“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.”

A beautiful opening to the book but I must say the Martians did a very poor job of scrutinising us human chappies and our little blue planet considering what transpires later. Ah, but I must not spoil the book even though I imagine most people reading this review (all three of them) already know how it ends. Which brings me to my next point, if you know the story of The War of The Worlds quite well already but have not actually read the book I urge you to read it, especially if you are a science fiction fan. I don't think there are many books in the pantheon of sci-fi as important as this one. This is the book that launched the alien invasion sci-fi trope and even manages to remain one of the best examples of it.

H.G. Wells was literally* light years ahead of his time, the mind boggles to think what he was able to conceive in the 19th century; alien invasion, time travel, genetic engineering, all these when TV sets are still decades in the future. If historical importance is not much of an inducement for you and you are just looking for a thumping good read Mr. Wells is also at your service here. The War of The Worlds is often thrilling, skillfully structured and narrated with some unexpected moments of philosophising and surreal dialogue. I generally find that Wells wrote much better prose than most of today’s SF authors do.

He even included some element of hard sf into his novels, here is an example from this book:

“It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently. Many think that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light.”

Yes, you may already have a fairly good idea of The War of The Worlds’ beginning middle and end without ever reading the book but you would miss Wells’ marvelously immersive and visual storytelling and the subtexts embedded in the original texts. The scene of naval battle between the military’s ironclads and the Martian tripods is vividly depicted and should please fans of military sf and general badassery. The slightly surreal chapter involving the artilleryman is a particularly interesting depiction of people who always seem to be brimming with ideas, plans and suggestions but never actually do anything.

The story of The War of The Worlds is so potent that Orson Welles’ 1938 War of the Worlds 1938 radio broadcast “became famous for causing mass panic, although the extent of this panic is debated”. Still, even moderate panic is an amazing achievement for a radio drama.

This book has of course been adapted into movies several times. Unfortunately a straight adaptation complete with the Victorian setting does not seem to have been made. The most recent adaptation being the 2005 Spielberg directed movie with Tom Cruise being the usual Cruisian hero, dodging Martian heat rays like nobody's business.

For this reread I went with the free Librivox audiobook version, very well read by Rebecca Dittman.

I hope to eventually read all of Wells’ sci-fi and perhaps his more mainstream books also. Anyway, never dismiss H.G. Wells' sci-fi as old hat because he invented the hat and it is still superior to most of today's headgear.

* I have a bee in my bonnet about today's frequent (and incorrect) overuse of "literally".

A quick note about the ending:
The ending is the mother of all Deus Ex Machina, I suppose Wells may have written himself into a corner a bit here as Victorian Brits are never going to be much of a challenge for giant tripod riding aliens armed with heat rays and weird smoke guns.

I love this album cover art from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. For some reason, I never heard the album in its entirety, but the hit single Forever Autumn is great.

Note:
• Update May 6, 2017: Now the Beeb is making a proper Victorian era adaptation, hurrah!

• Update June 22, 2020: Haven't seen the (above-mentioned) 2019 BBC series! LOL! There is also a 2019 French / US adaptation. Havn't seen that either!


"The Martians" by Rodney Matthews

This was not anything like the Tom Cruise movie so be warned. If you’re expecting an action story about a divorced union container crane operator with a 10 year old daughter you ain’t gonna find it here. They changed like 99% of everything around. As far as I could see there are only two things which are the same, one is that the Martians attack Earth in these COOL THREE LEGGED METAL 70 FOOT HIGH HEAT RAY KICK ASS DEATH MACHINES and two is that they die in the same way which I won’t say here because that would be a giant spoiler but really it’s a bit feeble but I guess could happen because they came from Mars which don’t have bacteria. I don’t do biology so I don’t know if a whole PLANET can not have bacteria. Seems like also they couldn’t have had YOGHURT as well, but HG Wells does not make this clear. Nor Stephen Spielberg either. Now this book version I think is not the book of the movie, I think it came first so that may explain why the movie is better, because really this book is lame. Yes more realistic because like the main guy is no Tom Cruise, but less action. What happens is that the Martians land and like fry everyone up with the DEATH HEAT RAY and send out the BLACK SMOKE to finish off anyone left alive and the main guy hops around and hides and eats really gross stuff and just sees stuff. As for instance he sees the army get a lucky shot in and kill the one single Martian but then like his buddies just wipe out the whole British army. Boom, heatray zzzzz – GONE! Oh yeah the book is set in England which I thought was strange. Why not America like the movie? Anyway just when the guy has realized that from now on we’re just going to be MARTIAN FRENCH FRIES and kept in cages (when not heatrayed) then the Martians just like shrivel up and die. End of. So, in my opinion, I say watch the movie. Or you could go for the prog rock version, lol. Oh I guess I did give away the end. Okay, SPOILER – sorry. But everybody knows this story. It’s like saying oh in the end Dracula dies with a steak in his arse. It’s a known fact.

