The First Men in the Moon

An impoverished businessman and an eccentric scientist build a sphere coated in an anti-gravity material and journey to the Moon, where they discover a honeycombed world beneath the surface inhabited by the insect-like Selenites. Wells blends thrilling adventure with sharp social satire, using the rigidly organized lunar society to hold a mirror to humanity’s own divisions. Inventive and prophetic, the novel imagines lunar exploration decades before it happened, complete with speculation about the Moon’s atmosphere and life. Gripping and idea-rich, The First Men in the Moon is a landmark of science fiction, combining Wells’s storytelling flair with his restless curiosity about science, society, and the future.