Customer Reviews

War of the Worlds: New Millennium

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've read almost all of the novels written by Doug Niles and this is one of his best works. Even knowing the story, I was surprised by the interesting twists and turns of the book.

You can always expect a Niles book to be well researched and fast paced and this is no exception.

I honestly finished the book hoping they'd talk him into continuing the story.

Well worth the time and the price.

James M. Ward

I have to begin this review by saying that I really hated this book...before I read it. I am a huge fan of the original War of the Worlds and have loved many of the derivitive works related to it - from the Orson Welles radio broadcast and George Pal film to the Jeff Wayne album and Manly Wade Wellman's Sherlock Holmes And The War Of The Worlds. I was terrified, however, that this book would be a tremendous let down.
I could not have been more wrong!
Knowing how talented Mr. Niles is, I picked up the book and dived in - doing my best to be fair. In just a few pages, I was hooked. The story picked me up and carried me along effortlessly. I found that all my original concerns were utterly unfounded.
Fans of Mr. Niles will agree that he's hit another home run with this book. Those new to his work will find a work that expertly blends the classic tale of Martian invasion with a keen understanding of modern military tactics and hardware. This is a book you won't want to put down, so pick it up soon!

I just finished "War of the Worlds: New Millennium" by Dogulas Niles. As a huge War of the Worlds fan I had mixed feelings about the book. While I enjoyed the heroine Alexandria DeVane character and story, I found the story of her father who's chapters are told in narrative form lacking.

I enjoyed how the invaders managed to get their foothold, and enjoyed the destruction that accompanied their conquest. Personally I would have liked some reasoning behind the invasion. Niles took from the lead of Pal's story in as such as we never learn their motives. I personally liked the fact that Wells established that they were using us for our blood. At least that gave some reason for their invasion.

As such the book was a fair mixture of the original book and Pal's movie. The tripods use a form of "legs of light" similar to what Pal had orignial intended for his movie adaptation but due to budgeting had to drop after a single scene. Also gone are the Thunderchild, Red Weed, and such. Luckily unlike the 2005 movie also set in modern day at least Niles used cylinders as the delivery device of the tripods and also had black smoke.

All in all the book is a good read. I did feel that Niles wrapped up the story too quick. I would have liked a few chapters about life after the invaders were stopped. Honestly I feel that maybe he has a sequel in the works and left it open as such.

While the basic premise of the demise of the Aliens is in some ways very similar to Wells telling, he does take a drasticly different and unique approach that is in many ways completely opposite from that of the original story.

If you like this type of story I would also recommend Dayton Ward's The Last World War which while not based on HG Wells is a great alien invasion tell.

This was a good read for a weekend. A modern spin on the War of the Worlds, with a greater emphasis on the action and less on any kind of characters or social commentary, this novel follows the adventures of a family fighting to stay alive through the aftermath of an alien invasion. It would be interesting to know if the author had any knowledge of how the Spielberg version was going to proceed, it parallels strongly in some areas though it is quite different. It also has several different viewpoints, which is something I wish the movie had tried. The book follows a NASA scientist who's become involved in determining the origins of mysterious flashes on the red planet. At the same time, her father (who's viewpoint is first person) is trying his best to follow her progress and at the same time remain involved in what's going on from his retirement. At the same time, her boyfriend, who flies A-10s and has a brother who's an astronaut that gets hit by a blast of EMP from the alien vanguard, becomes one of the few survivors of the Martian's first strike.

The action is all described well, with graphic depictions of how the alien's weaponry worked and how ineffective ours is against it. There is also, through judicious exposition, a sense of what else is going on around the world in fighting the invasion. Overall, you got a good scope of the war, and how desperate things were becoming.

However, the ending really took the book down a notch (or two). If you though the ending for the movie was too abrupt (which it wasn't, considering it just followed the book very closely) this is going to knock you off your feet with just how silly it was. I won't go into it, suffice it to say that you'll never look at a piece of moldy bread in the same way again. So, it was a good effort, but in retrospect, it was let down by the ending. A good techno-thriller though, and a fun read for those who don't take their science fiction too seriously

I was given a preview copy of this title. I too am a military sci-fi writer, so I was asked to review it. All I can say is that I wish I had written it!

Man, this one is a great one! I'm not interested in seeing the Tom Cruise movie now, as it can't be as good as this book. Usually, I just skim these things. This one was a joy to read, and I couldn't put it down.

It follows the somewhat typical War of the Worlds sequence, but it's set in modern America, and it has some marvelous twists. I knew the original story, so I thought I wouldn't be hooked (I'm a plot-guy, after all). Niles even weaves in some of the detail of the original into the new plot. He's even got the crazed artilleryman, wanting to start a new civilization! Yet, it's done in a way that I didn't see it coming. Very cool indeed.

This is a top recommendation from another writer. Go read it now!

I have been hooked on "Earth Invasion" novels ever since I read H. G. Wells' WAR OF THE WORLD, being utterly captivated by the creepy un-earthliness of Wells' invaders and the panic/horror/despair that follows the Martian invasion. Viewing George Pal's movie was just icing on the cake. In the intervening years many authors (and film-makers) have tried to capture Wells' lightning in a bottle, Douglas Niles being the latest.

