...
The War of the Worlds is a well-known novel which was first published in 1898. Since then it has spawned many imitations, reworkings, and interpretations in print, on radio, and on film and television. Wells's work is hugely influential and for that reason I decided to see what all the ... Read review
Classic / British English (Available April 2008) The War of the Worlds is one of the most ... more
frightening science fiction novels ever written. When a spaceship falls from the sky and lands in southern England, few people are worried. But when strange creatures climb out and start killing, nobody is safe.
Advantages: Gripping Plot, Classic Story Disadvantages: Some dated writing
This review is about the book; I haven't seen the new Steven Spielberg film version. I understand the location has changed and some characters have been added. So, be warned, this might contain a spoiler or it might not. I honestly have no idea!
H. G. Wells was not in a good mood when he wrote this classic science fiction novel. 'I completely sack and wreck Woking - killing my neighbours in painful and eccentric ways - then proceed ... ...read this.
The War of the Worlds is a well-known novel which was first published in 1898. Since then it has spawned many imitations, reworkings, and interpretations in print, on radio, and on film and television. Wells's work is hugely influential and for that reason I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Could a novel written so long ago really be relevant today?
This review is about the book; I haven't seen the new Steven Spielberg film version. I understand the location has changed and some characters have been added. So, be warned, this might contain a spoiler or it might not. I honestly have no idea!
H. G. Wells was not in a good mood when he wrote this classic science fiction novel. 'I completely sack and wreck Woking - killing my neighbours in painful and eccentric ways - then proceed via Kingston and Richmond to London, selecting South Kensington for feats of peculiar atrocity,' he wrote to a friend as a description of his work in progress. His neighbours remain unnamed but I'm sure they knew who they were when they read this.
The War of the Worlds is a well-known novel which was first published in 1898. Since then it has spawned many imitations, reworkings, and interpretations in print, on radio, and on film and television. Wells's work is hugely influential and for that reason I decided to see what all the fuss was about. Could a novel written so long ago really be relevant today?
THE PLOT: The plot is a now classic one. Earth is invaded by Martians! And these aren't cuddly ETs; they are hideously ugly blood sucking beings with superior intelligence and technology. They land on Horsell Common in cylinders and their landing place is visible from our narrator's window.
Our hero is an average suburban male who likes his comfortable life and his nice wife. He's cultured enough to be a bit of a snob and have intellectual scientist friends. The world including the Woking rail station is a part of his daily view as he goes about his normal peaceful life. Until one day six years ago the cylinders started landing. At first it is only our narrator who seems to realise that something serious is happening. Everyone else is either interested in the name of science or not concerned at all. Cue disaster as the cylinders start to open and reveal....
Big, round, pulsating grey things with tentacles, large eyes, and saliva dripping mouths. Needless to say, our narrator is disgusted at first sight. Still, no one in the Woking area is prepared to take the threat seriously. Since his scientific friends are the first to be killed, our hero is mightily concerned about the motives of the interplanetary visitors. He evacuates his wife to Leatherhead and finds himself caught up in horror on the way back to Woking. (To return a horse and cart he has borrowed from the landlord of his local pub.)
Meanwhile, in London, our hero's brother is meant to be studying for his medical school exams. At any rate, he's usefully placed to tell us what is happening in the capitol in reaction to the strange events in West Surrey. As news and fugitives trickle in - it's the weekend so it seems odd that more people are coming into London than leaving it for a day in leafy suburbia - our brother (none of these main characters actually have names), with his family's sense of the importance of the big events, thinks a move out of town might be a good idea. His suspicions are confirmed then the police start to evacuate London. Cue selfish behaviour, panic, and the collapse of chivalry. (Except from our brother who finds some helpless ladies to look after as he guides them to the safety of the English Channel.) Londoners behave as badly and as stupidly as the Surreyites. There's just no excuse for human nature.
The Martians should have been defeated many times over by now. Our finest gun divisions have been bombarding them whenever they've had the chance. Remember, Britain would have been the mightiest thing on the planet in 1898 with a huge empire and an unquestioned technological superiority over the rest of the world. Wells is questioning the proud superiority of national thinking with this cautionary tale but to give it some credit he grants small victories in water based battles to the human side of the conflict.
The Martian weapons are devastating. A Heat Ray roasts and toasts most of West Surrey before reducing the Thames to steam. The earth becomes a glaring red world as the Martians move in. The Martians conquer Earth's gravity with huge 'boilers on stilts' with tripod legs that easily manoeuvre over any terrain. So much for the theory that the Martians would never leave their pits.
Our narrator witnesses several battles and befriends an artilleryman who gives him survival tips before rejoining his unit. As he sees the destruction of all that is ideal in Britain he has a vague plan to go to London. (Why not Leatherhead to join his wife is unclear.) By now he as experienced the horror of knowing exactly why the Martians have invaded.
They want our blood. To drink. Raw, not cooked. As if taking over the planet was not bad enough, they want to make humans into farm animals for a continuos supply of nourishing, tasty blood. Our narrator is appalled. (Except when an annoying curate - a truly reprehensible character - who has been nicking his food supply and generally has been being a pain in the arse gets grabbed. Well, that's not fair, he is appalled but secretly relieved!)
