 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2009) |
 | This article consists almost entirely of a plot summary .(September 2023) |
| Eloi | |
|---|---|
| The Time Machine race | |
 A Morlock carrying an Eloi | |
| First appearance | The Time Machine |
| Created by | H. G. Wells |
| In-universe information | |
| Home world | Earth |
| Type | Humanoid |
The Eloi are one of the two fictional post-human races, along with the Morlocks, in H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine .
By the year AD 802,701, humanity has diverged into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi live a banal life of ease on the surface of the Earth while the Morlocks live underground, tending machinery and providing food, clothing, and inventory for the Eloi. The narration suggests that the divergence of species may have been the result of a widening separation between social classes. The Eloi are suggested to be the descendants of a privileged, surface-dwelling, upper class, which once dominated the subterranean working class. The Time Traveler, the story's protagonist, surmises that the surface-dwelling civilization had reached its zenith and devolved into decadence and indifference. At the same time, the "underworlders", who supported the surface world, grew accustomed to labor and harsh, underground existence, and degenerated into the Morlocks. At some point, the Morlocks, who had continued providing for the helpless Eloi (the Time Traveler guesses this may at first have been out of tradition or intrinsic habit) began feeding on their above-ground counterparts and now raise them like cattle to serve as their food supply.
The Eloi are described as anatomically smaller than modern humans (standing roughly four feet tall), with shoulder-length curly hair, pointed chins, large eyes, small ears, small mouths with bright red thin lips, and sub-human intelligence. Their bodies are beautiful in appearance but surprisingly feeble. They do not perform much work, except to feed, play, and mate, and are characterized by apathy; when Weena falls into a river, none of the other Eloi move to help her (she is rescued instead by the Time Traveler). They live on a diet of fruits and vegetables, which may be cultivated for them by the Morlocks. Their language is described as "very sweet and liquid." The Eloi seem to dread only darkness and always sleep in droves within their "palaces". This is later revealed to be because the Morlocks ascend to harvest them when darkness falls.
A portion of the book written for the New Review version, later published as a separate short story, reveals that a visit by the Time Traveler to the even more distant future results in his encountering rabbit-like hopping herbivores, apparently the descendants of the Eloi. They are described as being plantigrade, with longer hind legs and tailless, being covered with straight greyish hair that "thickened about the head into a Skye terrier's mane", having human-like hands (described as fore feet), and having a roundish head with a projecting forehead and forward-looking eyes that were obscured by lank hair.
In the 1960 film version of the book, the Eloi are depicted as identical to modern humans but small, blond, and blue-eyed. The Morlocks use an air raid siren to put the Eloi into a trance state and lure them into their caves. One of the Eloi is motivated to beat a Morlock to death when it attacks the Time Traveller.
In the 2002 movie adaptation of The Time Machine, the Eloi are depicted as identical to modern humans with a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and sport primitive-style clothing and appear to be an ethnic amalgamation of various indigenous races but maintain the English language as an intellectual exercise.
In Dan Simmons' Ilium novel, "Eloi" is a nickname for the lazy, uneducated, and uncultured descendants of the human race after the post-humans have left Earth. The name is a reference to Wells' Eloi. Old-style humans and post-humans rule in Simmons' novel, with the Eloi being kept in "zoos" in restricted areas on Earth. The Eloi are technically adept but do not understand the technology; they regress and unlearn millennia of culture, thought and reason, until they are satisfied with the pleasure of merely existing.
Pellucidar is a fictional Hollow Earth invented by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs for a series of action adventure stories. In a crossover event, Tarzan, who was also created by Burroughs, visits Pellucidar.
The Time Machine is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle or device.
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction in which the Earth's civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronomical, such as an impact event; destructive, such as nuclear holocaust or resource depletion; medical, such as a pandemic, whether natural or human-caused; end time, such as the Last Judgment, Second Coming or Ragnarök; or any other scenario in which the outcome is apocalyptic, such as a zombie apocalypse, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics or alien invasion.
Grey aliens, also referred to as Zeta Reticulans, Roswell Greys or Grays, are purported extraterrestrial beings. They are frequent subjects of close encounters and alien abduction claims. The details of such claims vary widely. However, Greys are typically described as being human-like with small bodies, smooth, grey-colored skin; enlarged, hairless heads; and large, black eyes. The Barney and Betty Hill abduction claim, which purportedly took place in New Hampshire in 1961, popularized Grey aliens. Precursor figures have been described in science fiction and similar descriptions appeared in early accounts of the 1948 Aztec UFO hoax and later accounts of the 1947 Roswell UFO incident.
The Time Ships is a 1995 hard science fiction novel by Stephen Baxter. A canonical sequel to the 1895 novella The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, it was officially authorized by the Wells estate to mark the centenary of the original's publication. The Time Ships won critical acclaim. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Philip K. Dick Award in 1996, as well as the British Science Fiction Association Award in 1995. It was also nominated for the Hugo, Clarke and Locus Awards in 1996.
