The War of the Worlds

This book surprised me. It's far from being a cheesy look at ray guns, flying saucers, and beings who say lines like, “Take me to your leader.” No, The War of the Worlds reads like, dare I say, realistic fiction. There is an aura of believability throughout its pages. An academic or elevated take on the genre, so as it was in 1898.

The story? Well, it's pretty straight-forward. Martians crash land on Earth and destroy everything and everyone in their wake. But it's much more than that. The narrator deals in speculative philosophy, so it reads like a bloke questioning what he is seeing and inferring what he knows about science and the world to arrive at logical conclusions. Now, if this sounds sort of drab, I understand. Some readers might want more bits of action or survival sequences, and although this has them, they are not the focus of the story. The focus is on the overarching reason why the Martians are here and what their goals are, rather than just trying our best to obliterate them and move on.

I really appreciate the focus on using street names and locations around England to paint the picture. The words are detailed and succinct, but they also have a bit of literary whimsy to make the writing not feel overtly wooden. The Martian description is fairly unique as well. Again, everything is more or less driven by technical details, so that may be a turn-off for some seeking something a bit more sensational or dramatic. The characters are pretty sparse as well. I enjoyed the framing on the theme of human vulnerability, survival, and the limits of knowledge at the time, even if the singular relationships suffer a bit.

|| “The chances of anything manlike on Mars are a million to one.””

Save it for a rainy day, in-between an X-Files sesh, or when you get a hankering for a classic. It will surely not disappoint.