Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Sci-Fi, ahead of its time, 22 Jul 2005
Having heard the Musical Version of War of the Worlds when i was a kid and with the new movie coming out, I thought I'd buy the origianl book and see if it was any good. It is fantastic! A real piece of genius from a visionary H G Wells. I just couldn't put it down and would recommend to anyone, sci-fi fans this is a definate must read. Just don't go and see the film after reading it cause there was no way it was going to live up to the book.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Absolute Classic - Timeless and still relevant, 17 May 2006
The problem with the current public perception of this novel is that it suffers from a certain level of subsequent re-imagining in various forms, from Orson Welles' 1938 historic real-time broadcast through to the 1953 film; Jeff Wayne's truncated but brilliant concept album version and - in the Nineties - an execrable American TV series which is best forgotten, as is the dire Spielberg film in relation to the far superior novel.
Re-reading this afresh is a liberating experience and an affirming one since Wells' original version is as chilling and compulsive a read as I remember it, and dispels some of the subsequent myths which have arisen more from the original American film version than from the book. The Martians, for instance, do not have three eyes or travel in threes. Apart from the fact that their fighting machines are tripods there is no other mention of 'threes'.
One legacy of other versions is that it is now difficult to read without imagining Richard Burton's voice narrating in one's head, which is not on the whole, a bad thing.
Wells' problem in limiting his book to first person narrative is that he is faced with having to describe both the Martian arrival and initial attacks in Woking, and then their subsequent rout of London, which he does by giving a retrospective account of his brother's escape from the Capital. It's a clumsy device which telegraphs the fact that he is eventually reunited with his brother and that the Martians are defeated, but this is a minor criticism of what is the definitive novel of Earth invasion which features most importantly Wells' sharply observed characters and the range of reactions of humanity to such an event.
As in 'The Time Machine' we are shown that despite the trappings of civilisation we are still capable of regressing to animal behaviour albeit peppered with occasional acts of selfless heroism.
Cleverly, the scenes which are truly horrific are those in which humanity turns on itself, such as when the narrator's brother - shepherding two women out of London - encounters a stampeding mob being driven by the Martians. Symbolically, one man, attempting to protect his gold, fights off an offer of help and - after having his back broken - falls under the wheels of a carriage.
The narrator's conversation with the Artilleryman is telling, for although he is shown to be a braggart and has no real inclination to put his grandiose schemes of Resistance into operation, his opinion of the future of humans living willingly under Martian control has the chilling ring of truth.
The Curate is a curious figure, a broken rambling coward, his faith driven to breaking point by the very existence of the Martians. It is interesting to note that in the US, some fifty years after the book was written, the film version portrays The Curate as a heroic figure who faces the Martians openly and defies them. Whether this is an attack on organised religion is unclear, Wells himself, at the denouement - in which the Martians are destroyed by the Earth's bacteria - describes them as 'the smallest of God's creatures' which some might interpret as a kind of Divine plan.
Putting the book in a historical context, we have to look at Britain of the time, still essentially an Empire with Victoria as Empress/Governess of many foreign countries which were being ruled under unwanted occupation. Wells is simply here putting the British people in the position of the citizens of many of those occupied territories. He is clear to point out, in the section of the novel in which the narrator describes the physiology of the Martians, that we are upon the same evolutionary path. In literary terms Wells' Martians are early cyborgs, using their mechanisms as extensions of their bodies, without which they are helpless. Their development has taken them to a point where they are merely a brain, some sense organs and a cluster of tentacular 'fingers'. Once, the novel suggests, they must have been much like us. It is not too much of a mental leap to imagine humanity on a dying world, watching a younger, life-bearing world with envious eyes, and to make comparisons between our Victorian Empire-building and the Martian invasion.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning - a Masterpiece, 25 Jul 2005
There are many different publications of this book I see, but this is the exact copy I own, and this review is for this one. (if there are any differenes...)In my honest opinion, instead of forcing soap-opera and reality-TV adicted teenagers (happily, I am NOT one of these, I am a Sci-Fi freek) to read Dickens and Shakespeare at GCSE English (I know its good in some cases, but most kids don't think so), they should study War of the Worlds in stead! It's a classic written by a great writer who had his political head screwed on the right (left) way and had good views about... well... everything! H.G.Wells is a great writer, and to me, he'll be the one to get teenagers away from Big Brother, Eastenders and all that rubbish (no offence meant). This book has a great plot and so much detail and would be a perfect specimen to write essays on. (Though I did Lord of the Flies for my GCSEs, and I can't complain!) Even worse, this story is actually believable, unlike most alien invasion stories. Even in my late teens, I'll still be terrified by this book... even though life under the Martians doesn't sound too bad. The War of the Worlds is dark, sometimes nasty and doesn't have the same happy 'humans save the world' twang to it. Simple micro-organisms is all that does it... after witnessing this, I'll never complain about a cold again! Just give the Martian a lemsip, and he'll be up on his feet to take over the world again!... yes, I felt sorry for the Martians, but I do like Martians. This is a great read, and will be a favourite of mine to read at least once a year, if not twice... or thrice... buy this now!
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