H.G. Wells, a man well grounded in the science of his day and a very careful person in portraying science. Now with the evidence we have today it seems there never have been life on Mars. Why would such a careful well-grounded scientific man such as Wells make this up? All his stories were based upon scientific possibilities. After reading his 1898, classic War of the Worlds that question struck me. Although the only means of space exploration back in 1898 was a view through the lends of a telescope, Wells must of thought of possible life on these other planets he could see. It made sense, why would god leave these other worlds empty and dead? In 1835, there was a series of hoax articles reporting the discovery of life on the moon, and everyone believed it. Mars is mostly like earth and people wanted to believe they were not alone.
There are many similarities between Mars and Earth; among them are, the hourly rotation of the planets, the degrees in which the axis is tipped, and Mars has an atmosphere and therefore must have water. The planet has ice caps at its poles just as Earth has, and has dark and light marking on its surface that seem to represent land and water. In 1878, when Mars was as close to Earth as it ever gets, the Italian astronomer, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli, notice channels, natural bodies of water, on the Martian surface. With the mistranslation of “canali”, Italian for channels, to English “canal”, life on Mars was more true since canals are man-
made.
In 1894 astronomer Percival Lowell would publish a book entitled Mars. This book suggested intelligent Martians had constructed the canals. With Mars being smaller than Earth and having a weaker surface gravitation, the planet cannot hold on to gases and vapors therefore, the atmosphere of Mars leaked away slowly into space and so did water vapor. Mars grew drier and drier so, Martians initiated the construction of canals, for agriculture, to bring water from the ice caps to the rest of the planet.
Let me stop with all the history and technicalities and say, as I read this book I first saw the story as a prophetic one. Not prophetic in the fact that Wells ideas happen to somewhat come true by our time, but more so in Wells ideals. This story leads the reader to believe the Martians invaded Earth in a rush to inhabit the planet before their world dies. I couldn’t help but think of the possibility of living on the moon, or the theory of melting the Martian ice caps to create an atmosphere suitable to man, and one day living there as our dear planet’s health dwindles with our constant development. A prophetic story indeed, as man will carry out an invasion upon a near by planet will one day be true.
Upon their inhabitation, the Martian way of life would ultimately be forced upon mankind and not in man’s favor. I could become political and compare the Martians to the United States president, or in history the U.S. military force in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and now with the devastation of the bombings in London, but to compare the Martians to the invading England in the 1400’s through the1800’s was Wells true meaning. Wells wanted to demonstrate the evils of England’s behavior through this time, and tried to show his fellow countrymen what they were doing to the world by transforming his land to the invaded rather than the invader. Ironically, like the Martian, European imperialism was brought to a holt, but not by non-Europeans but by their own actions.
This is a story of and over zealous greed, which only results in negative consequences, not just for the victim, but also for the gluttonous greed of the culprit. Thank you for reading my review on H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds.