The Invisible Man by H.G. WellsMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
You know what? It's not great.
I found it mildly interesting, but he could have made a much better story. The first third of this book is the MC tediously trying to reverse his invisibility. The second third is him recounting the dull story of how he became invisible. And the last third is an action and chase sequence that has the book's only fun scenes. It feels like a missed opportunity.
Imagine you're the first person to think of writing a story about an invisible man. Wouldn't you have your character *do* something with this ability, for good or ill, and make the story about that? Make him a hero or a villain, but have him use his ability for something: solve a mystery, track a criminal, rob banks, get intelligence on foreign spies, something cool.
Or if you're just gonna do what H.G. Wells did, make it a short story. This was so thin it didn't demand even 150 pages. It reminds me of Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, where nothing interesting (to me) happens; all he did was show us the marvels of this pretend invention, traveling to amazing places underwater. It's as if both authors expected to wow readers with amazing visuals and unusual settings rather than write a very engaging plot. It is still quite short, as novels go, but longer than it needed to be.
IMO, always.
I found a few things to interest me, especially the final confrontations, and I still want to read other famous titles by the author that I have some curiosity about. But my expectations are lower than they used to be. Maybe he'll surprise me. Fingers crossed.
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