PLEASE SEE POSTSCRIPT

Well with GR telling me I haven’t read any books this year (doh !), I thought I’d finish my first.

In all seriousness this is a re-read because I want to go on to Stephen Baxter’s The Massacre of Mankind, which is part of one of this years numerous challenges (why do I do this to myself ?)
Anyway GR says this is my 2nd read of this classic book (hah, what does GR know), whereas in fact it is probably my 5th or maybe 6th. To me it is certainly 4.5 stars and is enjoyable for so many reasons. The book itself is well written, as per usual from HG, it is not just a science fiction book but an in depth look or even examination of human nature and lastly I spent my childhood growing up and walking around the villages and countryside where the cylinders landed, so expected to see a Martian at any moment. How can I not like it, I know the roads the “writer” walks, cowers and scuttles along through the course of the story.
Let’s hope Mr Baxter can live up to this high standard with his authorised sequel.

PS I have added this postscript as some witty people have enquired if I was wandering the lanes and byways of this book with HG Wells. Now I maybe approaching my prime (cough cough) but I’m not Victorian

Read for the 2015 Reading Challenge: #41 A book by an author you've never read before n  stupidly haven't read before I should sayn And for my 2015 Reading Resolutions: 5 classics (5/5) :’D completed!!

Excellent. Not just very interesting for all the technology and science it has, but outstanding in describing human behavior and criticizing its time. Very thrilling at parts, philosophically emotional at others and overall, well written. Highly recommended for any sci-fi fan. The ending might be a little Deus Ex Machina for some, but I love simple endings that make sense. Wells indeed a very good storyteller.



n  “En los últimos años del siglo diecinueve nadie habría creído que los asuntos humanos eran observados aguda y atentamente por inteligencias más desarrolladas que la del hombre y, sin embargo, tan mortales como él; que mientras los hombres se ocupaban de sus cosas eran estudiados quizá tan a fondo como el sabio estudia a través del microscopio las pasajeras criaturas que se agitan y multiplican en una gota de agua.”n


Lo que mas me gusto de este libro es que no solo es “un ataque alienígena” lo que esta describiendo el autor, si no que usa este concepto para explicar realidades del ser humano. Lo más interesante de esta historia es cuando fue escrita, porque impactan más ciertos pasajes.

El libro es una mezcla de muchas cosas, filosofía, supervivencia, intriga, tácticas de guerra, suspenso, desastre, incluso un poco de gore podría decir. Hay ciertas escenas bastante asquerosas de imaginar. Para ser un libro tan corto y rápido, cada trama se maneja muy bien porque no tiene ni una palabra de relleno. La escritura es bastante intensa de forma inteligente y sin sobredramatismo. Tiene grandes descripciones para ser admiradas por cualquier fan del hard sci-fi. Sobretodo lo referente al final del libro.

n  “y en los marcianos tenemos la prueba innegable de la supresión del aspecto animal del organismo por la inteligencia”n

Recomendado, especialmente si traes ganas de un buen classico sci-fi. Pero pasa de el si no te va mucho la vena psicológica. Este NO es un libro de acción.


n  "Quizá el futuro les pertenezca a ellos y no a nosotros."n

" 'This isn't a war, said the artilleryman. 'It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants.' "

I really enjoyed the Invisible Man, so I thought I would enjoy this even more. But unfortunately, I didn’t.

Let me start off with saying that I think H G Wells is one of the best writers ever to lived. I mean, his writing really is superb. He did not fail to impress me with his way of expressing words in this peculiar novel. So I think we’ve established that I think he is a great WRITER.

This was a science fiction story and I never have been much of a Sci-fi person, I mean don’t get me wrong I like Star Wars and all that Jazz, but I’m not much of an alien-taking-over-the-earth kind of reader. So unfortunately, I found it hard to follow at times because I was gradually losing interest in the plot. However I can definitely see that almost all of these type of books and films are based off of this story. So H G Wells did set the guideline for this type of genre.

