Book Review: War of the Worlds

What with the recent release of Steven Speilberg's updated version (or retelling, as the case may be) of H.G. Wells' classic science fiction tale, I thought it appropriate to read the original, which is frequently called "the granddaddy" of alien invasion stories. First published in 1898, the novel begins with a both an ominous warning and a slender ray of hope: "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."

Written as a first-person, eyewitness account, Wells' tale builds from a series of seemingly inconsequential "disturbances" on the surface of Mars and the crash of a meteorite outside of London - a meteorite which turns out to be an alien craft instead. At first, whatever is inside the craft seems weak and simply an object of curiosity. That changes, of course, when the aliens emerge with 100-foot tall machines that spew death and destruction. England's grand military (one must remember that in 1898, the British Empire still spanned the globe, and the U.S. was robustly isolationist in its global policies) is unable to stand against the Martian might, instead suffering repeated defeats at the hands of the aliens and their ray guns.

Offering images that would echo for decades, through such things as The Twilight Zone and Mars Attacks, the alien death rays literally burn their targets to cinders, and the aliens themselves are looking for more than territory: they're looking for food. Wells' narrator describes with horror how the Martians suck the blood from living humans; it becomes clear that these aliens aren't even interested in cookbooks (think the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man"); they'll just take their food raw and off the hoof.

Reading Wells' War of the Worlds is instructive in several regards. First of all, the story is written in a decidedly nineteenth-century style (much to be expected, of course). There is little in the way of dialogue, as Wells instead opts to simply have his narrator describe what is going on around him. This is quite different for someone who grew up in the "Hemingway" century; today, the majority of writers follow in Hemingway's footsteps and eschew copious amounts of detail and exposition in favor of fast-paced dialogue and quickly-moving plots.

Second, it typifies one side of the science fiction equation, which is to suggest mankind's insignificance in the universe (indeed, man is decidedly unable to save themselves; the aliens are instead defeated by disease). This is one side of the sci-fi debate; on the other side, of course, you might have someone like Harry Turtledove, whose recent novel Homeward Bound embraced the notion of humanity as an overly aggressive, incredibly adaptive species that is uniquely capable of rapid advances, especially in terms of technological development.

Article Author: W.E. Wallo

W.E. Wallo is a book and movie junkie whose writings have appeared in a variety of print and online publications.

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