H G Wells

[Brian G Turner]

I feel I have to correct my earlier posts - at times there's a wonderful sense of rhythm to the prose in War of the Worlds.

It probably helps to remember Richard Burton's narration in the Jeff Wayne musical adaption (though some is edited for better effect). Perhaps it's just that Burton could make anything sound good?

Btw, the text for War of the Worlds can be found at the Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36/36-h/36-h.htm

 

[Randy M.]

Late to the party on this topic. Anyway, I do find some of Wells' narration to be dry, and I think it usually works well: "The Sea Raiders" for instance. I think it was a purposeful choice on his part, lending an air of news reporting rather than story-telling, for much the same reason as Stoker used diary extracts and letters in his narrative of Dracula: to ease the suspension of disbelief. Orson Welles adapted the narrative tactic for radio and his version of War of the Worlds had a pronounced effect because of it.


Randy M.

 

[psikeyhackr]

The books themselves were just ok. However it was the wildly imaginative stories which were what made them so special. I couldn't believe I was reading books about time travel and aliens attacking earth in the late 19th century, when ppl were still getting around by horse carriages.

That is what I found really jarring when I tried to read War of the Worlds. I do not doubt I would have loved it if I had lived and read it in 1900. But today the idea of horses everywhere seems silly. Also the allegory that Wells was trying to make comparing the British in India to Martians invading England just doesn't apply anymore.

It is an SF story with an obsolete message and alien invasion stories today have a whole different point. They are nearly a cliche about humans overcoming ovewhelming odds. But it was germs that beat the Martians in Wells story.

psik

 

[Ray McCarthy]

But why would you assume it's set today? It's a sort of a 19th century story, some elements of which were obsolete when Wells wrote War Of the Worlds.
I don't know that it's anything to do with the British in India and plenty of worse alien invasion stories are written later.

 

[psikeyhackr]

But why would you assume it's set today? It's a sort of a 19th century story, some elements of which were obsolete when Wells wrote War Of the Worlds.
I don't know that it's anything to do with the British in India and plenty of worse alien invasion stories are written later.

I know when the story was written and set. Wells said the story was inspired by a conversation he had with his brother regarding the people of Tasmania being wiped out.

Like everything he wrote, there are some clear underlying themes, not least that Wells was dishing out a little of our own medicine, asking in effect, "how do you like to be at the receiving end of a very large stick, just as many real people had genuinely suffered under the British colonial yoke? In fact, it was a conversation with his brother Frank about the fate that had befell the Tasmanian peoples when they were discovered by the Europeans that Wells himself quoted as a spark for the novel. One can also see a stark message in the way the Martians are vanquished, suggesting as it does that science is not necessarily going to be the saviour of mankind and that in fact we would do well to remember that nature at the most microscopic level can be every bit as powerful.

http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/h_g_wells.htm

psik

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Inspired by.

 

[AE35Unit]

Still works for me!

 

[BAYLOR]

That is what I found really jarring when I tried to read War of the Worlds. I do not doubt I would have loved it if I had lived and read it in 1900. But today the idea of horses everywhere seems silly. Also the allegory that Wells was trying to make comparing the British in India to Martians invading England just doesn't apply anymore.

It is an SF story with an obsolete message and alien invasion stories today have a whole different point. They are nearly a cliche about humans overcoming ovewhelming odds. But it was germs that beat the Martians in Wells story.

psik

You might want to give Kevin J Anderson's novel The Martian War . Ha G Well's is a character in the book along with Perceval Lowell, Dr Moreau and Professor Cavor . It's quite good.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I don't feel able to criticise his writing style, but I would say that his stories are imaginative, thought provoking and fairly accurate in their predictions. They are also books which , once I've started reading, I don't want to put them down.

Aside from this , I would say that a good story can rescue a poorly written book, but the reverse is not true.

 

[BAYLOR]

Well wrote the Screenplay for the 1936 movie adaptation of Things to Come

 

[psikeyhackr]

Well wrote the Screenplay for the 1936 movie adaptation of Things to Come

The reaction of audiences to that movie is so curious. Arthur C. Clarke saw it in the theatre and talked about it.

With its foretelling of the Second World War, the movie has often been cited as a prophetic film – although the actual war itself only lasted half as long as depicted. Faux newsreel images of modern tanks rolling into battle are remarkably similar to those seen during the war. And the bombing of Everytown which opens the movie – showing the city’s inhabitants seeking refuge in underground tube stations, as waves of enemy aircraft brave AK-AK fire to unleash their payloads – so resembles the London Blitz of 1940, that it has been said Hitler himself screened the movie to his cohorts (including head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goring) – in order to spur them into action. In addition to these startlingly familiar scenes from history, the horse-drawn automobile seen during the post-war pestilence middle section of the film (in this instance – a Rolls) is an image which would become de rigueur in countless post-apocalyptic movies ever since.

Interestingly, noted sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke, who always considered Things To Come to be his all-time favorite sci-fi film, was so enamoured with the movie – he had it screened for director Stanley Kubrick in preparation for their collaboration on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Much to Clarke’s chagrin however, Kubrick was less than impressed with Wells’ filmand in fact preferred the aforementioned Forbidden Planet.

