This is a science-fiction book that everyone will have heard of if only because of the vast number of adaptations inspired by it. I similarly have never read the book itself before this, thinking that I already knew all there was to know from the adaptations. Watching a discussion of the top science-fiction novels however made me realize that there still is a lot of value in revisiting the old classics because they are classics for good reasons. As such I’ll be adding some science-fiction classics into my reading rotation beginning with this one by H.G. Wells.

No characters are ever named in this novel so the point of view character through whose eyes we see these events is simply known as the narrator. As an educated gentleman, he is invited to see some strange explosions on the surface on Mars at an observatory. It is only months later that he realizes that these were shooting what is at first thought to be meteors at Earth. One of these lands near the narrator’s home in Woking, Surrey where the townspeople react at first only with curiosity. Once the crash site cools down enough, the people are able to see that it is a cylinder that must be artificially constructed. Monstrous Martians with tentacles emerge but seem helpless in Earth’s higher gravity. The townspeople overcome their instinctive revulsion to organize a welcoming party under a white flag but they are quickly killed by an invisible heat ray. Very slowly the machinery of the British government wakes up to the threat and begin sending troops to the site. The narrator takes his wife to a nearby town for safety but on the way is shocked by the sight of long-legged tripod Martian war machines that easily destroys anything the humans are able to muster. Meanwhile a separate narrative from the perspective of the narrator’s brother recounts how London reacts to the news coming from the south.

Almost all adaptations choose to set the invasion in contemporary times so reading this original account of it set in Victorian England is quite novel. Between the lack of names and the consequent emotional distance of the characters, the British and somewhat archaic English used and the formal reserve of the characters, I have to say that this wasn’t exactly a gripping read for me. Its format makes it feel like an after-the-fact report so there is no dialogue and it lacks a sense of immediacy even when there is a lot of action going on and the characters are overwhelmed by panic. It is still very interesting of course. The British actually do experience some early success against the Martians as artillery is able to penetrate their armor but the tripods are so fast and agile that hitting them is only down to pure luck. Furthermore even as the army attempt to ambush the walking machines from camouflaged positions, the Martians adapt by adopting new tactics and weapons of their own. Even right up to the very end, the Martians are building new machines to expand their conquest beyond Britain while transitioning from invasion to occupation in Britain itself. There’s a lot of dynamic back and forth and changing circumstances throughout the whole book.

Somewhat unexpectedly for me, the major theme of this book is human complacency even in the face of total disaster. At first, the humans don’t even consider that the Martians might be hostile. Later they are certain that the government have things in order and will defeat the invaders such that their regular tea-time won’t even be interrupted. In many ways, it’s reminiscent of Don’t Look Up which we’ve only just watched recently. The fake news angle is absent of course but there are people who want to keep enjoying life and maintaining their lifestyle no matter what happens, and that reminds me of the COVID-19 pandemic. However it’s worth keeping in mind that H.G. Wells might not have intended the same meaning we would see in it today. At the time stories about Britain being invaded by other countries were common enough to be its own genre and Wells was merely the first to extend the threat to include extraterrestrials. The point, or at least one of them, was to remind Britain not to be complacent about being the world’s leading superpower of the era. Some have also argued that it constitutes an anti-imperialist message. If Britain can freely exterminate the populace of other lands and add them to its empire, surely a superior civilization is justified in doing the same? It’s really great how the lessons we might draw from the book might change over time, and yet both interpretations are equally valid.

Much of the technology and imagery of the Martians are common knowledge including their metallic tentacles and heat-rays and so forth. But there’s much more in the book itself including Wells’ key idea that as a more highly evolved organism, the Martian is almost all brain. Instead of wearing clothes, they insert their brains into different machines, turning them into their bodies. In addition to the better known waling tripods, the narrator also witnesses them controlling complicated manufacturing assemblies and they are constantly designing and building new machines. Wells also describes their biology in some detail and provides some justification to why they would want to conquer the Earth. His science is wrong in many ways of course, the spacecraft the Martians use are not rockets, merely unguided giant projectiles, so it shouldn’t be possible for them to decelerate on approaching Earth. Everyone knows how the Martians are eventually defeated but this isn’t really how microorganisms work. Still, it’s no exaggeration to say that even more than a hundred years later Wells breadth of knowledge and imagination in extrapolating from what was known at the time is extremely impressive.

So in retrospect I was wrong in assuming that a modern reader would have little to gain from this classic. I did find that I don’t like it very much as a survival adventure story. The sense of immediacy isn’t there and I dislike the character development. The narrator’s wife for example is used purely to provide motivation and has no personality or will of her own. As a description of how a society used to tranquil and ordered life collapses under overwhelming enemy attack, it does make for a fascinating read. Its account of how government forces, using the best technology and tactics available at the time, would try to deal with an extraterrestrial threat is plausible as well. But it is really Wells being able to create the Martian species, including their biology, technology, social organisation and so on before anyone else that is the truly impressive feat for me. It sets a high standard for every science-fiction writer to follow and indeed it should be embarrassing how bad the Star Trek aliens for example are compared to this. So yes, even if you have seen all of the adaptations and are used to modern science-fiction, taking the time to read this is definitely a worthwhile endeavor.