It all seems quite hopeless. We're outclassed technologically, outthought tactically, and in no fit state to argue with the cruel fate the Martians have devised. With the exception of our narrator and presumably the members of his immediate family, everyone decides they only thing to do is get drunk. Champagne is the drug of choice and London is littered with magnums. Even the sensible artilleryman whom our narrator meets again, is not immune. Why bother with his plan to learn everything in the British Museum, form underground communities, and defeat the Martians by stealth when there's some lovely champers about?
Our narrator is in despair. He travels to London to see the destruction first hand. It is appalling. Drunks lay dead or dying in the streets, especially in South Kensington as promised. Wild dogs roam. And the building which represent the greatness of human endeavour are trashed completely. Even the Dome of St. Paul's is half destroyed. He's half delirious when he begins to hear a heart rending sound. 'Ulla, ulla, ulla', wails above the destruction in an all pervasive way. It is the last Martian and it is dying.
Ironically, the very thing that humans spent a big part of the 19th century destroying has been their salvation. Bacteria has saved the day! (I don't think I'm giving anything away here as the story is quite well-known in its various forms.)
THE MORAL OF THE STORY: What can we learn from the War of the Worlds? (Other than that H. G. Wells wanted to kill his neighbours?)
For one, we can never be too secure about our place in the world. Things can change overnight. Getting drunk to avoid the problem is not the answer either. The only thing to do is keep doing and hope for the best.
ANALYSIS: The War of the Worlds is gripping reading most of the time. The famous introduction and the narrator's walk through destroyed London are very powerful. The imaginative details of the lives of the Martians are interesting and convincing. There are some nice touches of ambiguity though out which if the story weren't so familiar would really have you guessing as to the outcome. Where Wells can drag a bit is in the listing of places as he's visiting them. I recommend a Greater London A-Z on hand to track the movements of the Martians unless you're particularly familiar with the south west suburbs of London. Obviously, Wells had a message to get across to his readers and he want them to know he means that the selfish horrible people he's describing are themselves. A strange approach, but people are still reading this today or enjoying it in other forms. So a sharp social satire of Surrey and London became a world-wide favourite.
ENDURING APPEAL: I don't even know all the forms the War of the Worlds has taken and as this is a review of the book I'll only mention them briefly. One of the most famous is Orson Welles's radio adaptation of 1938 which terrified the US. Welles changed the place names to New Jersey and the tale was just as convincing. Also, several films and a rock opera have taken on the theme. The idea of invasion and powerlessness will long have appeal. As long as we can win in the end.
War of the worlds........
H.G Wells created this fantastic work of genius that was responsible for the only recorded full scale alien invasion panic ever recorded, such was it's unparalleled story line and it's conversion to radio play format.
Many of you will have heard or be more familiar with the modern day audio transcript of this epic classic, let me assure you that despite being minus the teriffic sound tracks, this is equally inspiring to ... ...yourself quaking in fear at the same timely moments.
Those of you unfamiliar with one of Well's greatest works, let me tell you a little about the book and the storyline that is common to every format of the tale.
Starting when the radio surveillance observatory picks up disconcerting blips suggesting something approaching the earth.........is this the eve of mankinds distruction?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "No one would have believed, ...
babajane32 04.04.2004 (05.04.2004)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
Advantages: Beautifully written, exciting plot twists, a remarkable feeling of realness Disadvantages: The plot may be too slow for some, the history is quite distant now
...1897), 1898's "The War of the Worlds" by HG Wells is effectively the great-granddaddy of every alien invasion story. And it reads like Thomas Hardy. The unrelenting reality strikes the reader from the very beginning, with that portentuous and famous "no one would have believed ... " first chapter. "War of the Worlds" was a novel written for various reasons, but perhaps most importantly it was a parody. In the previous twenty years or so, "invasion ... ...aliens invaded and behaved to the British the way the British had behaved to other countries in their Empire) and melding it to the structure of these xenophobic penny dreadfuls, HG Wells came up a very memorable and novel idea. Despite the tremendous suspension of disbelief required to envisage creatures from Mars invading in giant armoured tripods, Wells makes this a lot easier for the reader by setting his invasion in a "true" setting - certainly, ...
GlasgowWho 24.06.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
Advantages: An absorbing read. Disadvantages: You won't be able to put it down.
War of the Worlds, written by H G Wells in 1898, was a post Apocalyptic tale of a Martian invasion. Now more than a hundred years old, this masterpiece about the possible extinction of the human race, deals with a theme that humans have been wondering for many years. Is there life on other planets?
Well, in this book, there are, and they are technologically advanced, and they have landed on Earth. The Martians are evacuating their own planet because ... ...spread fear and death across the planet.
At first the Martians go about their business, leaving the Human's alone, taking no notice of them, but soon they turn hostile as they kill a big crowd of people with their deadly heat rays, as the Humans gather inquisitively around the Martian craft. The Martians are weak under Earth's higher gravitation, they enjoy the oxygen rich atmosphere on Earth and use100 foot tall tripod, rapid moving machines to ...