Morlocks are a fictional species created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel The Time Machine. They are the story's main antagonists. Since their creation by H. G. Wells, the Morlocks have appeared in many other works such as sequels, films, television shows, and works by other authors, many of which have deviated from the original description.
Pendragon: Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space, commonly known as The Pendragon Adventure or simply Pendragon, is a series of ten young-adult science fiction and fantasy novels by American author D. J. MacHale, published from 2002 to 2009. The series chronicles the adventures of Bobby Pendragon, an American teenager who discovers that he must travel through time and space to prevent the destruction of the ten "territories": critical times and locations throughout the universe. The series has sold over a million copies.
Social science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction, usually soft science fiction, concerned less with technology/space opera and more with speculation about society. In other words, it "absorbs and discusses anthropology" and speculates about human behavior and interactions.
Subterranean fiction is a subgenre of adventure fiction, science fiction, or fantasy which focuses on fictional underground settings, sometimes at the center of the Earth or otherwise deep below the surface. The genre is based on, and has in turn influenced, the Hollow Earth theory. The earliest works in the genre were Enlightenment-era philosophical or allegorical works, in which the underground setting was often largely incidental. In the late 19th century, however, more pseudoscientific or proto-science-fictional motifs gained prevalence. Common themes have included a depiction of the underground world as more primitive than the surface, either culturally, technologically or biologically, or in some combination thereof. The former cases usually see the setting used as a venue for sword-and-sorcery fiction, while the latter often features cryptids or creatures extinct on the surface, such as dinosaurs or archaic humans. A less frequent theme has the underground world much more technologically advanced than the surface one, typically either as the refugium of a lost civilization, or as a secret base for space aliens.
The Time Machine is a 1960 American period post-apocalyptic science fiction film based on the 1895 novella of the same name by H. G. Wells. It was produced and directed by George Pal, and stars Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, and Alan Young. The story is set in Victorian England and follows an inventor who constructs a machine that enables him to travel into the distant future. Once there, he discovers that mankind's descendants have divided into two species, the passive, childlike, and vegetarian Eloi and the underground-dwelling Morlocks, who feed on the Eloi.
The Time Machine is a 2002 American post-apocalyptic science fiction film loosely adapted by John Logan from the 1895 novel of the same name by H. G. Wells and the screenplay of the 1960 film of the same name by David Duncan. Arnold Leibovit served as executive producer and Simon Wells, the great-grandson of the original author, served as director. The film stars Guy Pearce, Orlando Jones, Samantha Mumba, Mark Addy, and Jeremy Irons, and includes a cameo by Alan Young, who also appeared in the 1960 film adaptation. The film is set in New York City instead of London, and contains new story elements not present in the original novel or the 1960 film adaptation, including a romantic subplot, a new scenario about how civilization was destroyed, and several new characters such as an artificially intelligent hologram and a Morlock leader.
Pantropy is a hypothetical process of space habitation or space colonization in which, rather than terraforming other planets or building space habitats suitable for human habitation, humans are modified to be able to thrive in the existing environment. The term was coined by science fiction author James Blish, who wrote a series of short stories based on the idea.
Ilium/Olympos is a series of two science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. The events are set in motion by beings who appear to be ancient Greek gods. Like Simmons' earlier series, the Hyperion Cantos, it is a form of "literary science fiction"; it relies heavily on intertextuality, in this case with Homer and Shakespeare as well as references to Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu and Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle.
Dying Earth is a subgenre of science fantasy or science fiction which takes place in the far future at either the end of life on Earth or the end of time, when the laws of the universe themselves fail. Themes of world-weariness, innocence, idealism, entropy, heat death of the universe, (permanent) exhaustion/depletion of many or all resources, and the hope of renewal dominate. A related subgenre set in the distant future of entropic decay is called entropic romance.
The Time Machine is a 1978 American made-for-television science fiction-adventure film produced by Sunn Classic Pictures as a part of their Classics Illustrated series. The film stars John Beck and Priscilla Barnes, and was broadcast November 5, 1978 during the November Sweeps on NBC.
Weena is a fictional character in the novel The Time Machine, written by H. G. Wells in 1895 on the concept of time travel. In the story, an unnamed time traveler travels to 802,701 A.D. using his time machine, to find that humans have evolved into two species: the Eloi, the leisure class; and the Morlocks, the working class. He meets an Eloi girl named Weena, whom he takes on an expedition and loses in his battle against the Morlocks.
The Stone Sky is a 2017 science fantasy novel by American writer N. K. Jemisin. It was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2018. Reviews of the book upon its release were highly positive. It is the third volume in the Broken Earth series, following The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate, both of which also won the Hugo Award.
The Core of the Sun is a "Finnish weird" novel by Johanna Sinisalo, originally published in 2013 with the title Auringon ydin. It was translated into English by Lola Rogers in 2016.