Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I just finished reading H. G. Wells' 1898 novel (itself a collection of serialized releases) The War of the Worlds, and found it to be just as engaging as I'd hoped.
Wells' famous story of an alien invasion needs no introduction, having firmly embedded itself in the public consciousness in the hundred-plus years since its publication. Even if we overlook the famous incident of another Welles (Orson, that is) causing a panic when performing a radio adaptation of the story, I suspect that most people have at least a passing familiarity with the Spielberg film...or the more recent groaner starring Ice Cube.
With so many reproductions in various media, there were no major surprises in reading the original story, though I found several smaller points that were delightful. For instance, at the risk of rehashing a topic I've spoken about on more than one occasion now, Wells' use of expository presentation here was notable for how frequent it was. Presented as an in-character memoir of events, there's a great deal of "telling" what happened (particularly in the parts where the narrator relates the struggles of his brother in London) rather than "showing." That the book has since become not only a classic but a literary staple should be all the proof anyone needs that advice about avoiding exposition is at best unnuanced, and at worst facile.
More notable were several minor details in Wells' story that tend to be glossed over or changed in the various adaptations that I've seen. For instance, the "heat ray" of the Martians' "fighting machines" (i.e. the tripods) is explicitly stated to be invisible; while it's understandable that they dispensed with this for most film version of the story, finding this difference to be overtly stated in the original text was unexpected. Similarly, the Martians have little in the way of defenses; far from having energy shields wrapped around their tripods, a single mortar shell—fired during the opening stages of the invasion—is enough to breach the "head" of the machine and kill its pilot. It's just that the Martians have superior firepower, with several other tripods incinerating the mortar and almost all other resistance in immediate retaliation.
Likewise unexpected was that the Martians also use a chemical weapon, firing canisters full of heavy black gas that kills all who breathe it, and yet which turns into harmless dust when exposed to water. I can only imagine a certain contemporary filmmaker having read that water was their weakness and immediately being so inspired to make his own alien invasion movie that he put the book down, never finishing it, and so never coming across the section later, while the protagonist is hiding from the Martians in a ruined house, where Wells writes:
Proof positive that Wells > Shyamalan.
Another interesting tidbit is that Wells seems to go out of his way not to name characters. Not only is the narrator unnamed throughout the story (which always makes me think of Fight Club, since that's the first bit of media that I remember doing that, even though I later learned that Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name was far more iconic), but so is his brother, his wife, the artilleryman with whom the narrator briefly takes shelter, the curate whom he lurks in the ruined house with and eventually strikes down after he (the curate) goes mad, and several other characters in the story. I'm not sure why Wells does that; my only idea (which I'll freely admit isn't a good one) is that he wants to more sharply contrast the names of real scientists that he drops early on in the story, when outlining things such as the presumed state of Mars and certain aspects of astronomy.
Though there is one rather notable individual whose name isn't dropped, but whose writings are referenced with regard to the speculative nature of the course of evolution that resulted in the Martians' physiology. Given that the narrator identifies the publication involved, makes several cracks at how unbelievable that author's writings are even as he reiterates them at length, it's clear he's referencing himself here (with Wikipedia suggesting its his essay "The Man of the Year Million").
Most satisfying, however, was the answer to the question I'd long had with regard to the events of the Martian invasion: how is it that a species capable of mounting an interplanetary expedition of conquest could have overlooked the issue of germs? Here, Wells tells that (while his narrator cannot be certain, it seems as though) the Martians seem to have no knowledge of such microorganisms, implying that Mars lacks them altogether, either because they never evolved there or because Martian medical science wiped them out so long ago that they've been completely forgotten. It's an interesting possibility, though I'm skeptical as to how plausible it is viewed through the lens of today's biology, as opposed to when Louis Pasteur's The Germ Theory and Its Application to Medicine and Surgery (1878) was still recent news.
Even if the tale itself hadn't been a gripping one, the above details would have made this worthwhile. As it is, I can heartily recommend giving the original work a read—it's far more satisfying than seeing the Martians be defeated by an Amazon delivery drone.
