It seems awkward to write a frank review of a book by a deceased author, but that is what I shall attempt to do. Before reading War of the Worlds, my only experience of the story was the Tom Cruise film. I was quite astonished when I started reading to see that the setting is not the modern world. (How could it be, when the author wrote War of the Worlds at the end of the 19th century?). Instead it was Victorian London, a world without computers and flying machines.

When a shooting star is seen by telescope, wonder was the only possible emotion for the narrator/main protagonist. Wonder of what is, and would could be? It’s satisfying to know there were keen minds that thought further than the town and society they lived; indeed much criticism was made of the common people who could not even conceptualise or imagine what an alien was. An alien, as in a being from a different planet, would appear as man does, would it not?

From this setting, HG Wells uses his flair for description to give us a vivid and at first terrifying glimpse of London under siege by Martian terror machines. It was not simply an attack of superior weaponry against humanity, but one of psychology, for the human race was ill-prepared to foresee such brutal and uncompromising attacks. An intelligent race that would ignore all attempts at communication and prioritise the destruction of humanity was outside the realms of reason. From apathy to mindless terror we are reduced to, and I could not help but see the irony of it all. The narrator’s biggest fear was that the Martians would be carnivores, i.e like man. Many comparisons are made between how a man sees and treats harmless insects or bees, and how the Martians, in their massive killing machines, may well perceive humanity. Yet, the main protagonist had to scour the countryside for animals to kill and eat in his desperate escape.

Another point of criticism was that, though the description and use of language was superb, I felt it lacked certain immediacy. When other characters are introduced, it is also through the narrator/main protagonist’s thoughts and there are large gaps between current events and these digressions. The reaction to dead bodies reads numbly throughout, but I’m not sure if this was intentional. Some modern readers may well be put off by the London setting, which may not have a lot of relevance to the present.

What I liked most about War of the Worlds was, strangely, the horror of it all. In the first six or seven chapters, I was there, witnessing something so terrible and abhorrent mainly because it was mysterious and unfathomable. In the great machinations of the universe, humankind seemed miniscule, irrelevant even. Overall the human response to such an overwhelming event was educational, and I would read more of HG Wells’ books because there was a stroke of originality in it, set apart as it is from the present. And no mention of computers!