Book Review: War of the Worlds 

 

Ah, Autumn.  My favourite season.  To quote the well-known philosopher my dad, “there’s nothing to look forward to except football and crumpets.”.  It’s not that bleak though, there’s my birthday, my stepson’s and the possibility of the Martian Tripods roaming through the landscape. 

I recently saw War of the Worlds referred to as “a great book for children”.  I mean, all kids love books about the end of civilisation.  I first read it at the age of 13, so I can’t complain.  It made me into the well-adjusted adult, socially confident adult I am today.  I can hear my wife laughing as I type. 

For a book which celebrates its 125th anniversary next year, it’s no surprise that the darker themes of the book, such eugenics and the belief that The Martians are God’s punishment on a sinful humanity are missing in more recent adaptations.  These also dispense with the idea of them being Martians (they’re Venusian, anyway) and the more shonkier elements of the book.  Do our new alien overloads really arrive and construct their tripods; like they’ve bought them from The Mount Olympus branch of Ikea?   

War of the Worlds is so much in the bloodstream of popular culture, it's been used as a metaphor for climate change, cold war paranoia and post 9/11 doubt.  Take my tentacle, let’s look at the adaptations and choose a few that are worthy of your attention the next time you are trapped in a cellar.   

Jeff Wayne’s version is The Progrockalypse.  For an audio version, try the BBC version from 2017. It’s strangely not available on BBC Sounds, but you can get it on the archaic medium of CD or Amazon Audible.  Truly terrifying, with our narrator getting home to his wife.  Who now expects him to be the third wheel in a polyamorous relationship.  It’s what Wells would have wanted. 

Visually, the BBC TV version from 2019 starts well, striding through the “beats” of the story, making it perform some new tricks (the tripods are biomechanical, leaving skin flakes as they walk).  However, it suffers from some ideas that don’t work and telling the story back to front.  Still, it’s nice to see my native Liverpool used as Victorian London.  And another tick for making the protagonist a woman and her partner the one disturbed by events.   

Possibly the best visual version is Spielberg’s 2005 film.  Despite the odd idea which doesn’t make sense, it perfectly captures the crawling terror of the book, making its way through the “beats” of the story as much as Independence Day does.  It amalgamates two characters (the astronomer Ogilvy and The Artilleryman).  Plus, the idea of the aliens as tripodal is genius in itself, let alone the idea of them being psychotic farmers using human blood as fertiliser. 

Completely ignore the Fox version on Disney Star.  An overbaked europudding, wasting good actors and the aliens attempting to kill us off with a lethal combination of neuropathic weaponry, robot dogs, subtitles and extreme boredom. 

For a truly original take, try Volume 2 of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s series of graphic novels The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  A superhero team up using characters from English Literature, the awful 2003 film with Sean Connery shells it short.  The sequel would have used this version.  it captures the nightmarish elements of the book well, against a backdrop of two immortals falling in love.  Humanity is saved by an act of outstanding bravery/lunacy and another of Wells’ characters.  Who also created the characters from Rupert Bear in genetic experiments.   

So, plenty of stuff to see you through those dark Winter months.  But War of the Worlds is actually set in Summer.  You knew that already though.  Didn’t you? 

 128 Gig Memory: 

Another week ends, another Saturday.   

I walk across the road from Vinyl Question, the second-hand record shop next to the Christian bookshop, Crosswords.  If there is a ritual in my life, it is this: Saturday morning, second hand record shop, walk out of the shop, through clouds of steam from my credit card, coffee... whilst admiring my recent purchases like a miser.  Home, drop the needle and if it’s a nice day, open the windows and let the nostalgia cover me, till it drifts out of the window.   

Milk To 1-40, Caffeine To 1-80 is fairly busy for a Saturday morning.  I mean, it’s fairly busy most days.  I order my usual (a latte, steamed milk, extra shot and an almond croissant).  I manage to find a table.  There aren’t many, in any case.  I get a bench seat by the window, as someone passes by in the weak, Autumnal sunlight. 

