying to read it this way. You occasionally find extra quotation marks and a double dash (--) in the place of an ellipsis (...). On page 41, you get all of the above.
The binding is right up there with self-published titles. The cover is as basic as it gets, and has no text on the spine (see picture.) The back cover has merely a UPC barcode. On my copy, the glue they used for the spine was pressed out and made a rather strange bind. By strange, I mean cheap-looking.
Anyway, if you are looking for an inexpensive copy of this book and don't care about the bindery or text issues, then this book is for you.
The difference between can and should.......2007-01-07
I was not planning on writing a review of this book, as I should have thought that a book this popular would have been reviewed well here by this point. As I looked through the fifty or so reviews, however, I realized that none of the reviewers had realized what the main idea of this book was, or if they had, they failed to mention it, and failing to mention the main point of a book in a review of the book is a rather poor practice, is it not?
The main point of this book was that Wells wanted us to wrestle with one assumption that science in his day was making, and still is today, namely that whatever we can do we should do. Just because scientific advancement has given us the ability to do things, does that mean we should? In Wells' day the hot topic was vivisection, so that is the practice discussed in this book, wrapped in the garb of a novel, and a very good novel at that. The same discussion is raging today with issues like stem cell research and cloning. Just because we can clone a human, does that mean science should do it? If not, why not? Because it violates humanity? If we are products of evolution what basis do we have for holding humanity as something that should not be violated?
These issues are the ones that Wells brings to bear in this book by having Moreau use vivisection to create (near) humans from animals. The horror of the new creations is that they are distorted humanity. They are the violated humanity, but why should we find that horrific? Dr. Moreau, the figure of rationality with no regard for emotion, conscience, or morality, has no problem with the creatures. He does not see why they are horrific to Prendick, the narrator of the story. It seems that Wells is saying that scientific rationalism has no basis for saying that we should not violate humanity in the interest of science. For those who hold to this scientific rationalism, the question of should does not even arise. In such a position, can is equal to should.
Of course, there are secondory points as well, such as man's ever persistent derire to shape the world around him to fit his will. Wells' point seems to be that our attempts to do this are doomed to failure, as nature simply refuses to be bent, just as Moreau's "humans" refused to stay human and kept reverting to their original animal state.
As for the literary quality of the book, it is of the same excellent quality of the rest of Wells fictional works. The sense of realness is still there. The best way I can think to describe it is that is writing seems have the exact opposite feel that of fairy tales. Fairy tales always seem magical, happy, and imaginative. Wells is extremely realistic, usually unhappy, and seems as if they were writings of someone who had really been through the things the narrator claims to have been through.
Overall grade: A
Product Description
Bound in blue bonded leather. Gilt edges, silver titles, and raised spine.
Product Description
Large type for easy reading. complete and unabridged.
Product Description
H.G. Wells wonderful fable of science gone mad. Edward Prendick finds himself stranded on Moreau's island, full of medical atrocities and freaks. This book has been made into movies many times, an absolute classic unlike any other.
Book Description
GradeSaver(TM) ClassicNotes are the ultimate study guides, written by Harvard students for students! Each note includes: * An author biography * An in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary * A short summary * A character list and related descriptions * A list of themes * A glossary * Historical context * Two academic essays * 100 quiz questions to improve test taking skills!
Product Description
Great reading or decorating copy. Black cover with maroon spine with gold lettering. 306 pages.
Book Description
As the battle continues, Thru Gillo has ever-harder work cut out for him. For one, the land wars have moved to sea. For another, the hero will have to choose from the three females who lay claim to his heart. But first he'll have to survive the iron-fisted clutch of Man the Cruel...
Customer Reviews:
The thrilling conclusion to a magnificent fantasy trilogy.......2004-05-01
Christopher Rowley's Books of Arna number among the best works of fantasy I have ever read; these are books full of rich characterization, vibrant personalities, great evil, even greater heroism, stunning military conflicts, love, hope, redemption - the list goes on and on. Doom's Break: The Third Book of Arna takes the series to a stratospheric new level, as readers witness the long-awaited battle that will decide the fate of not only Arna but Shasht (the enemy's homeland) itself.
Arna is a peaceful land inhabited by mots, mors, and other intelligent creatures, but the invading armies of Man came seeking the annihilation of the "fornicating monkeys" and the colonization of their fertile land. The mots and their kind have lived in peace since the most ancient of days, knowing nothing of war beyond the legends told of Man the Cruel. They do not even know that men still exist anywhere on their world, for the ancient texts state that the men of old disappeared, having polluted and destroyed their environment while killing themselves off in a series of never-ending wars. Some mots now question the old legends, asking if man ever really existed. For these reasons, the mots of the land are woefully unprepared for any attack, especially from a well-trained, experienced, and murderous party of men.