Paradis 02.09.2004
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
Advantages: Its quite short. Disadvantages: Not short enough.
Overview
War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel written ithe late 19th century. Generally regarded as a classic, it is noticable as being a very early and pioneering work of SF and one of the first ever depictions of an alien invasion of Earth.
General Opinion
I didn't like War of the Worlds. Classic novels have a rather odd position in which they are impervious to criticism. They stand aloft, their status assured. All this makes it difficult ... ...dislike
I understand War of the worlds. Its significance, its originality, how revolutionary it was for its time. I get all that, but none of it can stop it being a very, very dull book. My, my how contreversial. Please allow me to elucidate precisley as to which aspects I found to be so intensely soporific.
All of it. I have read many older and more exciting books than this, so age doesn't come into it but I find H.G Wells to write in an interminably ...
thegoldencat 19.11.2008
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
Advantages: fantastic story! Disadvantages: nothing to speak of
...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…
So begins H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. I first read this 1898 sci-fi novel before Steven Spielberg's recent remake of the 1953 cinematic version of War of the Worlds, then after reading many reviews of the remake I reread the novel rather than watching the 2005 ... ...in Wells' future, the early twentieth century, and was first serialized in Pearson's Magazine. The male narrator, rather like a reporter of that era, describes the catastrophic invasion of England by Martians in chilling detail from memory, not only of what he witnessed, but also what his brother in London related to him.
Wells knew that area of England very well for he had just moved there (and hates his neighbors apparently!) and had bicycled ...
jankperegrine 19.08.2005
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
Would you read it again?
Story
Characters
Readability
How does it compare to ...
Similar reviews »
Reviews which might be of interest for "The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells"
Advantages: Ahead of its time in some respects... Disadvantages: And downright feudal in others...
're clearly supposed to feel sorry for him, even though he's become an arrogant and criminal nutcase. The dialogue with Kemp is clearly intended in part to illustrate his moral corruption but given that he's been stealing, fighting and trying to murder his former associate for a good forty pages, it adds nothing new to the story.
And the style, ah the style. In War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells earned my undying amusement for a passage in which a cart driver is scared of a man whose hat has fallen off. No, really, go and look. I was looking out for similar displays of bizarre prose in The Invisible Man, and yet again, having an open collar and no hat marks you out as a potential danger to yourself and others. I often wonder what dear Herbert would make of my own crumpled dress sense.
These gripes are not really signs that the book is a bad one ...
Advantages: Brilliant depiction of alien society Disadvantages: Ho hum sunliner full of augmented humans
Ever since HGWells wrote War of the Worlds and described the Martians ruthlessly zapping the Home Counties, we've seen countless visions of how we might react to learning we're not alone in the universe. From government cover-ups and conspiracies to all-out interplanetary war, aliens coming to visit is a science-fiction staple.
Learning the World - a novel of first contact
In Ken MacLeod's Learning the World, however, humanity has a long way to go before meeting new life. MacLeod suggests a universe so vast that humans conquer space travel and colonise vast numbers of star systems before finally encountering intelligent life.
In this novel, we are the invaders. And most of the ship's crew has a different opinion on how to go about things.
Aboard the sunliner 'But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky!', it's clear that a lot ...
Advantages: A very moving and entertaining new book that deserves a good read Disadvantages: Military /science fiction which may not appeal to everybody who can get put off by the sci-fi label.
difficult service to the state can become eligible to vote. Criminals are publicly flogged or otherwise punished. Women are mysterious creatures. They also can serve the state in the various forces not just stay home and make babies.
Joe Haldeman wrote "The Forever War" in the post Vietnam era of 1974. Here Officers and Politicians were sadistic fools. War is our fault and fought for no good reason. This is in line with the "Emerging Truths" of that time. Here sexual partners are swapped as easily as socks and with about as much feeling.
When you consider that HGWells wrote "War of the Worlds" in 1898, he was speaking to a Victorian fear of mass mechanised warfare. Aliens were something to be feared. Nowadays we prefer our aliens to be warm, fuzzy and politically correct. (Mork and Mindy. The very pleasant alien from the telecom ads ...
Product Information for "The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells" »
Product details
Type
Fiction
Genre
Science Fiction
Title
The War of the Worlds
Author
H. G. Wells
ISBN
0141024186; 0141441038
Manufacturer's product description
The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. At first, naive locals approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag only to be quickly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray, as terrifying tentacled invaders emerge. Soon the whole of human civilisation is under threat, as powerful Martians build gigantic killing machines, destroy all in their path with black gas and burning rays, and feast on the warm blood of trapped, still-living human prey. The forces of the Earth, however, may prove harder to beat than they at first appear.
Compare The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells to other similar Science Fiction Books »
Similar products and search queries by other users »
The H, The War H, The of H, The the H, The Worlds H, The War of H, The War the H, The War Worlds H, The of the H, The of Worlds H, The the Worlds H, The War of the H, The War of Worlds H, The War the Worlds H, The of the Worlds H
Are you the manufacturer / provider of The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells? Click here
