"The War of the Worlds", by H.G. Wells

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The War of the Worlds tells the story of the Martian invasion of Earth, written at the end of the 19th century. It is a classic of sci-fi and literature in general. But it is written before man had ever gone to space, had computers, radio communication, or airplanes, so it’s both amazing that the author H.G. Wells can write about alien invasions, but also very, very dated in both the science and ideologies. As I read it, my opinion kept going back and forth between finding it good or bad: sometimes he gets sic-fi, and shows good imagination; sometimes the book just shows how antiquated and limited the authors ideas were.

One example where the lack of imagination of the writer shows is the means of travel from Mars to Earth: a cannon bullet, which opens with a really tight screw-on lid. Maybe it's clever for the 19th century, but really implausible for today. The author would have been better served by coming up with some fantastical device that he couldn’t explain, but that would be more likely for an advanced civilization. However, we must keep in mind that the author is trying to present an alien invasion before we knew anything about space flight, or even normal flights. Even tanks weren’t commonly used in war at the time, and Wells’ martians use walking war “mecha” (the tripods), before anything remotely similar was used. So he can come up with some pretty good sci-fi.

The aliens themselves are another good step in the right direction: there is nothing human about them, they are no little green men, they are truly alien lifeforms. It’s incongruous to me when sic-fi stories come up with all sorts of aliens lifeforms and technologies, but the intelligent life is still humanoid. *That* is a sad lack of imagination, and Wells manages to avoid it here.

The book has a fantastic opening - it’s really well written, and it’s an exciting set-up for the story. The book is very descriptive; this is very unlike Wells other famous book, The Time Machine, in which lots of pages are filled with the narrator’s musings, opinions, and monologues. In this book, there is a lot more action (not in the sense of adventure or fighting, just in the sense of things happening), it’s just one thing after the other. Having heard about the famous radio broadcast by Orson Welles based of this book, this is something I had expected - I was expecting a good description of the invasion, with lots of facts, and with the reactions of the people. The authors delivers in this point, even if it doesn’t read like a news account of events.

I listened to the audiobook read by Roger Watson, and the reading is superb. His voice is very pleasant, he is easy to understand, and his narration adds the proper nuance and excitement when needed.

In summary, you should read it because it’s a classic, and shows the foundations of the genre, not because it’s great sci-fi. But take heart that it’s actually good and well-written, and explores great themes, like the place humanity might have in a larger universe.

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