New and slightly irrelevant ideas

Reading H.G. Wells, you quickly realize why he is one of the most famous and respected science fiction writers of all time. He's very good, and brimming with subtle observations, droll wit, and exuberant humor. I have just read a scene in The First Men in the Moon (1901) in which Bedford and Cavor, lost and starving on the surface of the moon, try the local fungus and start tripping: "Then our blood began to run warmer, and we tingled at the lips and fingers, and then new and slightly irrelevant ideas came bubbling up in our minds."

There follows a hilariously idiotic "argument" between the two about the discovery and colonization of the moon in which Wells gets in several smart cracks at imperialism (including a mention of the White Man's Burden, which had just been published in 1899), and then comes a slapstick episode in which they are spotted for the first time by the Selenites (the insectoid lunar aliens), causing the deranged Cavor to make a furious running leap at them. "He leapt badly; he made a series of somersaults in the air, whirled right over them, and vanished with an enormous splash amidst the cactus bladders. What the Selenites made of this amazing, and to my mind undignified, irruption from another planet, I have no means of guessing."

The notion of first contact with the aliens while under the influence of mushrooms seems to be torn from a New Wave story of the 1960s. The grinning way in which Wells plays with the perception of unreal reality is damned literate. He's really very good.

Update: Corrected "lost and starving on the surface of the mood," although that's a pretty interesting typo!