Book Review: The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Release Date: 1898
Publisher: William Heinemann
Audience: Everyone
Pages 303
Read the Book: Project Gutenberg
Buy the Book: Amazon ; (Compilation) Amazon
Book Rating: 5/5








I was introduced to many books by the Moby Illustrated Classics, small books with truncated versions of classic novels with comic book frames on each page illustrating the novel as it progressed. These books often made an impression on me as a child and I have returned to many of them as an adult to read the original books to reread the books but also see how they differed (often a great deal) from the Moby books. Tangent aside, The War of the Worlds was one of the books I had from the series and, since then, have read the actual book a fair amount of times.

Spare some change?

For those who are not familiar with the plot, the unnamed narrator (as Wells was wont to do) is at the center of an invasion from Mars as the martians land on Earth, hungry for our resources...including MAN! The narrator gets separated from his wife and the story focuses part on his quest to find his wife and part on the invasion and the narrators attempts to come to terms with both.

Like many of Wells novels, a great deal of the novel is given over to the narrators introspection to what is happening around them but it does not affect the pace of the novel (as often occurs with heavy handed authors in the 19th century) Not quite a epistolary narrative (such as Dracula or Frankenstein) the book is nevertheless a journal by the narrator narrating the events as they happen to him.

The book, regardless of its science fiction trappings, still stays within the science of the times to a reasonable degree. H.G. Wells, an advocate of Darwinism, saw the usurpation of mankind's place on Earth as inevitable, be it by other races, species, or aliens. Much like my recommendation in regards to The Time Machine modern science fiction and its offshoots owe much to H.G. Wells, and The War of the Worlds should be on everyone's list of must read sci-fi.