Clarke said people laughed because they did not believe in the effects of ariel bombardment. But this was only a few years before the London Blitz.

psik

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I'm puzzled!

On 6 August 1914 the German Zeppelin L 6 bombed the Belgian city of Liège, killing nine civilians.
In the UK the first successful Zeppelin raid took place on the night of 19–20 January 1915. Two Zeppelins targeted Humberside but were diverted by strong winds, and dropped their bombs on Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, King's Lynn and the surrounding villages. Four people were killed and 16 injured. Monetary damage was estimated at £7,740. The raid prompted alarmist stories about German agents using car headlights to guide Zeppelins to their targets.

Also

Military Zeppelin Serial # L.Z. 28 reached London and dropped 90 incendiary bombs, and 30 grenades, on random civilian targets in the Northeastern suburbs of the city. Seven civilians were killed and 35 injured. Indicative of the invulnerability of the Zeppelin at this time was the abortive attempt by nine British fighter aircraft to reach the flying altitude of the L.Z. 28 at 10,000+ feet. In trying to intercept the Zeppelins, one of the aircraft crashed, killing its pilot.

... However, 300,000 Londoners still routinely used the railway Underground system to find shelter overnight.

DURING WWI!

Perhaps some other aspect of the film was unrealistic? By 1936 Hitler was re-arming. The War started for some as early as 1935!

http://www.westernfrontassociation....1-aerial-warfare/876-bombing-britain-war.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_strategic_bombing_during_World_War_I
There are other references.

 

[Fried Egg]

That is what I found really jarring when I tried to read War of the Worlds. I do not doubt I would have loved it if I had lived and read it in 1900. But today the idea of horses everywhere seems silly. Also the allegory that Wells was trying to make comparing the British in India to Martians invading England just doesn't apply anymore.

It is an SF story with an obsolete message and alien invasion stories today have a whole different point. They are nearly a cliche about humans overcoming ovewhelming odds. But it was germs that beat the Martians in Wells story.

I'm sorry but your criticisms of "War of the Worlds" are mystifying to say the least.

Why should the fact that horses were everywhere seem silly? Horses were the primary means of transport at the time. He didn't set his story in his future. If he were setting the story some 50 years in the future then I could sympathise with your position but it was a contemporary story set in the time it was written. It would have been bizarre had they not featured heavily.

The allegory goes far deeper than "the British in India". It was set in Britain because, at the time, the British were probably the world's dominant superpower. It was the logical place to stage an alien invasion that would so quickly and effectively humble the most powerful nation on earth by showing that they were just a big fish in a little pond. If it was written today it would probably be set in America. The point was to bring humility to a proud nation that thought it was invincible.

Reading that reminded me about the criticism many people make about Joe Haldeman's "Forever War" when they say it is just another book about the Vietnam war. That criticism fails to see the bigger picture and misses the fact that it is just as relevant today as it was then.

 

[psikeyhackr]

It was set in Britain because, at the time, the British were probably the world's dominant superpower. It was the logical place to stage an alien invasion that would so quickly and effectively humble the most powerful nation on earth by showing that they were just a big fish in a little pond.

How would invading Martians know that before 1900 without radio transmissions?

I don't mind the horses in 1632 where all sides are using them. But it just annoyed me in a technological invasion so I didn't get very far in the work. Alien invasion stories do not have the theme that Wells was using so even though he is regarded as starting the sub-genre they are no longer about what he started.

Kate Wilhelm's Killer Thing is more similar in the fundamentals.

psik

 

[BAYLOR]

How would invading Martians know that before 1900 without radio transmissions?

I don't mind the horses in 1632 where all sides are using them. But it just annoyed me in a technological invasion so I didn't get very far in the work. Alien invasion stories do not have the theme that Wells was using so even though he is regarded as starting the sub-genre they are no longer about what he started.

Kate Wilhelm's Killer Thing is more similar in the fundamentals.

psik

Okay , the Martians are technologically a super advanced civilization. They invade Earth and didn't consider the notion that there might be harmful germs on Earth that could kill them?

 

[Fried Egg]

How would invading Martians know that before 1900 without radio transmissions?

It could have been an accident, that's not the point. It served the purpose of the story to humble the world's most powerful nation.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The German Army was still relying on Horses even in WWII, never mind WWI. Horses are irrelevant.
Even today Military equipment can be/is transported by mule when helicopters are unsuitable.
Radio transmission is irrelevant, though available from 1896.

 

[paranoid marvin]

At the time how would guns have been moved? Horse-power was by far the most common form of transport. The Martians didn't land in Britain just because they were the most powerful country on Earth; in fact the chances are that they were probably landing all over the globe. But the story was told from the point of view of one character, who could have no idea after the initial attack of what was going on anywhere other than where he was.

Wells was saying that for all our achievements, but all our pomp and splendour, to a more techinically advanced race we are but bacteria under a microscope.

 

[BAYLOR]

Why didn't the Martians anticipate germs ?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

1) Um... it's only a story.
2) Maybe their Germaline only worked properly for Martian bugs?