Not my thing, but I can definitely understand why people like this a lot.

n‘’Science Fiction is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment.’’

Darko Suvin, ''Metamorphoses of Science Fiction''

I read The War of the Worlds some years ago when I was in high school. I don’t remember exactly which edition I read then, but I remember that it had no notes on the text, introduction or biographical notes. While I enjoyed the book, I felt that I was missing some subtle points. Then about a month ago I was gripped with the idea of finding a good edition and re-reading this classic. That is how I basically ended up picking this edition. And it didn’t disappoint. Reading it as an adult feels a lot different. Having been familiar with the basic premises of the plot, this time around I tried to focus more on the ingenious and metaphysical elements.

The book’s profundity is evident when you take into consideration the prevailing scientific thoughts of the time on such things as planetary system formations, theory of biological evolution and physiology. Wells’ Martians are at an advanced phase of an evolutionary timeline, exhibiting the physiological characters he himself conjecturally (and somewhat satirically) wrote about in his article ‘’The man of the year Million’’. Their evolution has rendered all organs redundant, except for the brain, eyes, an auditory organ and tentacles. Devoid of emotions, they are perpetually in an egocentric sustenance mode. The fact that they are further along in the evolutionary timeline is explained by the relative distance of Earth and Mars from the Sun. The Nebular Hypothesis asserts, this deviation in distance resulted in differences in cooling times between the planets during their formation process, this in turn influenced the genesis of life in the respective planets.

n‘’The Ripley gunners, unseasoned artillery volunteers who ought never to have been placed in such a position, fired one wild, premature, ineffectual volley, and bolted on horse and foot through the deserted village, while the Martians walked serenely over their guns’’

At the end of the nineteenth century, The British military forces of the time were geared more towards colonial objectives than combats within the homeland. The infantry was equipped mostly with bolt-action magazine rifles and water-cooled machine guns. By the time The War of the Worlds was published, The Royal Navy had adopted the the two power standard that allowed it to be as strong as the world's next two largest navies combined. The Majestic class of pre-dreadnought battleships had 12-inch guns housed in twin turrets for the main battery. These ships made up the bulk of the Channel fleet in the late 1890s. Between the two Boer Wars, the British Army had around 300 artillery weapons, which was less than what the French and the Germans had per 1000 soldiers. A significant number of these weapons were stationed in the colonies. In addition, I suspect a homeland defence might involve some cavalry and mounted infantry regiments.

With the description that Wells provides of the Heat-Ray and canisters of insoluble poison gas that can vaporize hills, it is not hard to imagine the military of that time being all but vanquished by the Martians. While there are instances of the Martians struggling from shelling, for the most part it’s a lopsided fight. There is a scene in which there is a mutiny amongst crew members of destroyers and torpedo boats from the hopelessness of the defence. The main line of defence against the Martians thus falls up on mines and pitfalls. In Chapter 17, we are also introduced to the fictional Ironclad torpedo-ram, The HMS Thunder Child, that gives a good account of herself against The Martians before being destroyed. Natural selection, as far as adapting to the threats of life on Earth, presents itself as the hero of the book. This is monumental when you take into account even 40 years after the publication of The Origin of Species, The Theory of Evolution was not widely accepted.



Although there are layers upon layers of ideas to untangle and interpret, I think the most plain one is Wells' critique of Imperialism and colonialism. The treble imperial themes of invasion, exploitation and acquisition of new lands by coercion were examined in some invasion literature during the Victorian era. The most notable examples being The Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer or Wells’ own The First Men in the Moon. However, The focus of most invasion literature of the time leaned more towards invasion by The French or The Germans on Britain rather than by extraterrestrial beings. Even in The War of the Worlds, Wells alludes to this fact through Mrs Elphinstone’s hysteria at the prospect of crossing the channel to France.

As has been written extensively, Wells’s criticism of colonialism stems from his reading of the history of the Aboriginal Tasmanians. Starting with the Black Wars and culminating in the encampment and extermination of the nomadic aboriginals, this is one of the many grim instances of the history of imperialism. However, Well’s opposition and critique is very much reflective of a man in his era and not particularly palatable to a 21st century mind. From an early age, he was obsessed with Malthus and the depletion of resources through overpopulation. He envisioned future wars being fought over dwindling resources, much like what drove The Martians to invade Earth. Needless to say, most visions of Utopia wells wrote about in his latter years would at best be scoffed at today, or most likely dismissed on a scholarly and humanitarian basis.



