Rating: 
Summary: Interesting and Imaginative
Review: The Island of Doctor Moreau was an excellent book. It had a good plot, and the author had a very creative story line. It was filled with interesting and imaginative characters, from Dr. Moreau himself, to the creatures known as the Beast Folk. This book was a real page turner. It kept you in suspense and wanting to know what happened next.
Rating:
Summary: Far-reaching work quite relevant today
Review: This is certainly an interesting work, though not nearly as exciting or gripping as The Time Machine or War of the Worlds. For some reason, I had the notion in mind that this short novel was a "most dangerous game" type of story where the protagonist is hunted, but this is of course not true. Dr. Moreau is a scientist--a quite mad one, actually--whose life's work involves vivisection; in essence, he takes a plethora of animals and, through surgery and mental indoctrination of some sort, attempts--with varying success---to endow them with humanity. The result is a twisted menagerie of beasts who share both human and animal traits of myriad sorts. They can understand human speech, in fact, which has allowed the doctor to indoctrinate them into a worldview wherein he is the god whose laws must be obeyed. While the story of the protagonist, Prendrick, is interesting, from his initial shipwreck to his "rescue" and eventual escape, his main purpose in the story is to describe the inhabitants of this macabre island. As one may imagine, this isolated, fragile society eventually breaks down and the beasts regress more and more into their animal instincts, to the great detriment of the "god" Moreau and his rather pitiful assistant Montgomery.Metaphors and broad, deep-reaching themes abound in this tale. While one can certainly make out an obvious theme concerning man's desire to play God and the negative consequences of such efforts by science, there are deeper and more mysterious conclusions one can draw about Wells' view of humanity itself. While this is certainly not a racist novel, one can conceivably see it as a warning against racial mixing, particularly in terms of the notion that the lower and more "bestial" traits will eventually win out over any "higher" traits imbued into a mixed creation, a common idea at that time. However, I tend to see the strange human-animal creations of Dr. Moreau as a microcosm of mankind itself. There is evil (or bestiality) present in all men which has the danger of erupting to the surface at any time; no set of external factors can make a truly good man. Society will always have a minority who are bestial in nature and who cannot be redeemed despite the best efforts of that society's members to form a perfect world. The tale is a rather unusual one for Wells, it would seem, particularly in terms of this seemingly negative interpretation of society itself. There are no good guys in this tale; every character is a victim; the experimentation (social as well as physiological) of Dr. Moreau is an unadulterated failure. Perhaps the conclusions I have drawn from reading this story are my own alone. The Island of Dr. Moreau, however, clearly shows the depths of Wells' thinking and his deep interest in society and its ills, and it challenges the reader to think about the negative consequences of genetic and social engineering. As always, H.G. Wells shows himself to be a far-reaching thinker and a man truly before his own time.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant Writer!
Review: How could anyone possibly give an H.G. Wells book, anything less than 5 stars? This may sound silly but I often wondered if Mister Wells had a time machine! His stories were/are years ahead of the time he wrote them. Some of his stories make one wonder if he indeed had a peek into the future! Doctor Moreau! A strange man, alienated from British society because of his illegal experiments. (More like weird experiments!) This rather small book, tells the tale of our mad (?) Doctor, inhabiting a secret island where he can continue with his experiments. He has found a way to breed man/animal creatures creating some of the weirdest species ever! Eventually, a stranger finds himself on Doctor Moreau's tropical island with no way off! As the story unfolds, the man finds out about the Doctors experimentation with animals and is horrified tremendously! He thinks the Doctor is a nutter to put it bluntly and is extremely scared of the unknown. The Doctors work is undoubtedly flawed though because his 'creatures' are a tad unhappy and therefore need to be controlled by the good doctor. The 'happy conclusion' tells us, don't fool with mother-nature sir, or else! I recommend ALL books written by Mister Wells. He was an extraordinary man, way before his time!
Rating: 
Summary: THE BEAST BEGINS TO CREEP BACK!
Review: Like Mary Shelley's Dr. Frankenstein, another mad scientist (oh, all right--obsessed biological researcher) tries to create his own humanoid menagerie remote from society. Fired with Evolutionary fervor a youthful HGW presents smug civilization with a shocking portrayal of genius gone amuck--a direct warning of the dangers of pseudo-scientific zeal. Edward Prendick is the sympathetic but passive protagonist who barely survives a series of horrors: shipwreck and ordeal by lifeboat, only to be spit up on a hostile island, uninvited and suspiciously, barely tolerated. Idealistic Prendick gradually discovers many bizarre secrets on this tropical island, for the man called Dr. Moreau (note that HGW has chosen a Frenchman to represent deranged mentality) acts both as God and father figures for his beast people. Even his failed physician, Montgomery, struggles to resist the natural urge to mingle and evolve downwards, which means reverting to lower life forms, which combine the worst of two species. Only late in this gripping novel does Prendick emerge as a proactive hero--passionate for humanity and ultiamtely self-preservation. HGW raises serious social issues in this book: the deliberate infliction of pain, morality re man's relationship with lower orders, vivsection, animal rights, alcohol abuse, and of course his psychological mania: obsession with pure knowledge at all cost. Does Science (the white man's burden?) have the right or duty to play God and attempt to improve or rearrange Creation? Will all three men eventually revert to a lower type of anthropomorphic existence, casting aside the shackles of humanity, sinking into an inevitable moral morass on a par with Moreau's surgical freaks? Some uneven pacing aside, this book is one suspenseful and chilling package of moral challenges for the last (and this) century, served up for the true sci fi cultist's dining pleasure!