In most respects Niles' book follows the template of Wells' 1898 classic. Odd flashes of light on Mars translate into a convoy of spaceships that converge on Earth. The first three ships explode in EM pulses that disable all computers and modern weapons. Transport ships then disgorge landing craft bearing the death ray-bearing tripod machines that so thrilled movie audiences in the '50s. Initial attempts to stop the Martians fail and things are looking desperate but then...

I had high hopes when I picked up a copy of Niles' book but several things worked against it. The book has two main characters - a reclusive, retired college teacher living in a rural Wisconsin cabin and his NASA-connected daughter. The daughter drives the book's action, being involved in crucial events in the invasion. But Daddy spends 3/4 of the book hiding in his cabin before finally doing something!

Niles' Martians are pretty gross but I never felt the sense of revulsion that Wells' invaders generated. (Of course I was probably 10 years old when I read Wells' book so perhaps no book could measure up!). Then too, Niles doesn't do as effective a job of conveying the feeling of hopelessness that Wells' original did.

Having said that, I think you should give WAR OF THE WORLDS NEW MILLENIUM a try. It does a good job of building suspense and the action is fairly fast-paced. You may love it on its own merits!

Douglas Niles does an excellent job of bringing The War of the Worlds to a new millenium, with rich, credible characters, realistic reactions to the Mars threat, and great technical detail on the hardware and military maneuvers that would be involved in repelling the invasion. I have had occasion in the last year to read and review both Joe Haldeman's The Coming (dealing with some similar themes) and Charles Sheffield's Aftermath (sharing a major plot point). While I was disappointed with both those efforts, I am enthusiastic about War of the Worlds: New Millenium. Doug Niles gets right what those books got wrong. While having a broad geographic scope overall, we see interrelated characters in situations which are appropriate to the plot, government actions which make sense, and an ending which is appopriate to the story and the reader's expectations. Highly recommended, with great action, a terrific military feel, and excellent narrative. A real page-turner. I also recommend Fox on the Rhine, by Douglas Niles. Donald J. Bingle, Author of Forced Conversion.

It was the turn of not only the century, but the millennium. Mankind was exploring the vast void of space and had just landed another probe on Mars. When they lost contact with it.
Then there were the explosions on the red planet's surface.
Douglas Niles decides to take his skills as a author and a game designer to create a new, alternate War of the Worlds. And while he takes into account that mankind has advanced, both in the weapons of war and its other fields of science, he also decides to give the invaders a few tricks up their own many sleeves. Mr. Niles also adds a few plot twists to keep things fresh and a ending that seems almost funny.
You would think we would be able to handle a small invasion force of tripods from Mars.
And you would be dead wrong.

It was hard to put this book down, even when I could only keep one eye open late into night.
Doug Niles brings the horror of the famous Martian invasion story into the 21st century. You share in the passion of the main characters as they battle angrily, and hopelessly, against the Martian attack. How can our planet survive this new invasion when our most potent and modern weapons are rendered inoperable by a far superior force? Led by a brave few, with only their hearts and minds left to battle the gruesome creatures, you'll find out if the expression "where there's a will, there's a way" once again holds true.
Another gripping tale that stands up to the original - a must read!

I picked this one up looking for some good popcorn fun. I finished it so it was at least readable but it made for poor popcorn.

1. Technical gaffes all over the place. A-10 Warthogs do not have afterburners but they do in this book.
2. Pilot drops high-explosive bombs at low altitude in his A-10, bombs not equipped with retarding devices. In real life, they would have exploded under his plane, riddling it with shrapnel. Retarding devices slow the bombs so that they don't hit until the plane is safely out of range.
3. Humvee was described as possessing a key. Nope, military vehicles just have on buttons. You secure the vehicle by wrapping a chain and padlock around the steering wheel.
4. A-10's are not designed to carry and deploy nuclear weapons. Small planes like the Vietnam-era A-4 Skyhawk are nuclear-capable but it would require more than some hackwork to make it work for the A-10.
5. The usefulness of the female scientist character is not plausibly explained. She sort of exists there to point out the obvious that other people should have already figured out for themselves. Seeing as nobody knows anything about the Martians and she doens't either, the amount of insight she could provide would be no better than your average sci-fi fan.
6. I always liked the bacteria ending of the original War of the Worlds. It didn't strike me as deus ex machina so much as a way to put the reader in his place. Yeah, the best efforts of man cannot destroy the Martians but humble bacteria can. The mold bomb ending just doesn't make any sense. Mold spores are in the air all around us. Set two pieces of bread out on the counter. Boom, they both have mold spores. Eat the first slice, leave the second for a few weeks. The only difference between the one you ate and the one on the counter is that the spores had a chance to grow. In the HG Wells version, the Martians were dying from the moment they arrived. In this version, the Martians were supposedly imperious to the mold up until the point someone threw a bag of moldy bread at their machines. So you're telling me that the hulls of these vehicles can withstand impacts from 155mm artillery, 120mm tank guns, high-explosive bombs, etc, but a piece of bread will immediately poison the pilot? If they were that susceptible, they should have been dying the moment they stepped out of the cylinders. We could excuse their ignorance of terran biology in the original version since this was supposedly their first trip to Earth. But in this one, they already knew enough about our technology to mount EMP attacks. Would it not make sense for them to have intercepted and translated our TV broadcasts? Wouldn't they know about bacteria and molds, made their own studies?

Overall, disappointing. I was hoping for a bit more.