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Loading... The War of the Worldsby H.G. Wells
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I thought this book started out a little slow. It didn't really grab my attention until about half-way through, but once it did I really enjoyed it. (  )joelshults | Jul 9, 2009 |   I thought this book started out a little slow. It didn't really grab my attention until about half-way through, but once it did I really enjoyed it. ( )joelshults | Jul 9, 2009 | #790 on the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. Must different from the new version of the film, and I’m not not a huge fan of HG Wells and his scientific stories about life in a different century with technology. He is brave to take on new and interesting subjects that at the time where never discussed and assumed that some the 21st Century we would be landing on Mars and having actual alien attacks. Gives you something to think about. blondierocket | Jun 28, 2009 | 1  Last year I read [The Island of Dr. Moreau] and was not at all enthused, so I undertook this with a bit of trepidation. Moreau made me feel vaguely ill and did not help me understand Wells' distinction as "the father of science fiction" at all. This book helped me understand it on several levels and revived my interest in the classics of the scifi genre. My edition (the Signet Classics version that mooched) had an afterword by Isaac Asimov, which besides being wonderfully written, helped put the book into context, which allowed me to drain even more meaning from the book that I already had. Unlike in Moreau, I saw where Wells' observations of humanity and philosophical leanings came in. His descriptions of chaos brought on by the Martian's terror and destruction could have been true in the late 1800's, the 1950's, or now. The ideas of men with whom the narrator spoke would be the same no matter what decade they were in. And while the science may have been proven to be false, the idea of otherworldly invasion is certainly still seen as terrifying. Asimov's afterword further brought up the parallels of the conquering European colonizers and the crushing Martian overlords. While this did not occur to me while reading the novel, it allowed me to drain a little more insight from Wells' head, which was a pleasure. It also allowed to further appreciate the timelessness of some of Wells' passages, particularly the "for neither do men live nor die in vain", as well as the strongest opening of any novel I've read this year. While Moreau did not age particularly well, I believe [The War of the Worlds] will continue to be easy to read no matter how many years pass and new scifi novels are written. I recommend it to all scifi fans as a way to understand the basis of the genre and develop an appreciation for the timelessness of certain novels (which I find a particular downfall with many scifi novels). ( )Ambrosia4 | Jun 25, 2009 | 1 Der ungekrönte König des Genres, das wohl berühmteste Hörspiel aller Zeiten. Unerreicht - unerreichbar - brilliant und folgenreich. (  )Doktor_Stein | Jun 16, 2009 | 0.238 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0375759239, Paperback)This is the granddaddy of all alien invasion stories, first published by H.G. Wells in 1898. The novel begins ominously, as the lone voice of a narrator tells readers that "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..."Things then progress from a series of seemingly mundane reports about odd atmospheric disturbances taking place on Mars to the arrival of Martians just outside of London. At first the Martians seem laughable, hardly able to move in Earth's comparatively heavy gravity even enough to raise themselves out of the pit created when their spaceship landed. But soon the Martians reveal their true nature as death machines 100-feet tall rise up from the pit and begin laying waste to the surrounding land. Wells quickly moves the story from the countryside to the evacuation of London itself and the loss of all hope as England's military suffers defeat after defeat. With horror his narrator describes how the Martians suck the blood from living humans for sustenance, and how it's clear that man is not being conquered so much a corralled. --Craig E. Engler (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:09 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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