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The War of the Worlds (Watermill Classics)

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Today H.G. Wells is chiefly recalled by the general public as the author of three seminal science-fiction novels: THE TIME MACHINE, THE INVISIBLE MAN, and most famously THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. But these are only three of the more than one hundred books Wells published in his lifetime, and it is worth recalling that Wells himself was a socio-political and very didactic writer, a determined reformer with distinctly socialist leanings. And his point of view informs everything he wrote--including these three famous novels.

In each case, Wells uses the trappings of science-fiction and popular literature to lure readers into what is essentially a moral lesson. THE TIME MACHINE is essentially a statement on the evils of the English class system. THE INVISIBLE MAN addresses the predicaments of the men and women to whom society turns a blind eye. And THE WAR OF THE WORLDS is a truly savage commentary on British imperialism and colonialism.

This is not to say that it isn't science-fiction--for it most certainly is, and moreover it is science-fiction well grounded in the scientific thinking of its day: intelligent life on Mars was believed to be entirely possible, and Wells forecasts the machinery and weapons that would soon become all too real in World War I. Set in England about the beginning of the 20th Century, the story finds a strange meteor landing near the narrator's home--and from it emerge Martians, who promptly construct gigantic and powerful killing machines and set about wiping the human population of England off the face of the earth. The Martians and their machines are exceptionally well imagined, the story moves at a fast clip, and the writing is strong, concise, and powerful. And to say the book has had tremendous influence is an understatement: we have been deluged with tales of alien invaders (although not necessarily from Mars) ever since.

But there is a great deal more going on here than just an entertaining story. Both the England and Europe of 1898 were imperialistic powers, beating less technologically advanced cultures into submission, colonizing them, and then draining them of their resources. With THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, Wells turns the tables, and imperialistic England finds itself facing the same sort of social, economic, and cultural extermination it has repeatedly visited on others.

The upshot of the whole thing is that Wells ultimately paints the English habit of forced colonization as akin to an invasion by horrific blood-sucking monsters from outer space--and even goes so far as to suggest that if the present trend continues we ourselves may follow an evolutionary path that will bring us to the same level as the Martians: ugly, sluggish creatures that rely on machines and simply drain off what they need from others without any great concern for the consequences. If we find the idea of such creatures horrific, he warns, we'd best look to our own habits. For these monsters are more like us than we may first suppose.

And this, really, is why the novel has survived even in the face of advancing scientific knowledge that renders the idea of an invasion from Mars more than a little foolish. THE WAR OF THE WORLDS is a mirror, and even more than a century later the Martians reflect our own nature to a truly uncomfortable degree. A memorable novel, and strongly recommended--at least to those who have the sense to understand the parable it offers.

--GFT (Amazon.com Reviewer)--

I though I knew this story. I had heard the radio show and seen the movie - so I was just planning to read a classic in the original words but wasn't expecting anything new or interesting in the content. I was very surprised. Setting this back in Victorian Times when it was originally written totally changes the story. The speed at which the disaster is communicated is different. The speed at which the participants can flee from the Martians is different. The tools that the humans can bring to bear against the Martian invaders is different. All of these things make the story surprisingly new. I really enjoyed it.

Unknown to the inhabitants of Earth, the planet Mars is aging and nearing its exhaustion. The Martians, not even perceiving humans to be anything other than animals, decide that it is time to seize this lush, young planet. Landing in several locations in southeastern England they begin their conquest of the planet. Can man, with his most advanced technology hope to stop the Martians with their much more advanced technology?

You've seen the 1953 movie, War of the Worlds, and want to read it in book form? Well, then don't look here. Herbert George Wells wrote this book in 1898, a mere one year after The Invisible Man, and two years after The Island of Doctor Moreau. The moviemakers of the 1950s made a wonderful movie, but one that, alas, bears very little resemblance to the original!

This book is one of the crowning examples of nineteenth century fantastic fiction. It is a gripping story that masterfully combines horror and suspense, keeping you at the edge of your seat until the final page.

I am lucky enough to possess the 2001, Books of Wonder edition that contains fourteen wonderful, full-color, full-page illustrations plus the two-page illustrations on the front and back, all done by the masterful Tom Kidd. It is very well made, and would make an excellent addition to any library.

