No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water...  Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us

The War of the Worlds (1898)

H. G. Wells's novel about a Martian invasion of Earth is one of those rare books that both introduces a concept and nails it so firmly that everything that came after has been little more than variations on what Wells laid down.  The idea of Great Britain, then the greatest military power on Earth, confronting an invasion force from a more advanced civilisation and being utterly routed was both frightening and fascinating.  Especially since ray guns were involved. 

Wells's cleverness wasn't in having Martians as his villains, but in his understanding of how a mechanised invasion might take place; not surprising when you consider that he was an authority on war gaming.  He also knew how to limit his story.  Many people believe that Martians conquered the entire world in the book when, in fact, they never got beyond the Home Counties.  This made the narrative much more believable and easier for Wells to keep under control.

The War of the Worlds has it all.  It has your bizarre aliens from a super-advanced, albeit dying Mars.  It has your giant fighting machines.  It has your heat rays.  It has your population fleeing in panic from the relentlessly advancing menace.  It has your helpless armed forces withering under the Martian onslaught.  And it has the now cliché ending where the Martians succumb not to any stratagem of man's, but to the the invaders' lack of immunity to our native diseases.

Just goes to show what happens when you don't pay attention to the hygiene films.  

On 30 October 1938, Orson Welles, the infant terrible of radio, theatre, and cinema, and his Mercury Theatre on the Air performed an adaptation of The War of the Worlds on the CBS Radio Network.  The script by Howard Koch shifted the action from Victorian England to modern New Jersey and the story was told as if it was a real news broadcast of a Martian landing that was so convincing that it caused a nationwide panic as listeners reacted to the fall of New York to the invaders.

Afterward, Welles claimed that the whole thing was a ghastly mistake and he never intended for anyone to be taken in by his little Halloween prank.

Yeah... Right...

Tales of Future Past | Ephemeral Isle | Freelance Writing | Radio Plays | Shop