The legacy of The War of the Worlds is immense. At the time of its publication, it reflected the pre-war anxieties of Victorian England. The cultural impact it produced was and continues to be colossal. It has spawned several film adaptations, TV series, games, radio dramas, comic books and fan fictions. Furthermore, countless alien inversion stories inspired by this book stand testament as to how it has entered our collective conscience in the meta sense. The picture above is taken from the town centre of Woking, Surrey, which is a major setting for the book and the address from which Wells wrote The War of the Worlds. It is of a Wellsian Martian Tripod made from chrome-electropolished stainless steel, and was inaugurated in the spring of 1998. Just a few meters from this statue, you can also find another one portraying the landing of the Martian cylinders.

It’s essential to keep in mind that this book was written before the advent of planes and tanks. Motor vehicles were hardly visible in late Victorian Britain. This brings me back to Suvin's quotation at the beginning of the review. The literary question to ask here is, has the author created an imaginative framework strong enough to accommodate an alternative reality different from the author’s own empirical environment? Wells had a scientific background that greatly influenced his works (Normal School of Science from 1884 to 1887). However, he was a writer first and foremost rather than a scientist. In a self-referential passage from The War of the Worlds, he indirectly dubs himself a ‘’speculative writer of quasi-scientific repute’’. As a good writer should, he is able to effectively connect his readers to his narrative. The narrative, while not possessing a highly polished prose, has the shoulders to carry Wells’ imaginative mind.

Therefore, in accordance with Suvin’s description, the question eventually becomes, what of the ‘’presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition’’ in The War of the Worlds? My take is, the reality imagined in this book, is a much more sophisticated depiction of an alien invasion than much of the Sci-fi literature that preceded it or was inspired by it. Characterization is irrelevant here. In fact, Wells doesn’t even give any of the major characters names. His Martians are not serving a dystopian vision of a discrepant society. Rather, they put forward a picture of a society under stress from relentless efficiency at the expense of all others facets of life. The humanity of Wells is not like that of a Dickensian tenderness. Instead, it is admonishing. The Martians are a cautionary representation of our own evolved selves, but one in which our humanity is subordinated to efficient consumption. They take our apprehension towards disaster and flip it into a scenario of total catastrophe using a logical sequence of events.

"I felt no condemnation; yet the memory, static, unprogressive, haunted me. In the silence of the night, with that sense of nearness of God that sometimes comes into the stillness and the darkness, I stood my trial, my only trial, for that moment of wrath and fear."

Hey, I finally get the addition of the rapidly growing red weed that's in one in favorite game of all time, SNES Zombies Ate my Neighbors. These martians weren't hunting cheerleaders though!



While the wording style is eloquent, beautiful, it fails to hold rapt focus. I think the main issue is the story is so distant from characterization and mainly fills itself out by describing everything - martians, their instruments, the lands, the horrors, the pit.

There's a few pieces of dialogue but mainly the lone traveler is kept with the company of his own mind, but still the author tells us little. The character has a wife but little else is known besides his slightly philosophical nature and definite strokes of luck and fortune. He escapes much while others just happen to not make that same fortunate escape.

Being a classic written in another time, the science and plausibility isn't as advanced with its sketching as something today would be -- but it was incredibly inventive, especially for its time period. We've copied this work on art in so many ways since. Originality is something that shines for The war of the worlds - we can only hope to be suitable imitators.

On the surface it is a story about the doom of man when the sky opens to release those vicious Martians - but the author enjoys later telling tales of how the human race is doomed and sort of deserves it because we have doomed others, the earth, and been unmerciful to the land, animals, and those tribes or peoples different from us. Wells raises the point of mankind ruthlessly wiping out others due to greed and savagery, without our current day giving it ample remorseful respect.

Bringing up animals, here is one quote among many that points the same theme out --

"...an inferior animal, a thing that for any passing whim of our masters might be hunted and killed. Perhaps they also prayed confidently to God. Surely, if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity -- pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion."

H.G. Wells keeps the philosophy strong by also taking pains to show that, while the Martians are a horrifying creation we have a right to fear, we ourselves are scary to animals and other races we've conquered.

Does compare the monstrosity of the Martians with mad of how we destroy the world or have taken no mercy in history on previous human tribes. When describing the horrors of the Martians feeding, the author then states, "The bare idea of this is no doubt repulsive to us, but at the same time I think that we should remember how repulsive our carnivorous habits would seem to an intelligent rabbit."