I take the album from the bag for life.  It’s something I have been searching for.  Gengenpress by German Electric Radiators.  Their third album, arguably their best.  The cover is a vorticist collage of the faces of Norbert, Dirk and Klaus.  

I mean, it’s something that I could download, or stream anywhere.  And yes, it would have been cheaper.  But vinyl has magic in its grooves, it displays the artwork better.  And- 

My reverie is disturbed by the teenage girl with my order.  And then it’s disturbed by Cheesy Carl. 

I mean, everyone knows Cheesy Carl.  The swish of his puffa jacket.  The twang of his Scouse accent.  The impending offer of something dodgy.  He breezes in to the seat next to me.   

“S’appenin lid?”  He’s holding tea in a polystyrene cup from a well-known coffee chain.  He places the bag of a budget supermarket on the table.   

“What’s in there?” I ask, putting my carrier bag against the windows.  I mean, I have to ask.  I have to be aware of what I am being offered.   

He takes a bundle of paper wrapped in an elastic band from his inside pocket.  He unwraps the paper, to reveal a memory stick. A particularly cheap and nasty looking one.  Sadan.  Not even heard of the company.   

“What’s on that?” I say, taking a slug of coffee.  

“128 Gigs.” He replies.   

“That’s a fairly average capacity.” 

“No, 128 Gigs. The best gigs of all time.  Gerra blimp at the list.” 

He hands me the list, I can make out the type, even though the paper has been folded over a million times, the ink has smeared and he’s used Comic Sans.  I hate people who use Comic Sans.   

I let that pass and look through the list.  At the top, Beatles, Shea Stadium, 1965.  I look down, and it gets more and more interesting.  Led Zeppelin, Madison Square Garden, 1977.  Glastonbury, 1970.  There’s the odd random one.  I point at the paper.  “Jean Michel-Jarre, Moscow, 1997?” 

“Shit, that one. Some arl bloke in a crocodile jacket, wearing a pair of oven gloves?  Amy Winehouse in Liverpool is good.  She’s leathered, like.  But good.” 

“So, is this the audio? Or video?  I'm not convinced.  I don’t think a memory stick can hold that much data.” 

“No, like.  You’re actually there.  You put the USB in lid and you’re like, proper there.” 

“Bullshit.” I hand the USB back to him. 

“No, swear down.  I’m not winding yer up.  You’re there.  Look, how much did you pay for that album?” 

“Thirty Quid.” 

“Musta seen you comin’ lid.  This is twenny bullets.” 

“Not interested.” 

“Ok, I can see yer interested.  Have it for free.  And if you like it, see me here tomorra.  And you can pay me forty.” 

“Still not interested.” 

He shoves the USB and the list back at me.   

“Try some buy some.  Laters. Here tomorrow, thirty bullets or the USB back. And you owe me a lazzy band.” 

Within half an hour, I’m back at my flat.  I’m sitting on my sofa, with the windows open.  The carrier bag sits, unopened and unloved on the turntable.  I connect the USB into my tablet, I find it under files.  A list of the gigs comes up, I click on Beatles, Shea Stadium, 1965.   

The tablet makes a chime, as if some kind of ceremony is about to begin.  And within a moment, the walls are melting like wax.  Reforming into something different.  A field.  A baseball field.  Glaring, white floodlight.  I can barely make out, the figure of a man on stage. Looking out of place, he steps up to the mic: “Now, ladies and gentleman.  Honoured by their country, decorated by their Queen and loved in America.  Here are The Beatles!” 

The screaming intensifies, slightly.  I’m watching the equivalent of lightning in a bottle.  Four lads, slightly bemused by it all and on the verge of giving it up.  I can’t make the song out, but I know it’s “Twist And Shout.”  

I’ve seen this gig a million times.  And now, as if by magic, I’m here.   

The gig ends about an hour later.  The walls flow again and I am back in my flat, on a late summer’s afternoon. Whatever that was, is unreal in a way.  And yet, the sweet, addictive rush of it is flowing through my veins.   

I’ve got to experience that again.  Whatever “that” was.  A few clicks and I am there, in a baseball field transformed into a cauldron.  Ed Sullivan walks on stage. “Now, ladies and gentleman...” 

