H.G. Wells' The Time Machine features horrific creatures from underground that enslave helpless humans, but it is rarely, if ever, described as a horror novel. The story features an adventurous main character who manages to find some romance while darting back and forth through time, but it rarely finds itself sitting on the shelf next to other adventure novels of its era like Around the World in 80 Days or King Solomon's Mines. . The Time Machine could probably fit the conventions of genre logic that would qualify it as horror or adventure, but instead it is only ever referenced in the realm of science fiction and this universal fit is precisely due to the alignment of themes and motifs that James Gunn has outlined his definition of the science fiction genre: the existence of a fourth dimension, the evolution of humanity, and the importance of curiosity as an integral component of the human imagination. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The fundamental component in Gunn's definition of science fiction, the influence of which extends across the breadth of his broader definition, is that it is a genre centered on the idea of ​​change and the possibility that the events of the sequence a character's time frame are altered through understanding the fourth dimension. The importance of the ability to manipulate time in order to alter the past to change the future is so vital that Wells decided to confirm its implication in the very title of his book. From that title page to the last page, the time machine becomes a real character; probably an even more fascinating character than the Time Traveler himself. That sense of character is further deepened and made evidently an aspect of Gunn's denotative description of science fiction by virtue of the genuinely dimensional exploitation of the time in which it is used. The technology that gives the novel its title is not used simply to catapult the main character forward or back a few decades, but rather across entire eras. Through the use of his machine, the Traveler is afforded perhaps the rarest opportunity in the universe: to actually witness firsthand the effects of evolution on his own species. In this way, The Time Machine directly addresses another key element of Gunn's definition of science fiction, positing the idea that "the universe is knowable (even though it may never be known) and that people are adaptable" (Gunn, 2002). we wonder whether The Time Machine presents a pleasant demonstration of Gunn's claim that science fiction is fundamentally Darwinian, but it's impossible to deny that it is truly one of the most authentically Darwinian science fiction novels ever written. The book is not a warm and fuzzy vision of Darwinian progress toward perfecting the human species. In the absence of the nightmarish future that the book presents is there any hint of the suggestion that “Darwin's theory of evolution described humans as being in a constant struggle for survival, but inventions such as electricity, the telephone and underground promised to make the struggle easier and people's lives more manageable” (Galens, 2003). What the future holds for humanity is the most overlooked aspect of the whole misunderstood concept of survival of the fittest. The Morlocks may have evolved to become as fit to survive as the Eloi are unfit, but between the two of them, neither appears to possess any ability to make the evolutionary struggle more, 2008.