Marcos’s Reviews > The War of the Worlds > Status Update

Wasn’t planning on doing percentage updates but something from the start of the novel really stuck with me. In the first chapter Wells discusses colonization, albeit from the whitest perspective ever, and compares it to the fear of aliens. This was something that more recently was commented on by the new Lanterns show and I never really thought about it. There is this real understanding that colonization always has been a horrible thing when it comes to fictional creatures but that understanding never seems to translate into the very real historical examples of it. A human’s reaction to an alien invasion is not indifference or gratitude as they are bringing new “advancements” but a visceral fear. However, as a white man from a country with immense imperial history he struggles to overcome this dissonance and still refers to the colonized peoples as lesser than when that is not his reaction to the martians
instantly killing a crowd of people with their heat ray. (In the quote Wells did acknowledge that humans have no right to complain but I still it could have been handled better).