An interesting concept - especially because of the radio forecast that led to historic panic - and the creativity of its times. On the downside, the lack of characterization gives a lack of attachment for the reader other than sci-fi colored curiosity. Description only stays interesting up to a point.

I've seen that some find the ending anti-climactic, but I loved it. It's fitting, makes reasonable sense, was happy in its way, horrible in its way, suiting in its way.

"He had swept it out of existence, it seemed, without any provocation, as a boy might crush an ant hill, in the mere wantonness of power."

4.5 stars.
Read this in high school English class, would you believe!

Wells sort of made a bet and wanted to have it covered both ways: in which shape will Apocalypse come?

Humanity wiped out by super-humans ruling over invincible machines?

Or wiped out by a tiny bacteria?

Choose your ending! And enjoy a vintage science fiction writer while you wait ...

Can't believe I never read this before, because I am (or at least thought I was) so familiar with the story. I mean, who isn't? One literally can't not know this story, at least it's basic structure; and along the way I've also thoroughly enjoyed the Spielberg/Cruise update a few years back as well as the excellent Jeff Wayne musical version released way back in...wow, 1978?

So okay...not really a 5-star book, but certainly a 5-star experience in terms of enjoyment, especially the audio version with Sean Barrett's outstanding, Burton-esque narration. And despite my familiarity with the story, there were still a few surprises along the way. For one thing, several critical chapters about the panicked exodus from London and the classic battle against the ironclad Thunderchild are told not from the narrator's POV, but from that of his brother - a minor point, but one that adds to the story's overall believability by reducing what would otherwise be the narrator's Zelig-like omnipresence.

Wells' writing holds up surprisingly well for being 120 years old - or at least when someone reads it aloud. His description about the crowds fleeing London are truly horrific; and sadly, humanity would probably react just the same way today.

My GF friend David has a nice review of the book here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., in which he does a good job comparing Wells' fictional reaction to the Martians' arrival to how the natives in Africa or America must have felt when the British first "invaded" their shores - I have to confess I was so engrossed in the story (at least that's my excuse) that I totally missed that obvious analogy until he pointed it out.

Still, a little old-timey writing goes a long way, so despite having one of those Barnes & Noble "seven H.G. Wells stories in one volume" books, I'm probably good for a while. However, I recently ordered the double-CD "War of the Worlds - The New Generation" (only $5 new at Amazon), which is a 2012 "reimagining" of Jeff Wayne's original concept album; and I look forward to cranking it up during my morning commute - "ULL-laa" indeed!

This book surprised me. It's far from being a cheesy look at ray guns, flying saucers, and beings who say lines like, “Take me to your leader.” No, The War of the Worlds reads like, dare I say, realistic fiction. There is an aura of believability throughout its pages. An academic or elevated take on the genre, so as it was in 1898.

The story? Well, it's pretty straight-forward. Martians crash land on Earth and destroy everything and everyone in their wake. But it’s much more than that. The narrator deals in speculative philosophy, so it reads like a bloke questioning what he is seeing and inferring what he knows about science and the world to arrive at logical conclusions. Now, if this sounds sort of drab, I understand. Some readers might want more bits of action or survival sequences, and although this has them, they are not the focus of the story. The focus is on the overarching reason why the Martians are here and what their goals are, rather than just trying our best to obliterate them and move on.

I really appreciate the focus on using street names and locations around England to paint the picture. The words are detailed and succinct, but they also have a bit of literary whimsy to make the writing not feel overtly wooden. The Martian description is fairly unique as well. Again, everything is more or less driven by technical details, so that may be a turn-off for some seeking something a bit more sensational or dramatic. The characters are pretty sparse as well. I enjoyed the framing on the theme of human vulnerability, survival, and the limits of knowledge at the time, even if the singular relationships suffer a bit.

n  || “The chances of anything manlike on Mars are a million to one.""n

Save it for a rainy day, in-between an X-Files sesh, or when you get a hankering for a classic. It will surely not disappoint.

I was amazed that I had never read this before! Of course it is exceedingly dated; that's what happens when you are over 100 years old! But the man had some amazing ideas about the future and this is epitomised by the way this book ends. For today's reader it is an obvious resolution but back in Wells' day, not so much! The story is short but wordy with story advancement delayed by the main character philosophising frequently and at length. However I enjoyed it greatly and can understand why it remains a popular piece of science fiction right through to today.