The War of the Worlds

("Jeff Wayne" version) Martian tripod / fighting-machine.

The War of the Worlds (1898) by H. G. Wells, is an early science fiction invasion novel (or novella) which describes the fictional turn of the nineteenth century invasion of Earth by aliens from Mars, who use laser-like Heat-Rays, chemical weapons (the Black Smoke), mechanical three-legged "fighting machines" (precursors to the tank), and crab-like handling-machines. After defeating the resistance, the Martians devastate much of southeastern England before being unexpectedly killed by terrestrial diseases, to which they have no immunity.

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Setting

The majority of the action takes place in the countryside of early 20th century southeast England. The first Martian landing is on Horsell common, on the outskirts of the narrator's home town, Woking. Other major action occurs near Southend, where the narrator's brother and his companions gain passage on a steamboat while fleeing to mainland Europe.

Sequence of events

There were ten mentioned Martian landings commencing just after midnight in June during "the first years of the Twentieth Century":

First Martian Landing (Day 1): Horsell Common.
Second Martian Landing (Day 2): Addlestone Golf Links.
Third Martian Landing (Day 3): Pyrford.
Fourth Martian Landing (Day 4): Bushey Heath.
Fifth Martian Landing (Day 5): Sheen.
Sixth Martian Landing (Day 6): Wimbledon.
Seventh Martian Landing (Day 7): Primrose Hill, London.
8th, 9th, 10th Landings (Days 8, 9, 10): not mentioned in the book - presumably within London.

The duration of the war was three weeks:

Days One and Two were the Martians securing their initial bridgehead around Woking.
Day Three was the first major offensives of the invasion (Battle of Weybridge/Shepperton and the opening of the attack on London).
Day Four was the day of the great panic and escape from London.
Day Five was when the narrator was imprisoned by the fifth Martian landing.
Day Six was when the city of London was totally occupied by the Martians.
Day Seven was the Battle of Southend.
Days Eight through twenty-one were when the narrator was watching the Martians while still trapped.
Days 19 and 20 were when the narrator made his way to London.
Day 21 (early morning) was when the Martians were found dead.

Analysis

Wells was a strong supporter of the theory of evolution, and saw every species as being engaged in a constant, and often brutal struggle for survival. In the book, the Martian/mankind conflict was portrayed as a similar struggle, but on a larger scale. At the time, some astronomers had observed what they thought were canals on Mars, and the belief in intelligent extraterrestrial life was quite popular.

The book has been viewed as an indictment of European colonial actions in Africa, Asia, Australasia, and the Americas. In the mindset of the time, European technological superiority was seen as evidence of all-round superiority, and thus Europeans were more qualified to administer colonized regions than their native inhabitants. The novel challenges this perspective by depicting the injustice of the Martian invasion, the comparative Martian technological superiority notwithstanding.

"And before we judge them [the aliens] too harshly, we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its own inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?"—Chapter I, "The Eve of the War."

Wells seems to have taken great pleasure in the fictional devastation of locations where he had spent an unhappy childhood. The story has been repeatedly adapted, most famously as Orson Welles's 1938 radio drama, as several movies, and as a bestselling concept album, all of which have played some part in maintaining the public's interest in the original novel.

Unanswered questions from the book

The narrator commented that on the fourth or fifth night of his imprisonment in the rubble of the fifth Martian landing, he heard two sets of six distinct reports - sounding like heavy guns firing. The epilogue did not give any explanation for this event.

No after-battle report from the Southend engagement (Martians vs HMS Thunder Child) was given out, so it was not explained if the three supporting ironclads did any damage to the third Martian fighting machine, or any further information on the flying-machine sighting.

No information on the landing areas for the eighth, ninth, and tenth Martian invasion ships were given. The only information from the book was that the site of the seventh landing was "the final and largest" base.

The narrator's name was never revealed. Some altered versions say he was H.G. Wells himself.

Influence

This theme of an alien invasion has remained popular ever since, some recent examples being Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the "Worldwar" series by Harry Turtledove, and the film Independence Day. Tim Burton's farcical Mars Attacks! shares many themes with The War of the Worlds, particularly the unexpected and inglorious demise of the Martian invaders.

A number of people have written stories that pay homage to The War of the Worlds, often telling how the invasion went in places other than Britain. Two notable stories of this type are "Night of the Cooters" by Howard Waldrop, in which a Martian war machine lands in Texas, and "Foreign Devils" by Walter Jon Williams, set in China. War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, is an anthology of such stories (ISBN 0553103539).

The idea of powered armor and huge, walking, piloted war machines also originated in The War of the Worlds. The AT-AT walkers in The Empire Strikes Back were roughly based on the idea of walking war machines. H.G. Wells' Martians may have also influenced the BattleTech and MechWarrior game series.

Eric Brown wrote a short story, Ulla, Ulla, (2002) about an expedition to Mars, finding the truth behind H.G. Wells' novel.

The Tripods is a sci-fi trilogy for young adults written between 1967 and 1968 by John Christopher. It depicts the Earth after it has been overcome by aliens in three-legged machines. Humanity has been enslaved, and the books focus on the struggle by some teenagers to free the world of alien domination.

Within six weeks of the novel's original 1897 magazine serialization, the New York Journal American began running a sequel, Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett P. Serviss, about an American counterattack against the Martians, spearheaded by Thomas Edison. The sequel debuted in the January 12 issue of the Journal American and ran until the February 10 issue. The sequel was published in book form in 1947, and an abridged version appeared in 1954 in The Treasury of Science Fiction Classics. In 1969, Forrest J. Ackerman published an edited version, called Invasion of Mars. In 2005, Apogee Books published an unedited, unabridged version with the original magazine illustrations (ISBN 0-9738203-0-6).

A French-Canadian author, Jean-Pierre Guillet, wrote a sequel to the book called "La Cage de Londres," which when translated means "The Cage of London." After the aliens were defeated, they plotted revenge, and came back prepared to finally enslave humanity, and breed it for their bloody needs. The Cage of London is one of those breeding sites.

In the comic version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the invasion by the Martians is told from the perspective of The League, who are instructed to contact Doctor Moreau so that they can unleash H-142, a biological weapon that is a hybrid of anthrax and streptococcus upon the Martians.

In the novel W. G. Grace's Last Case by Willie Rushton, W. G. Grace and Dr. Watson avert a second Martian invasion by attacking the Martian fleet on the far side of the moon with "bombs" containing influenza germs.

In the 1970's, Marvel Comics had a character named Killraven Warrior of the Worlds who (in an alternate timeline) fought H. G. Wells' Martians after their second invasion of Earth. He first appeared in Amazing Adventures volume 2 #18.

In 1975, Manly Wade Wellman and his son Wade Wellman published Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds in which Holmes, Dr. Watson, and Professor Challenger experience the events described in the original H.G. Wells novel.

In 1978, Toshihiro Nishikado working at Taito designed the aliens for the popular arcade video game Space Invaders based on the description of the octopus-like Martians from the original Wells novel, according to an October 2005 interview with the British gaming magazine The Edge.

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