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?