Our principal protagonist, Thru Gillo, wants nothing more than to establish himself as a gifted weaver, marry, and settle down with Nuza, the mor he loves. The war brought to the Land by the men of Shasht changes Thru's world drastically. As this third book in the series opens, the war has entered its fifth, dramatic, and decisive year. Thru Gillo, one of the Land's best warriors, is on his way back from captivity in Shasht alongside his female human friend Simona of Gsekk and the brother of the Shashti emperor. Another fleet carries the emperor himself (recently overthrown by the priests who, under the command of the mysterious and powerful Old One, really run the land of Shasht) as well as Thru's lost love Nuza. The emperor and his supporters come to Arna to stop the colonial war of extermination, after which point they plan to return home to destroy the priests and restore the imperial government. Suddenly, man and mot must put aside their mutual hatred of and work together to thwart a common enemy in the form of the Old One, his malicious priests, and an arsenal of unconventional weapons that neither mot nor man has ever faced before. Once the final battles get underway in the land of Arna, the reader is treated to a vivid, fascinating description of the bloody conflict that leaves many dead on both sides. The strategies employed by the opposing forces and the constant movements of soldiers to alternately attack and then hold the lines are mesmerizing in their detail and visual clarity. I felt as if I were there on the battlefields myself watching the epic struggle take place before my very eyes.
There are many wonderful characters to be met in Rowley's tale; I feel as if I know many of them personally. Thru Gillo is the epitome of gallant heroism, Simona of Gsekk stands out as a brave young woman who risks everything on several occasions in order to live her own life rather than one dictated to her by any man. General Toshak, leader of the mot army, represents everything a good leader should be. The one and only weakness of this novel comes in the epilogue: in the book's concluding chapters, one important character seemed to fall by the wayside, and Rowley seemingly attempts to compensate for this by quickly addressing the character's future in the epilogue; unfortunately, this last-minute revelation really doesn't seem to fit this particular character, at least to my mind.
On the surface, Doom's Break: The Third Book of Arna is a captivating work of fantasy, but much more lies beyond the surface. Rowley's description of Man the Cruel essentially holds a mirror up to the eyes of society today, calling upon us to learn to live and work together with our fellow man. For me, this novel represents fantasy at its very best.
A fan of Rowley's.......2003-03-28
This book is further evidence of Rowley's brillance as a writer. In his third book in this series he raps everything up in a brilliantly done military campaign.
Upon Thru and his frineds return to the Land they find themselves leading a new massive fleet of warriors to their homes. Through lots of work the humans and people of the Land must band together to fight this new enemy fleet. But internal strife may destroy their army and chances before the Old One can.
But I won't spoil the book too much for you. So you'll just have to read it if you want to know more.
I just had to give this book a five star review since Rowley did do a magnificent job rapping this series up. He also stayed true to his fans by making this a very big military book with edge of your seat action from front to back. Definetly the best book in the series, and a must read for Rowley fans.
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This digital document is an article from The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), published by The Register Guard on July 19, 2005. The length of the article is 788 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
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Title: Mayor's vote may doom zone.(Government)(Kitty Piercy's tie-breaker will lead to ending the tax break program if a deal can't be reached with the county)
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The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) (Newspaper)
Date: July 19, 2005
Publisher: The Register Guard
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The Child Garden/ or a Low Comedy
Geoff Ryman
Manufacturer: St Martins Pr
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ASIN: 031205002X |
Average customer rating:
- well written. why didn't I care?
- Didn't Connect with Me at All
- Not a Dystopia
- Wow a book with a Lesbian character you could love.
- Brilliant Speculative Fiction
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The Child Garden: A Low Comedy
Geoff Ryman
Manufacturer: Orb Books
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Binding: Paperback
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The Complete Roderick
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Lust: or No Harm Done
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Was
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Stardust
ASIN: 0312890230 |
Book Description
In the city of the future, humans photosynthesize, viruses educate people, organics have replaced electronics....and almost no one lives past forty. In the city of the future, Milena is resistant to the viruses. She is barred from the Consensus. She has Bad Grammar. In the city of the future, Milena feels alone. In the city of the future, Milena meets Rolfa, the huge and hirsute Genetically Engineered Polar Woman. And might, just might, find a place for herself after all....
Customer Reviews:
well written. why didn't I care?.......2006-11-26
finished reading this today after carrying it in my bag for more than a month. Didn't do much for me although I had assumed I was going to love it.