Still Well's greatest literary achievement, it tells a story that's gripping, human, and powerful. Imitated a zillion different times in a zillion different ways, there's still something primal and evocative about this story.

Probably the most impressive thing about it is that it reads like historical fiction written today, not science fiction written a hundred years ago -- to a modern reader, the heat rays and gas weapons of the Martians seem more "real" than the oddly bucolic Victorian setting that they shatter.

The most interesting detail about this story, and one that many readers may miss (I certainly did until it was pointed out to me) is that Wells intended this work as a satire (not a funny satire, but a biting one) of British imperialism. The story was inspired by a conversation with his brother, discussing the eradication of the Tasmanian islanders by the British. His brother wondered what would happen if an alien race dropped from the sky and did the same to England; Wells wrote the book in response (and there is a brief mention of the Tasmanians in the novel).

Many people who have heard of "The War of the Worlds" may have seen the movie without reading the book. The movie was set in Cold War America, with martians that flew in what looked like greenish manta rays. The book was set in Victorian England, and the martians looked like towering tripods. In both versions however the premise is the same: Earth invaded by a superior alien intelligence. HG Wells wrote about humanity's ego and complacency being crushed by a highly developed lifeform.

"The War of the Worlds" has been interpreted as an allegory of imperialism. Just as the British took over other countries to make them part of the Empire, so too is the Earth being taken over by the Martians. They even bring their own plant life with them, the "Red Weed". The Martians see us as vermin, trying to wipe us out with heat rays and poisonous black gas. Thats's what makes the story so much fun. It is frightening in a cosy sort of way. We read the story in a safe, comfortable room, while the narrator talks of all the death and destruction he sees.

An interesting point that Issac Asimov once brought up was that if alien intelligence did exist, their advanced evolution would also mean they would be emotionally superior to us. They would not act like barbarians, as war is a primitive thing. When people write alien invasion stories, they are really saying something about us. We are destructive and aggressive by nature. Our history has been one long story of conquest, slavery and even genocide. So HG Wells has put a little bit of us into his Martians. Both metaphorically (as imperialists), and literally (as food).

As the percentage of the population that reads quality fiction declines, foundational literature like H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds is read less often. This is partly because whatever it has to offer is assumed to be easy enough to find in the movie - a regrettable error. In anticipation of the Speilberg/Cruise version, I recently returned to the book after more than thirty years, having read it first as an impressionable ten year old. What I found was much more than the story of a Martian invasion. The book resonates with profound observations about society and technology that are as far ahead of their time as the towering, metallic Martian invasion machines were to the horse and buggy world of Well's original setting.

The movie and radio versions always want to update it, but this saps the power of the original novel. If it is terrifying to be invaded by a superior intelligence, it is all the more terrifying if the technological contrast between you and them is staggering, as Wells intended it. The power of Well's imagination is impressive when you consider that he was conceiving heat rays, enormous tentacle-endowed grappling machines and poisonous gas at a time before automobiles and airplanes appeared and when people still heated their homes with coal stoves.

I can virtually guarantee you, Speilberg won't go there. Nobody today wants a movie about the late nineteenth century that doesn't involve lots of fancy costumes and an attractive young British woman deflecting the romantic attentions of some handsome hunk. Spielberg will update it.

Interestingly, there is no romance in Well's book, and virtually no sentimentality, save a surrender to convention at the end which, by today's lights, will neither uplift nor terribly disappoint. Well's book is about something else. It's about one man's coming to terms with humanity, as much as he's coming to terms with the Martians. It's a theme worth exploring today.

Some will argue that lots of science fiction is about humanity, but let's not lose sight of the fact that Well's was first. Along with Jules Vernes and a few other 19th Century pioneers he was inventing the genre. As is often the case with the foundational classics, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Edgar Allen Poe's Murders at the Rue Morgue these newly forged nuggets of genre fiction may be considered quaint today, but their authors created the maps that every other writer followed, and what's revealed, if you care to read them, is that they are always about something else, the human experience, during the time they were written in, and for all time. They are universal, which explains their longevity. They are about the condition of being human, in profound ways, which popular movies almost never want to explore for fear of losing box office.

