I first (and last) read The
War of the Worlds at least half a century ago, but still recalled the basic
plot and the outcome – although not much else. I was prompted to read it again
by the emergence last year of a sequel, "authorised by the H. G. Wells
Estate": The Massacre of Mankind,
by Stephen Baxter. So I decided to read them one after the other.
I'm sure I don't need to say much about the plot of WoW. The scene is set in the first
paragraph with some of the best-known writing in SF:
"No-one would
have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs
were 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 affairs
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 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."
Thus began the Martian invasion, with several massive steel
cylinders fired at Earth and landing in southern England. At first this was not
taken too seriously, the humans being confident that the massive surface
gravity of the Earth would immobilise creatures used to Mars's much lighter pull.
But while people looked on in curiosity, the Martians assembled towering,
tripedal war machines armed with destructive heat rays and, later, poisonous
gas projectors, and proceeded to destroy all opposition until they were
suddenly and unexpectedly defeated.
The story is told by an anonymous narrator (hardly any of
the characters are named), an educated man but otherwise ordinary, who observes
the first landing and the major events which followed. He becomes caught up in
the panicked mass evacuation of the area as the truth about the invasion
emerged, and plays no part in the war against the Martians, being simply
focused on survival. The utter helplessness and despair of people faced with
such a disaster is well portrayed. The story is obviously dated in some
respects – little was known about conditions on Mars at that time, and how
living things could cope with the acceleration and deceleration forces involved
in being fired from a huge gun and then slammed into the Earth on arrival is
not considered – but it is still a gripping read today and well deserves its
classic status.
I was struck by a certain familiarity in the writing, which
might put the story into context. I have recently read a fascinating book: Voices Prophesying War: Future Wars 1763-3749
by I. F. Clarke (second edition, 1992) which describes how future wars have
been treated in fiction since such stories were first written. One novella
which is given special prominence is The
Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer, by G. T. Chesney,
published in Blackwood's magazine in 1871 (and still available – I recently
bought a copy). This was a year after the Franco-Prussian War in which the
French, regarded as the greatest Power in Europe, were easily defeated by the
Prussians, who in 1871 formed the core of a united Germany, clearly a huge new
factor in European politics. Many stories about a future war between the
British and German Empires promptly emerged, those written in Britain almost
invariably predicting an easy British victory. Chesney was an exception; a colonel in the
Royal Engineers, he knew what war was like, and he wrote his story with the
intention of jolting into action a government which had been running down the
armed forces to save money. Chesney also turned out to be a very good
story-teller, and his account of the successful German invasion of England from
the viewpoint of a British volunteer soldier was gripping and realistic; the
courage and enthusiasm of the volunteers was shown to be useless against the
professionalism of the Prussians. The story was a huge best-seller and it seems
more than likely that Wells read it at some point (it was first published when
he was five). The panic, lack of information, confusion and errors of Chesney's
account are remarkably similar to those in WoW.
And while Wells did conclude with the failure of the invasion, this was not
achieved by force - the British military
were swept aside by the Martians.
Now we come to The
Massacre of Mankind, set fourteen years after WoW. One clear difference of approach with the passage of time is
obvious in the length of the two books: WoW
is just under 200 pages, MoM over
450; but then, the sequel covers a wider field as we shall see.
The first half of MoM
can be summed up as "more of the same": the Martians make a second
attempt at invading Earth, and this time both sides are much better prepared
(although accepting how the Martians manage to overcome their previous
difficulties requires a rather large suspension of disbelief). In the meantime,
the UK has become a militarised state in reaction to the invasion and has
Germany as an ally, but has avoided getting involved in the European war which
is grinding on in the background. Most of the main characters from WoW reappear, although with different
degrees of significance in the story, and all are given names. The narrator of WoW, Walter Jenkins, has become famous
due to the publication of his account of the 1907 invasion, but he has only a secondary
(although ultimately still significant) role in MoM; he is suffering from shell-shock, and there is a rather amusing
analysis of his personality as revealed in his book, in an interview with his psychoanalyst. The narrator is now Julie
Elphinstone, who had a peripheral role (as "Miss Elphinstone") in WoW. In the intervening years she has
married and divorced Frank Jenkins, Walter's brother whom she met in WoW. As in the original story, while
the narrator's voice is the first-person one we hear throughout, some chapters are
written in the third person to describe events for which the narrator was not
present but was relying on reports from others.
I was amused to note that one of the technical issues in WoW – how the Martians survived such a
violent landing – is retrospectively explained by reference to retro-rockets
being fired just before impact. However, the description of Martian seas and
canals, plus its thin but breathable atmosphere, are left intact (well, they
more or less had to be or the story would have made no sense). In fact, Baxter
evidently decided that he might as well double down, and transforms Venus into
a habitable planet as well, albeit very hot and wet. Then he goes for broke and
involves the mysterious inhabitants of Jupiter (these are not spoilers – they
are flagged up very early in the story).
In the second half of the story, the plot increases in
complexity as Martian landings take place in major cities around the world.
Meanwhile, the narrator becomes involved in a plan to undermine the invading
forces, who are establishing themselves in a redoubt in southern England and
practicing selective breeding of humans in order to domesticate them as a food
source. As in WoW, MoM ends with the
defeat of the invasion, again by unexpected means which I found a lot less
plausible than in Wells's story.
Baxter has some fun with some of the historical figures who
appear in the story. Churchill features, of course, and H. G. Wells is referred
to a few times (without being named) as "an odd, bouncing sort of fellow
with a squeaky voice, but full of ideas". A more obscure example: mention
is made of a courageous attack by a fighter pilot on one of the Martian war
machines; the pilot is named as William Leefe Robinson, who in reality won the
Victoria Cross for his successful attack on a German Zeppelin in September 1916.
There are other cultural references buried in the story, doubtless including a
lot more than I spotted, but one I did notice was the scene in the German
Frisian Islands, the setting for The
Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers' great spy/sailing adventure first published
in 1903.
So, to my conclusions.
The War of Worlds holds up
very well; obviously, the writing style is rather dated in some respects but it
is still a gripping and original drama. The
Massacre of Mankind is much more difficult to evaluate. Baxter has tried to
match some of the style of the original, and succeeds in making the transition
quite seamless. It is evident that he has been very thorough in researching the
historical background of the period. The considerable increase in page count
allows more attention to be paid to characterisation as well as for developing
a much more complex and detailed plot, which takes the story into very
different areas. Readers should also note that a number of loose ends are left
at the end of MoM, practically
inviting further sequels.
Was it worth writing? Many will feel that WoW is a perfect story as it is, with
no need for a sequel. On the other hand, it is reasonable to ask the question:
given that their world is dying, would not the Martians make a second, more
determined, attempt at an invasion? And what might happen then? To conclude: I
enjoyed reading both books, but would not argue with those who feel that
Wells's classic tale should stand alone.