I admired the other Ryman novels I've read, particularly Lust because its premise seemed silly (a gay guy can conjure up a copy of anyone for whom he feels lust, and that copy will be willing to have sex with him) yet within that silliness Ryman managed to find the conflict and character development and stuff. He showed great imagination in the way he worked out all the consequences of his idea, and he found ways to offset the power given to the lead so that it became something more than wish fulfillment. I think Ryman has a gift for finding deep meanings behind his strange story ideas to make the reader care what happens.
The same gift is on display in "The Child Garden" when it devotes pages and pages to a lesbian relationship between a human girl and a genetically engineered polar bear who likes to call the human girl christopher robin. strange, but by the time you get that far into the book Ryman has made it all seem psychologically true.
But I didn't care. Maybe because it seemed that in Ryman's future London diseases could do anything good or bad to anyone (make people only able to sing but not talk, make people immortal, put the voice of a dead person in the main character's head) and the lead could manipulate her own DNA with thought and who knows what else. I just couldn't care. I lost patience with the difficult chronology and going back to the same event multiple times to flesh out details or show the same information from the main character's changing perspective or whatever. I usually love this sort of thing. Don't know what was up when I read this, espcially after I enjoyed Lust so much. Maybe I have different expectations for science fiction than for fantasy.
Didn't Connect with Me at All.......2005-08-22
In an average year, I read about a hundred works of fiction ranging across all genres, and only fail to finish two or three. This Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner is one of this year's few... I had previously enjoyed Ryman's 253, and the book cover synopsis sounded promising, but I just could not connect with this one at all. The setup, a post-apocalyptic tropical London in which the population is all young and children are educated via viruses. In order to maintain civilization, subjects such as law, politics, and art are distributed via these viruses so that destiny is reduced to pure biology. There's a monolithic "Consensus" which runs the country, making sure that any unconformity is rooted out. This is all solid stuff that has formed the basis for many a disturbing exercise in speculative fiction.
And of course, the story is about an outsider, a girl named Milena who is naturally resistant to viruses and is trying to hide this. She'd rather discover life on her own, and discovers the beauty of music through a talented outcast polar bear. This develops into a strange lesbian relationship with the bear and after about a hundred pages I just didn't care about any of the characters and the story didn't seem to be leading anywhere of interest. There were a few interesting bits and pieces, such as the genetically engineered postman who has instant recall and spends his days delivering messages around the neighborhood, but these are few and far between. I don't like to give up on books, and I don't necessarily think it's a bad book, but it certainly wasn't to my taste whatsoever.
Not a Dystopia.......2003-09-05
I'm writing this review in response to people who seem to feel Ryman's world of the future is a dystopia. I feel the point of the book is that you're left unsure in this regard. We're told the story from the point of view of an outsider to the system certainly everyone in the system is very nice to her. They are always willing to help even if it sometimes means bending their own laws (Hiding Rolfa) or going far out of their way to do so (as with the previous case or helping Milena in her career). Even the main body of gov't is not a hinderance, but as benevolent as the individuals despite Mileana's mistrust. And it's not as though the people who have gone through the reading are stepford wives either. They are still unique individuals as we see through the affair between Berowne and the Princess. People are just nicer and know more (if not necessarily more intelligent). I do not believe Ryman meant this book to be anti-genetic engineering so much as just showing us how it can change and letting us make up our own minds. As for me I don't see any harm in the possiblity of our world turning into that of this book as it is definately going change in some way. Certainly we are different from the societies before us, so as change must I see no harm in this coming. It's just different not bad.
On the other hand, I would never want to be read myself. I am a very happy well adjusted homosexual and that is something I advocate doesn't need to be fixed. Of course, perhaps I make to much out of orientation, certainly in heaven people won't have any sexual desire at all. And perhaps this means it is something I should not be so worried about giving up on earth despite the knowledge that I won't miss it once I've left it either with death or with being read. I mention this quandary because this and indeed all of Ryman's books (I've actually only read this Was and Lust, but I'm assuming) give rise to constant reveries on my staunchest beliefs. It is for this reason I always think of them as, if not specifically Christian, religious books. Very few authors have the ability to keep me tossing and turning all night from considering what they've written. I think that perhaps C.S. Lewis is the only other. I can't reccomend Ryman well enough and believe those who haven't read him are missing out on something extraordinary.
Wow a book with a Lesbian character you could love........2002-09-21
Very convoluted like the virus infected brains of the people of earth in this book. Almost a utopian, communist maifesto. I like it but am afraid I will have to read it again. He writes moving, interesting and unique descriptions of a world that has grown young and aimless; with everyone trying to recapture their youth and the dire consequences of manipulating our DNA. I wonder how he feels about GE food? Very thought provoking. Highly recommended.