Spielberg will give us a pseudo-family, thrown together by circumstance and menaced by something that wants to destroy them. Most popular American movies today are about the same thing. It's simple. It's why Fox News is so widely watched and why people vote for "moral values" with a picture in their minds not unlike the sanitized version of family that comes in the packaging for desk top frames. And it's why Spielberg's movie will make millions. But Wells is about something far more interesting morally - and far more complex.

His main character contends with reckless fascination, suicidal skepticism, ugly greed, deadly self-interest, everyday meanness, as well as the cowardly smallness of theatrical religiosity and the self-absorbed laziness of loud-mouth intellectualism. Given the inadequacy of humans, the question arises, how can they possibly survive against their intellectually advanced foes? This is the true question of the book - which Spielberg is sure to brush aside in favor of lots of cool special effects and the pretty faces of the actors trying to save their "family".

But Well's answer to the question is sheer genius. If you don't already know it, hold off on seeing the movie until you've read the book, because this is something Spielberg will include.

Movies use art to generate commerce. Literature uses commerce to advance art. Two different purposes, two different results. Spielberg's movie will be great. I'm looking forward to it. But it's no substitute for the book. And if you're a Science Fiction fan and you've never read The War of the Worlds you owe it to yourself to see where it all came from, sans the Hollywoodization. It's all about being human, and that's something worth exploring deeply. And something worth fighting for, whether it be against Martians, or more human adversaries.

Note: I made some Mormon reader angry over my negative reviews of books written by Mormons out to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews.

Your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks. It took some effort to type up the following wonderful lines from this story about an invasion from Mars. I hope you enjoy them.

"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 scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in the assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment."

Don't miss the other great novels by H.G. Wells--"The Time Machine" and "The Invisible Man." The wonderful opening lines of "War of the Worlds" are worth repeat readings--note the phrase "across the gulf of space."

Basically, it is a good, fast moving story. It keeps you glued to your chair both by its plot, but also by its writing. This is not fast food writing. This is not the kind of writing that you consume like french fries, enjoy and forget instantly. The prose is beautiful, every word seemingly chosen with care to build up a scene or create a mood. The quote that began this review is one example. Here is another to describe the collapse of the government and the end of law and order, "All organizations were losing coherency, losing shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last in that swift liquefaction of the social body."

Right from the start, the reader is given a growing sense of danger, dread and horror. The narrator (who seems to be Wells, himself) describes the ancient, doomed civilization of Mars. It is doomed because Mars itself is a dying planet and the Martians must look elsewhere if they are to survive. They look to the earth and they have a technology so advanced and a moral sense so non-existent, that people do not exist for them except as a nuisance to be gotten rid of.

Having given the reader that background information, Wells describes the landing of a mysterious object near the small English town where he is living happily with his wife. The object is regarded at first as a meteorite, then as a curiosity and then as an enigma as it slowly opens. No one sees it as dangerous until it lashes out with a deadly heat ray, killing people. (Clearly Wells anticipated the invention of the laser!) When these first deaths occur, the narrator hastily sends his wife to stay with relatives a few miles away, not anticipating any real danger, but just being sensibly cautious. He himself quite matter of factly returns home and is suddenly plunged into the midst of chaos and danger. The Martians are on the move. More and more of the strange objects are landing. The Martians ignore all efforts to communicate and contemptuously destroy all human efforts at attack or defense. The Martians begin a sweep of the countryside, slaughtering everyone in their path.

So everyone expects that the moment the British army goes into action against the Martians, the Martians will be doomed. Instead, the Martians simply annihilate the British army. The highest technology known to man is slapped aside like the stinging of mosquitoes. That is all man is to the invader, a pesky insect. Or, as a soldier who is the sole survivor of his unit tells the narrator, their best efforts were: "It's bows and arrows against the lightning." I doubt that we, reading it today, can fully grasp how shocking that must have sounded to the average Victorian reader.

