War of the Worlds by H G Wells

[SFFWorld]

“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.” (Chapter 1) In Science Fiction there can be few other books…

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[farenheit001]

I always like the Orson Wellls radio broadcast of war of the worlds and 1988 first season episodes of the series .

 

[Matthew Hughes]

I read the book in my early teens, before I saw the 1952 movie or heard about Orson Wells's radio extravaganza. Herbert George had a fine imagination. He single-handedly invented the alien invasion, lunar landing, and time travel tropes. Half the sf authors who ever existed are his literary descendants.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

^ Well said!

 

[phil_geo]

I find this book very dated. When it was written it was very well done, and from a historic perspective it is well worth reading. But from an enjoyment perspective, it suffers from being overcome by time.

Back when he wrote it, aliens were a crazy, unheard of novelty, and you couldn't take too much time explaining them and describing them. Today, you just need to know it's an alien plot and then you want something more. There's an entire chapter describing the shape of the ship. An entire chapter. It is not riveting - absolutely nothing happens except page after page of the shape and color of the ship. If you had never heard of aliens before, it would be fascinating. Nowadays, it is incredibly boring. You just want the book to move on.

I'm all for not forgetting about the roots of science fiction, and Wells certainly is a talented writer, but the book has not held up due to the once-novel plot becoming dated and hackneyed.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

the book has not held up due to the once-novel plot becoming dated and hackneyed.

What an odd comment. You're criticizing the shoulders so many have stood upon. It's like watching Citizen Kane and saying, "Oh, I've seen these camera angles and editing techniques so many times before, I can't appreciate seeing where they were invented by a genius."

 

[Stephen Palmer]

... and that Shakespeare bloke stole everything he wrote. :/

 

[Matthew Hughes]

... and that Shakespeare bloke stole everything he wrote. :/

Worse, he wrote in hackneyed formats like the three-quatrains-and-a-couplet sonnet and iambic pentameter. I mean who does that nowadays?

 

[phil_geo]

Unfortunately, being first doesn't make a book more enjoyable. The plot is basic and straightforward with no twists or surprises until the very end. It has been done better many times since then. If this were the first book you ever read about aliens you would probably find it fascinating, but if it is the tenth book, you will find it quite slow-paced and boring. The difference with Shakespeare is you are talking about technique, not plot, and arguably no one has done it better since he wrote his plays.

 

[Astrocyte]

Unfortunately, being first doesn't make a book more enjoyable. The plot is basic and straightforward with no twists or surprises until the very end. It has been done better many times since then. If this were the first book you ever read about aliens you would probably find it fascinating, but if it is the tenth book, you will find it quite slow-paced and boring. The difference with Shakespeare is you are talking about technique, not plot, and arguably no one has done it better since he wrote his plays.

I totally agree.

 

[Hitmouse]

Unfortunately, being first doesn't make a book more enjoyable. The plot is basic and straightforward with no twists or surprises until the very end. It has been done better many times since then. If this were the first book you ever read about aliens you would probably find it fascinating, but if it is the tenth book, you will find it quite slow-paced and boring.

To each his own. For me it is a terrific read: well paced and plotted, exciting, vivid, socially and historically interesting (Wells was quite subversive in his own way), and it defines half a dozen core SF (and non-SF) archetypes. It has lost none of its punch.

The difference with Shakespeare is you are talking about technique, not plot, and arguably no one has done it better since he wrote his plays.

Shakespeare is generally reckoned to be quite handy in the plot department.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

(Wells was quite subversive in his own way),

He was showing England what it had been like to be on the receiving end of European armies invading less developed countries in Africa and Asia and Australia. Kind of a "How would you like it if...?" approach.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

Interesting coincidence: Stephen Baxter, with the permission of Wells's estate, has published The Massacre of Mankind, a sequel to The War of the Worlds. It gets a good review on Tor.

 

[Hobbit]

Not that coincidental, Matthew. I suspect others may be doing the same as me and rereading the original before Stephen's new one, which gets a thumbs up from me at SFFWorld as well: review.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I wonder what British reviews said about the book right after it was published. If it was an allegory of the British Empire then how accurately is it interpreted today? What does the Victorian Age mean to an American teenager today? Is it just another alien invasion story?

psik

 

[Hitmouse]

I wonder what British reviews said about the book right after it was published. If it was an allegory of the British Empire then how accurately is it interpreted today? What does the Victorian Age mean to an American teenager today? Is it just another alien invasion story?

psik

Good questions. The British Empire may not interest an American teenager, but (if they are at all interested in allegory) then a novel about a complacent imperialism getting sand kicked in its face from an unexpected direction is pretty timeless. One could say analogous things about the very thinly disguised social commentary in The Time Machine.

If nothing else, an American teenager today might look on WOTW as a rollicking good adventure, and one of the foundational texts for Steampunk.

Is the concept of an American teenager a useful one? I ask as a British father of teenagers, and my impression is that apart from the hormones and the pimples they are a very varied and discriminating bunch of individuals and it is difficult to generalise too much.

 

[Av Demeisen]

BBC is making a three-part Victorian-era War of the Worlds TV series

 

[ArtNJ]

What an odd comment. You're criticizing the shoulders so many have stood upon. It's like watching Citizen Kane and saying, "Oh, I've seen these camera angles and editing techniques so many times before, I can't appreciate seeing where they were invented by a genius."

I find this the odd comment to be honest. I read for enjoyment, not for some literature class nor to have some book club-like academic discussion of where a novel fits in history. Sure I can be impressed and be educated when someone like Kate goes to town on a subject, but that isn't why I read. I haven't re-read this one in years so can't comment on it specifically, but I had a similar "dated" reaction to The Forever War. I can see where it was groundbreaking and important at the time it was written -- but by today's standards, the various futures are ridiculously thinly sketched (especially the sex one) and the "future shock" concept is no longer especially thought provoking in and of itself. While the theme of an incredibly pointless war is perhaps timeless, and relativity remains a good way to illustrate the theme, from the perspective of today, exploring this theme in a short story might have more punch than reading a full length novel that feels dated and familiar (especially the grunts-in-training bits). To give it credit for the impact the novel once had or for something like historical importance on the genre's development -- when I am reading only for enjoyment -- makes no sense to me.

 

[Abelard]

I wonder if TV and movies spoiled the American imagination to some extent, even though I enjoy a decent flick as much as the next guy. Wells wanted to develop the Martians and their ships with a good deal of detail, from what I remember of the book. Reading requires us to develop our imaginations, and it's a far more individualistic act than watching a movie is. You read a scene in a book, you imagine it in your own possibly quixotic way, depending on the voice of the writer and the level of detail. Then you watch a movie with your friends. How you feel about what you're watching can color the scene, but the basic information in the scene leaves nothing to the imagination. The movies are more of a shared experience than books are.

 

[JunkMonkey]

The movies are more of a shared experience than books are.

Unless you read them out loud to an appreciative audience.

I read War of the Worlds as a bedtime story to my oldest daughter (she was probably aged 10 or so at the time). It was great fun. It's a cracking read. (Though it has to be said Mr Wells was overly fond of the word 'tumult' which gets wildly overused in this book. 10 times in one chapter as I recall.)