Brilliant Speculative Fiction.......2001-07-31
Probably the best book I've read in years (and I just finished an MA in Lit, so I've read a lot of them! :) . It's a cross between Aldous Huxley and Kurt Vonnegut, only without the cynicism! The category of science-fiction isn't broad enough to contain it, and I'd likely label it Speculative Fiction instead.
Book Description
The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book is the classic bestselling cookbook devoted to baking light, healthful, delicious bread entirely from whole grains. This specially updated edition includes an entirely new chapter on making excellent whole-grain loaves in a bread machine. Now even the busiest among us can bake the delectable loaves for which Laurel’s Kitchen is famous.
New research proves what we’ve known all along: Eating whole grains really is better for your health! Here, the switch from “white” is made fun and easy.
Like a good friend, the “Loaf for Learning” tutorial guides you step-by-step through the baking process. You’ll make perfect loaves every time, right from the start.
Here you’ll find recipes for everything—from chewy Flemish Desem Bread and mouthwatering Hot Cross Buns to tender Buttermilk Rolls, foolproof Pita Pockets, tangy Cheese Muffins, and luscious Banana Bread—all with clear explanations and helpful woodcut illustrations.
The brand-new chapter on bread machines teaches you to make light “electric” loaves from whole-grain flour. No matter what your schedule, you can come home to the wonderful smell of baking bread, fresh, hot, and ready to enjoy.
Customer Reviews:
The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book: A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking.......2007-08-31
I love to make bread and I wanted a good recipe book with whole grain recipes in it. I have her cookbook and like it so I decided to give this one a shot. This is a good book for the beginner as the author walks you through every step of the bread making process. There are recipes for yeast breads and quick breads with plenty of good tips and advice. It's my favorite bread making book and I wouldn't be without a copy.
It is worth every cent!.......2007-06-28
This is an amazing book for home bread bakers, I especially like her insistence on whole grain for even recipes such as banana bread. A lot of whole grain bread recipes I had seen before in reality use part whole flour-part white flour, this book doesn't believe in half ways and I love it. The whole wheat bread has a wonderful texture and my 18 month old toddler loves the brown stollen. As a vegetarian, I also find her minimal use of eggs very welcome. Every time I have tried a recipe it has been fabulous. I kept renewing it at the public library before deciding that I absolutely needed it for my recipe book collection. In fact, I bought two, for myself and as a gift for a close friend. I do not own a bread machine and find the oven very friendly to bread baking, (I also like to really work a dough!) but I am sure that people will appreciate the added section on bread machines. Overall, go for it!
Nirmala
A classic.......2007-05-12
If you are into whole grain bread baking this is the book you need to get. Seminal when it was written, this book remains as relevant today as when it first came out. A must have!
Baking Bread.......2007-02-07
I like this book as it presents me with other peoples adventures in the making of home baked bread.
Bread making and baking has fascinated me for many moons and in my latter life I have mastered the art of making sour dough and using it instead of commercial yeasts. Failures I've had but not with my sour doughs so far.
This book will show me the results and efforts (and new recipes) of the author's love in the making and baking of different kinds of bread.
I collect and buy selected books on bread and have a small library now.
Besides appealing to me generally, this bread book was also on "special" when I bought it.
The staying power of "Laurel".......2007-01-16
Back in the '70s I immersed myself in the 'back to the land' experience in Maine...which included Laurel's Kitchen cookbook (I could only afford one cookbook when I settled there, and this was my choice). My (now) 29 y.o. son and his 24 y.o. sister were raised with the help of these recipes. OH: I also was a cook in a local restaurant--lots of people experienced 'Laurel'!
Just this fall, we celebrated the life of my father-in-law who died at the age of 96. I gave him a copy of Laurel's Kitchen 20 years ago; at this memorial we all enjoyed the pea soup recipe that became his signature!
Anyhow: I am SO enjoying the Bread Book. I don't bake or cook for the numbers I did in the past. However, everyone who shares the fruits (and breads) of my labor always compliment me. FOr good reason...
Books:
- The Lamplighter: A Novel
- The Mighty Orinoco (Early Classics of Science Fiction)
- The Mother of Dreams and Other Short Stories: Portrayals of Women in Modern Japanese Fiction (Japan's Modern Writers)
- The Radiance of the King (New York Review Books Classics)
- The Raging Sea: The Powerful Account of the Worst Tsunami in U.S. History
- The Scandal of Pleasure: Art in an Age of Fundamentalism
- The State of Indiana History 2000: Papers Presented at the Indiana Historical Society's Grand Opening
- The Story of My Disappearance
- The Town Traveller
- The Woman Who Knew Gandhi: A Novel
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The Time Machine (Signet Classics)
The War of the Worlds (Modern Library Classics)
The Invisible Man (Signet Classics)
Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Bantam Classics)
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (Scholastic Classics)
