What is it with a great writer like HG Wells that made him pre-eminent in his genre and spawned an entire generation of wannabes who, in spite of their best efforts, have been unsuccessful in whipping up the same magic that he has? It has nothing to do with churning out books the size of bricks much less using flowery language to impress the readers.
HG Wells had a razor sharp brain and used it to telling effect. Ideas. That was one repertoire which stood him good right through his long and illustrious writing career. Most of his concepts were rubbished in the late 19th century as being mere fragments of wild fantasy but it amazes current day readers that he could correctly gauge the kind of scientific advancement man would make 100 years down the line. His was no ordinary imagination but was based on realistic studies at that time which he then used to correctly conjecture a century later.
The Story
If “The Time Machine” was awe-inspiring, “The War of the Worlds” is sheer brilliance. Published in 1898, it moves away drastically from his previous best seller and concentrates on a hypothetical situation where Martians invade earth. And this was nearly 50 years prior to the coining of the term UFO and its reported first sighting!
The story starts off in a remote countryside county of England where a mysterious meteorite like object crashes into a desert. A curious party of neighbours visit the spot of the crash and find a capsule out of which bulky creatures with slimy skins and tentacles emerge. Totally unused to the earth’s gravity, these Martians have a tough time moving about on earth. Quite unfortunately, the “welcome party” finds itself in the line of fire and all except the narrator (a philosopher) perish under the onslaught of the Laser beams shot out by them (these were not discovered till some 80 years later!).
Soon, the countryside is in ruins as the Martians run amuck destroying anything that stands in their path. More shockingly, the Martians suck the blood of humans for their sustenance! Apparently, Mars is on the verge of destruction due to depletion of resources and the Martians therefore set their sights on earth to conquer it and use its resources. They unleash terrible war machines looming 100 feet above the ground and a small army sent to fight them is summarily decimated without even putting up a fight. More spacecrafts arrive and soon there’s an army of war machines marching towards London.
For all the military and naval might of the British Empire, they are like mites in front of the Martians deadly arsenal. Finally, it is upto our hero, the philosopher (of all people) to find a clever way, with a little bit of providence, to get rid of this menace and save mankind.
Thus Spake TiC
I couldn’t help noticing that just like in The Time Machine, this book too subtly takes a potshot about larger issues. For example, the seething and merciless attack by the Martians is so reminiscent of the British Empire that sought to subjugate smaller countries and systematically drained them of their natural and human resources for their own benefit. The Martians do exactly the same thing, this time with the British at the receiving end.
The terrifying destruction unleashed by the Martians is narrated as seen through the eyes of the Philosopher and is way too brutal to comprehend at times. For a change, Wells endows the main character with more qualities and attempts to delve deeper into his psyche to bring out the horror one faces when confronted with an insurmountable enemy.
The style of writing is terrific and the book itself is more generous in the length of the story than “The Time Machine”. The language is unpretentious but the effect is profound. The required twists and turns occur at the right places and the pace of the story is fast.
At the end of it all, one can’t help marveling at Wells for his prophetic suggestions of the Martians using lasers (though he didn’t call it by that name) and even chemical and biological weapons! More than anything else, it makes us realize the terrifying possibility that an attack from outer space is a very distinct possibility and how grossly inadequate man is (even by today’s standards) in successfully repelling any such attack.
Here’s some interesting trivia I came across on the net about this masterpiece. In 1938, Orson Wells adapted this book on radio and nearly 10 million people went into a state of hysteria across the USA, actually believing that earth was under an attack from Martians! An investigation was ordered into the matter and many suits were even filed against Orson Wells until the episode was hushed up. I believe this particular episode is now a landmark case study in mass hysteria taught in many universities across the world.
Ideas…what would man ever be able to achieve anything without them?