The Interesting format of "The Time Machine"

I recently read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, and I found it pretty interesting. The story is about a time traveler that invents a time machine and travels in the future to see what life is like. When he goes he reaches a place very unexpected. Nothing is technologically advanced, everyone is very pale and short. They speak in a weird language he has never heard before. They are all very peaceful and naive, like children. However a couple days into his exploration of life in the future, his Time Machine disappears. He doesn't know how or why, but he knows for sure that it must be in a sphinx statue that was right next to where he left the time machine. Now he must find a way to get back the time machine so he doesn't have to spend the rest of his life in a mystery world where he knows nothing and no one.

Something I found interesting about this book was the fact that the book is philosophical as well as a adventure story. The book is philosophical in it's way that it ponders what the future will be like and also some dangers of time travelling and how time can be looked at as the 4th dimension. In the very beginning the time traveler talks about "[The 4th dimension] is only another way of looking at Time. There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it." I found this part especially interesting because it introduces this interesting idea of time being another dimension when we always only think of it as how life goes. It makes some compelling arguments for why this makes sense, like how in real life even if it an object is three dimensional, it doesn't truly exist unless it is in the real world at some point in time. It's mostly philosophical in the first half of the book. After the first half the book turns into an adventure story of the time traveler having to find his time machine in order to get back to where he was before.

Something else I thought was unique about this story is that it is entirely told as a dialogue between the time traveler and the narrator among some other people there as well. In the earlier parts of the story the story takes place from the point of view of the narrator, up until the time traveler comes back from his time travel and tells the story of what just happened. Then the rest of the book until the very end is the entire story coming from the time traveler. So basically there are two narrators.

Overall I think that this book is pretty enjoyable, and I enjoyed reading it. It is also not too long, only around 300 pages online. I don't think this book is amazing if you want an action packed book because like I said before it takes about half the book to really get into the action parts. However I do think it's a cool hybrid between philosophy and an adventure/action genre that is entertaining, and I would highly recommend the book to anyone into philosophy, and I would advise them to especially check out the beginning of the book.