Wells' famous story of an alien invasion needs no introduction, having firmly embedded itself in the public consciousness in the hundred-plus years since its publication. Even if we overlook the famous incident of another Welles (Orson, that is) causing a panic when performing a radio adaptation of the story, I suspect that most people have at least a passing familiarity with the Spielberg film...or the more recent groaner starring Ice Cube.
With so many reproductions in various media, there were no major surprises in reading the original story, though I found several smaller points that were delightful. For instance, at the risk of rehashing a topic I've spoken about on more than one occasion now, Wells' use of expository presentation here was notable for how frequent it was. Presented as an in-character memoir of events, there's a great deal of "telling" what happened (particularly in the parts where the narrator relates the struggles of his brother in London) rather than "showing." That the book has since become not only a classic but a literary staple should be all the proof anyone needs that advice about avoiding exposition is at best unnuanced, and at worst facile.
More notable were several minor details in Wells' story that tend to be glossed over or changed in the various adaptations that I've seen. For instance, the "heat ray" of the Martians' "fighting machines" (i.e. the tripods) is explicitly stated to be invisible; while it's understandable that they dispensed with this for most film version of the story, finding this difference to be overtly stated in the original text was unexpected. Similarly, the Martians have little in the way of defenses; far from having energy shields wrapped around their tripods, a single mortar shell—fired during the opening stages of the invasion—is enough to breach the "head" of the machine and kill its pilot. It's just that the Martians have superior firepower, with several other tripods incinerating the mortar and almost all other resistance in immediate retaliation.
Likewise unexpected was that the Martians also use a chemical weapon, firing canisters full of heavy black gas that kills all who breathe it, and yet which turns into harmless dust when exposed to water. I can only imagine a certain contemporary filmmaker having read that water was their weakness and immediately being so inspired to make his own alien invasion movie that he put the book down, never finishing it, and so never coming across the section later, while the protagonist is hiding from the Martians in a ruined house, where Wells writes:
An age of almost intolerable suspense intervened; then I heard it fumbling at the latch! It had found the door! The Martians understood doors!
Proof positive that Wells > Shyamalan.
Another interesting tidbit is that Wells seems to go out of his way not to name characters. Not only is the narrator unnamed throughout the story (which always makes me think of Fight Club, since that's the first bit of media that I remember doing that, even though I later learned that Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name was far more iconic), but so is his brother, his wife, the artilleryman with whom the narrator briefly takes shelter, the curate whom he lurks in the ruined house with and eventually strikes down after he (the curate) goes mad, and several other characters in the story. I'm not sure why Wells does that; my only idea (which I'll freely admit isn't a good one) is that he wants to more sharply contrast the names of real scientists that he drops early on in the story, when outlining things such as the presumed state of Mars and certain aspects of astronomy.
Though there is one rather notable individual whose name isn't dropped, but whose writings are referenced with regard to the speculative nature of the course of evolution that resulted in the Martians' physiology. Given that the narrator identifies the publication involved, makes several cracks at how unbelievable that author's writings are even as he reiterates them at length, it's clear he's referencing himself here (with Wikipedia suggesting its his essay "The Man of the Year Million").
Most satisfying, however, was the answer to the question I'd long had with regard to the events of the Martian invasion: how is it that a species capable of mounting an interplanetary expedition of conquest could have overlooked the issue of germs? Here, Wells tells that (while his narrator cannot be certain, it seems as though) the Martians seem to have no knowledge of such microorganisms, implying that Mars lacks them altogether, either because they never evolved there or because Martian medical science wiped them out so long ago that they've been completely forgotten. It's an interesting possibility, though I'm skeptical as to how plausible it is viewed through the lens of today's biology, as opposed to when Louis Pasteur's The Germ Theory and Its Application to Medicine and Surgery (1878) was still recent news.
Even if the tale itself hadn't been a gripping one, the above details would have made this worthwhile. As it is, I can heartily recommend giving the original work a read—it's far more satisfying than seeing the Martians be defeated by an Amazon delivery drone.
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