The rest of Saturday, is spent watching gigs.  Well, watching them isn’t quite true.  I’m actually experiencing them, with full sensory overload and the added bonus of actually being there.  Later on, Miles Davis points at me after a particularly mellow reading of “All Blues”.  New York, late 1950’s.  I think. 

“You enjoy that motherfucker?” he says. The voice is a growl, a jokey threat scraped over the tonsils.   

I turn off the tablet later that evening.  I look at the clock and realise, it’s actually the early hours of Sunday morning.  I chase the moths from the living room, close the windows and put the tablet on charge.  I crawl into bed.   

“You took your time, didn’t yah?” Cheesy Carl is drinking a coffee as I walk in, five minutes late.  

“Only by ten minutes.” 

Cheesy Carl smiles.  “You’ve watched it haven’t yeah? Good innit lid? Eh, Eh?” He nudges me.  I nod, partially out of fatigue and wanting to get home to watch something to take the edge off going to work tomorrow.  

I move four tenners across the table at him.  He takes a card reader from his jacket.  “Don’t deal in cash anymore.  Antwacky.  Gone contactless.” 

I wave the card past the reader and it beeps.  “Laters lid.” He leaves.  I order a coffee.  I’m literally holding myself up.  I walk home, with as much energy I can muster.  The last turn off into my street I take at a run.   

Within moments, I am somewhere else.  That something mellow is late 1970’s Steely Dan.  Somewhere sun-drenched and clouded with blowback.  I’m singing along to something off Aja, something twisted and elongated by jazz noodles and riffs.  It could be unnecessary, but it’s beautiful at the same time.  I’m crying.   

A couple are next to me.  He nudges her.  

“Who’s the dude in the weird getup?” 

“Must be a narc.” 

It’s late again, when I jack out.  I have to close the windows again, chasing flies and bluebottles out.  That takes a while.  I look at the tablet, panicking slightly at the big empty battery icon on the screen.  I plug it in and settle down on the sofa.   

Monday morning begins with me lying to my line manager.  A virus of some kind.  I spent yesterday vomiting.  When I wasn’t vomiting, I was on the toilet.  A few days, possibly.  Yes, I’ve opened the windows.  NHS Direct told me it was a virus.  I’ll call tomorrow.  Yes, I will.  Bye.  

Yeah, right.  Within moments, I am logging in.  Trying to find a gig I’ve not seen before.  I already realise I am caught in some kind of dark, infinite loop.  I’m scrolling through each gig and saying to myself “seen it, seen it, seen it, hated it...” 

It's some kind of druggie ennui, nothing will satisfy. Nothing will give me the same high as the first one.  Drugs - when I do take them - bore the life out of me.  But I am going to have to subscribe to that, for now.  And then see where I am.  

Click. Click. Click.  “And now ladies and gentleman...” 

The final chords fade away, the screaming is getting louder. The floodlights of Shea Stadium are getting brighter.  And yet, this time, there is no jerk out.  No waxy fade back to reality.  This is reality.  My vision blurs and the people are back in their spaces, Ed Sullivan is taking the stage again. 

“And now, ladies and gentleman...” 

And again.  And again.  I try singing along.  Because everyone likes The Beatles, don’t they?  You can’t hate The Beatles.  But that doesn’t help.   

“And now, ladies and gentleman...” 

I’m trapped.   

“And now, ladies and gentleman...” 

Is this Hell or Purgatory?  Some sort of soul trap?   

“And now ladies and gentleman...” 

Some days later, a body is found in an expensive flat.  This one seems older than most corpses.  The stench is all-pervasive.  “It’s like he’s been there for years” says one Paramedic to the other.  It’s sealed off as a crime scene.  But not before a man in a dirty puffa jacket (the man who called the ambulance) removes a memory stick from the tablet 

Within seconds, before anyone can protest, he is gone.  Pocketing the stick, pulling up his hood as the early Autumn rain starts to settle in.  Taking a left, then a right in the direction of the local café.  

Another day, another soul.