Rating:
Summary: Quick and Interesting
Review: This novella is interesting as a piece of science fiction, the genre of which H.G. Wells is sometimes called the father. It was written a few decades after Darwin presented his theory of evolution. The concept of evolution produced a lot of anxiety among intellectuals of the time, including Wells, who looks at the implications of the theory here. He puts the narrator, Prendick, on a secret island populated by Moreau's man-beast creations. The events which follow continually blur the line between man and animal, just as evolution forces man to see itself in the context of other species. Oh yeah, the novella, like any good sci-fi book, is suspenseful, and a little scary. And it's not very long, so you'll have plenty of time to read all your other books too.
Rating:
Summary: The movie never is as good as the book!
Review: I thought this was an exellant book! I always loved science fiction type books and started to really get into classics in about 7th grade. But I never got into H. G. Wells because I had seen the movie of the time machine and the versions of the invisible man, and i really didnt like them. With this story I read the book first and loved it even though it was pretty creepy. But I was sooooo disappointed when i finally saw the movie, it was nothing like the book except for the idea of half animal half human creatures, the main characters name wasnt even the same! I definately recommend the book but do not recommend the movie if you are looking up for a good follow up to the book. READ THE BOOK!
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, and relevant today
Review: A short, very readable and entertaining novel. Did Michael Crichton read this before penning "Jurassic Park"? The setting (remote tropical island) and story line (humans experimenting with nature, subjects of the experiments get out-of-control thus threatening humans) are very familiar. The descriptions of the experiments inevitably seem somewhat dated, but I found that Wells's style and control over the narrative managed to hold my attention. The overall message that we mess around with nature ultimately at our own peril holds good today - unfortunately it appears that few are heeding it.
Rating:
Summary: New Timeliness and Aimlessness of Existence
Review: Wells commented that this book was in a way an exercise of youthful balsphemy. Perhaps. Wells, like every other intelligent human being of Victorian England, could not escape Darwin's theory of evolution with all of its implications. But the ideas go deeper. What is the meaning of human existence? Is the world just a place of aimless suffering and a mere survival through a series of trials and errors? The book has now become more timely than ever, with the completion of the Human Genome Project which, along with possibility of improving our lives with better drugs, opens the possiblity of engineering mutant beings based on human genes. In a somewhat related development, human organs are already grown on/in the bodies of other animals. Cloning, genetic engineering, and harvesting of organs is a warning that our entire world may become an island of Dr. Moreau. Scary stuff.
Rating:
Summary: The Animals Look Hungry
Review: Science-fiction has a tendency to get out of hand. In some instances science-fiction is more an attempt at being weird, ora showing off of fancy machines. But in the case of Dr. Moreau, Wells is keeping things simple. The Doctor has developed a method of cross-breeding. He comes up with things like half-dog/half-man or part-sheep/part-monkey. A portion of his hybrids have intelligences nearing our own. It will be asked whether they creatures are friendly or not. Some are not. Rebellion and mutany are on some of their minds, without the doctor knowing about it. Eventually, a young man bumps into the island and is stuck there. He is shown to his horror a wild minded scientist who builds monsters. He does not trust the scientist, and neither the creatures. For all he knows, the Doctor may be plotting to make a hyrbid of him! Lastly, the Doctor himself is on the island because his work is illegal. In small circles it is known, but his reputation is bad. Who can say where he got his ideas from? They may be esoteric. Either way: mainstream science cannot allow it. The Doctor then moves to the island in secret to carry on his work. The story is not meant as an epic or something awfully scary. It is only a small tale of science jumping into something it cannot control. Like the story of Frankenstein. In any case, I liked it and so will you!
Rating: 
Summary: An overall boredom machine
Review: The first Wells story I ever read was, The Country of the Blind, when I was in 7th grade. I found the story amazing and very intriuging. Though the stroy was an excellent read, I forgot about Wells for a while. Then, one day I was shopping for books, and stumbled on, The Time Machine, which I immediatly bought, due to his first story I had read. I also found The Time Machine exetremely interesting, a true literary classic. Unfortunatly, for Wells, the third time isn't a charm. When I bought The Island of Dr. Moreau, I was hoping it would be filled with the same analogies and fantastic creatures that were in his other works. Instead, I found boring animal-men and a dumb account of a mans sudden terror about nothing. The most disappointing thing about this bok is it has no bulid. It's main character is suddely in a world running for his life, but we don't know why or how. The only thing at all interesting is the setting and the cast away idea, but both were overshadowed by the extremely dumb plot.
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