That was Well's intention -- to shock the reader. It's no accident that he used the simile of bows and arrows against the lightning. Great Britain (along with the other Western powers) had been able to conquer "savages" around the world because the British had the lightning (guns) and the "savages" had only bows and arrows. Out of those victories came a sense of moral superiority the concept that Western civilization was superior instead of admitting that it was only Western technology that was momentarily superior. Wells was a writer on social issues and he used science fiction to show what would happen if the British Empire came up against aliens who were as far beyond them as they were beyond the "savages" they had conquered and who treated them as they did the "savages." In War of the Worlds, it is made very clear that the Martians really don't behave any worse towards humans than humans behave towards each other. In fact, he comments early in his story, "Before we judge of them (the Martians) too harshly, we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought...Are we such Apostles of Mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?"

Wells wanted his readers to think and feel what it means to be a conquered people who are conquered and destroyed not through lack of courage or effort but simply because the enemy's technology is superior. I have no idea how many readers of the day understood the message and learned humility from it. War of the Worlds began that popular part of science fiction that imagines invasions from outer space, the most recent being the blockbuster Independence Day. Here the message is, unfortunately, that even though alien technology is superior, humans are able to cleverly find a way to defeat the enemy. That makes for a good, exciting story, but it is not the message Wells was giving.

War of the Worlds does have a happy ending. The aliens are defeated, but not by the cleverness and resourcefulness of man. Something else defeats them and saves the human race. The message of War of the Worlds then is as timely today as it was in 1898. Man is not the master of the earth, much less the universe. Man needs to learn to walk humbly upon the earth and value what he has before it all is lost.

H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" is a straightforward, tightly-written, and innovative little novel (barely 200 pages of actual author text in most editions) that helped define Science Fiction as a genre. It also inspired a slew of imitators and is the subject of countless adaptations (with no fewer than three film versions in 2005 alone) Its standard-setting plot of alien invasion and conquest continues to drive its diverse progeny in their many forms. Nevertheless, the basic story at the heart of this multimedia frenzy remains fresh, exciting, relevant, and (for the most part) has barely aged a day since its original publication in 1898.

The 2005 Penguin Classics edition is a great way to experience Wells' original work first-hand. Between its elegantly designed covers, this edition includes two insightful -- and somewhat overlapping -- introductions from Patrick Parrinder and Brian Aldiss, generous annotations, and (most helpfully) a map with notes detailing the narrator's journey throughout the story. All of these features are immensely helpful to readers unfamiliar with the history of the novel, Wells, or the Victorian London portrayed in the story. Even long-time fans of the novel are likely to find some extra little detail that will broaden their appreciation for what Wells achieved with this early effort.

When I last read the book, I was about twelve-years-old -- far too young to appreciate its various subtleties. It seemed just another science fiction novel, albeit one that was a little difficult for me to read at that tender age. Revisiting this as an adult is an eye-opening experience. Not only did I find more to enjoy in the story and the prose, but I caught a lot more of the metaphors and real-life parallels that H. G. Wells invoked.

One of the really noticeable aspects of the novel (especially when compared to more modern science fiction writings) is how human it seems. Wells was apparently fascinated by the thought of how people and societies would react to an alien invasion. He shows us both the micro- and the macro-level. We see the panic on the collective mind of the general populous. We're shown the unreasoning hysteria present in a frightened mob. But Wells also makes the fear individual. Not only are we viewing the situation from the eyes of the narrator, but we're encountering particular people each reacting to the situation in different (yet entirely reasonable) ways. The false bravado, the total inability of the human mind of cope -- they're all presented here.

Another thing that immediately struck me was the rich use of language. I've read so many books written in an overly simplistic "he said, she said" fashion that I really appreciated this. Some readers may find it tedious, but I found it very absorbing.

In short, I really enjoyed reading this. It's not a particularly long novel, and I managed to put it to bed in a single afternoon sitting. THE WAR OF THE WORLDS had a profound message at its core, one that would be diminished through the following years by the many science fiction movies that ripped out the events without fully understanding the meaning. H. G. Wells was showing his 19th Century audience the dangers of British Imperialism. He wanted to show the effect that so-called liberations and enlightenments had on the indigenous populations. The lessons for the 21st Century are obvious. And for this reason, WAR is so much more than just the first sci-fi alien invasion story. While we still inhabit a world of war and conquerors, the message of WAR OF THE WORLDS will, unfortunately, be necessary.