It would be a crime to not acknowledge how influential this book is. Wells alikened the aliens arriving to Native Americans first seeing the sails of European ships, he satirizes British colonialism by creating a story where the invaders arrive and die of diseases in the place where they arrive, an inverse of what truly occurred. I’m always interested in the fact that literature from this time period mentions disease so often with it being such a prevalent and very dangerous part of life for people at the time. I felt that the martians dying from a terrestrial disease represented the human spirit. We fought them as hard as we could and ultimately we were stronger than them because of the hardships we’d already faced with said diseases.
It’s also such a modern tale but also a reflection of 1898. My favorite lines were “The Martians know how to use doors!” and the line about them not utilizing the wheel in their technological advancements. The greatest weapon humanity had to use against the martians was a navy warship.
I love how outside the box it was to have the aliens arrive via giant cylinders that must be cooled off before they are unscrewed, before the idea of UFOs. The description of the martians themselves is really fun. Large bodies with tentacles, large eyes, and beaks. The tripod weapons they utilize with heat rays are such iconic imagery and the sequences of destruction they bring with them are so much fun to visualize. The red plants that arrive as a result of the crashing of the cylinders was such a crazy detail. It reminded me of the movie “Quiet Place Year One” where that idea is utilized again. Whenever the asteroids crash on earth they bring with them a growing fungi that the creatures feed on. Really a testament to how influential this was.
Overall I enjoyed this book and I appreciate it as one of the first books about an alien invasion. I can see its influences throughout literature and all other media and I’m glad it’s given me that perspective.
by LV3000N
1 Comment
AFAICR, Wells said that the idea came from watching British armored cars rolling into Burma to suppress anti-colonial forces. and the conquest of the Australian indigenes by British forces.
“And before we judge them [the Martians] too harshly, we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished Bison and the Dodo, but upon its own inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?”
An interesting segue might be George Orwell’s Burmese Days, based on Orwell’s career as a police officer in Burma.
[Burmese Days – Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_Days)