It's really of no shock to any constant reader that I am a fan of science fiction. So while browsing through a "Top Whatever List of Free Kindle Titles" I saw HG Wells The War of the Worlds, and I realized, laying there in bed, that despite seeing both Hollywood adaptations, I'd never actually read the book. So I downloaded it. Wells published the book over a century ago- it's public domain.
The book was written before 1900, in a time before the world wars, but anticipating its awful use of chemical warfare, when electricity was still an industrial and scientific plaything.
I was actually not prepared for the level of gore, terror, and psychological horror the book contained. And a surprisingly epic scope. It's one thing to write "After the aliens arrived, they attacked London, and the city was abandoned," and another to describe in detail the rapid breakdown all the facets of society, and civilization generally crashing to a bloody halt amid blind terror and utter chaos.
In the end, the story is really compelling because it is driven on the one hand the mystery, godlike power, and utter alien-ness of the invaders, and on the other, the very human workings of the individual mind and the public mind. It's a novel about what happens to society in the face of catastrophes. It has the appeal of what draws people to postapocalyptic TV shows and novels. What happens to societies when they are put under stress? Especially titanic, seemingly unstoppable stresses?
And really, from the perspective of the people on the ground, how different is an alien invasion than say, a massive ebola outbreak, or the invasion of bloodthirsty militant jihadists, or an unprecedented and massive drought?
It makes me wonder, in all cases, if as in the novel, the peasants argued with the evacuation enforcement soldiers about the value of their orchid plants while the martians drew ever closer.
The book was written before 1900, in a time before the world wars, but anticipating its awful use of chemical warfare, when electricity was still an industrial and scientific plaything.
I was actually not prepared for the level of gore, terror, and psychological horror the book contained. And a surprisingly epic scope. It's one thing to write "After the aliens arrived, they attacked London, and the city was abandoned," and another to describe in detail the rapid breakdown all the facets of society, and civilization generally crashing to a bloody halt amid blind terror and utter chaos.
In the end, the story is really compelling because it is driven on the one hand the mystery, godlike power, and utter alien-ness of the invaders, and on the other, the very human workings of the individual mind and the public mind. It's a novel about what happens to society in the face of catastrophes. It has the appeal of what draws people to postapocalyptic TV shows and novels. What happens to societies when they are put under stress? Especially titanic, seemingly unstoppable stresses?
And really, from the perspective of the people on the ground, how different is an alien invasion than say, a massive ebola outbreak, or the invasion of bloodthirsty militant jihadists, or an unprecedented and massive drought?
It makes me wonder, in all cases, if as in the novel, the peasants argued with the evacuation enforcement soldiers about the value of their orchid plants while the martians drew ever closer.
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