The War of the Worlds [novel]

The War of the Worlds is a novel written in 1898 by H.G. Wells. The novel has been overshadowed by movies, a record album, and a broadcast in 1938 by Orson Welles, which made people angry because it was never said that the broadcast story was fictional, leaving some people to probably believe that it was true. Or maybe they just didn't like to hear it. The novel was originally written in serial format Pearson's Magazine in the UK and by Cosmopolitan magazine in the US. 

The story is told in the first person. Its told from the narrator's point of view and then tells his brother's account of the invasion. Nothing is known about the characters personally. In fact, here is a novel where hardly anything is known about the characters other than that he's a philosophical writer and married. The aliens land in London and all hell breaks loose, literally. The Martians have a Heat-Ray gun that they use to burn down everything in sight. Not only that, but they have a black poisonous cloud that kills humans too.

The Martians are described first as not having chins. They have small bodies, round heads. They have these tripod mechanical vehicles they use to lay waste to London. They eat kill humans and inject their blood, sort of like zombies.  The narrator spends a lot of time not unlike the nuclear video game Fallout, hiding out in houses, searching for food, and avoiding contact with the Martians with fear for his life, believing his wife to be dead.

The writing style here is formal. Old school. In fact, I could see high schoolers reading this novel back in the 50s or 60s, but today's millennials would not like this in the least bit. They would find the prose wooden. In fact, if I wasn't such a fan of classical books, having gone as far back as Voltaire's Micromegas, Sir Tomas More's Utopia, Cavendish's Blazing World, Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, and Shelly's Frankenstein, I might find this prose to be a bit wooden. 

However, it is precisely because I am familiar with these works of antiquity that I can see how great Well's prose really is. I must admit that some of the words, phrases, and sentences were lost in translation to me. But that only happened a few times, and if I couldn't interpret what Wells was saying, I could always look up the old school phrases online. That's how I got through all those old classical works. Wells knows how to describe things, with a lot of detail. There's tons of exposition, dialogue between characters, but only just bits and pieces of action here and there. In a way he makes you work for all the alien destruction, with tons of exposition. But in the end, you realize that it's worth it. It's a good read. A fun read. 

The War of the Worlds is only science fiction in retrospect. Because science fiction has had such an immense influence on pop culture this book will never be forgotten. Although like I said, the prose doesn't age well. Kids today would not enjoy this novel. Again, this is just my thinking but from what I know about high schoolers today, they would hate this novel. Much in the same way that they would hate Frankenstein. Too many classical words and phrases, that would bewilder them and leave them disliking the book. 

The book touches on a couple of themes that have become commonplace. Invasion, space travel, total war, weapons, natural selection, human evolution, colonialism and imperialism, social Darwinism, and religion and science. Did you get all that? All that basically just means that although this is a thin book with only 194 pages, it is quite a heavy book thematically. 

Lastly, the influence upon other books, movies, TV shows, and music are immense. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote A Princess of Mars in 1912, not too long after Wells wrote this. It is because of this book that we use the term 'martian' to describe something unknown or otherworldly. This is a great 'scientific romance' [a term used for science fiction back in Wells' and Jules Verne's' day] novel that will continue to influence. As a science fiction reader, I'm obligated to read it. It was an enjoyable experience.

Recommended if you enjoy classical literature and science fiction.

Man Plus

Man Plus is a science fiction novel written by Frederik Pohl in 1976. Pohl is one of those rare great writers who was not only a great writer but also a great editor. I heard from my dad that he didn't start out as a great writer either. In fact, it took him a while and eventually he just got good.  [much like how gamers get good after playing for years and years, practicing rigorously]

Man Plus is a the modern world at that time, in the 70s. Communism has taken hold in every part of the world except North America. They mention the evil Chinese and this and that but no word on Africa at all. Anyways, the world is in a Cold War state and the only thing that will save humanity from Armageddon is colonizing Mars and eventually settling a colony. The Americans come up with the Man Plus program to achieve this.

Interestingly enough, when I compare the politics and President here to the current Trump administration and the rise of Communism across the globe, I see an eerie similarity. Basically President Deshantine in Man Plus is very much like Trump. Full of shit with bad politics. 

Roger Torraway was third in line to be the Man Plus. However, the first guy has a complication and dies. The second guy has a broken leg. Roger is up. The thing is that the scientists needed to create a being who can stand on the surface of Mars without a space suit, something totally implausible in any scenario. But Pohl makes it almost make sense. And he plays it off very well. In order to get this to work the scientists rip apart Roger's body and rebuild him with mechanical parts and a computer, saving only what makes him human, his brain. He becomes a human-machine hybrid, a cyborg. 

The cyborg seems like one of those old pulp science fiction tropes. Or Doctor Who if you're familiar with that show. Its a popular idea for a good reason. Because its interesting. Its captivating and all that jazz. We as the audience want to see into the inner soul of the cyborg, can they have that?

While Roger's failing to control his new mechanical body he's also failing to deal with his own personal relationship; mainly the fact that his wife has been cheating on him with his best friend! [which reminds me of The Room, a parody movie] 

Roger doesn't fully come into his own until he actually walks the surface of Mars. Once there he realizes he can't control the machine within him, and at the end we learn that the machines built within him as well as the machines of the Earth might've influenced him and humanity in order to get to Mars and establish a colony, a sort of AI-human hybrid influenced fate. Perhaps Pohl is saying that the machine will become sentient and we'll be the machines? Role-reversals? I think of things like this when I see how smartphones have taken over the consumer to the point where consumers are using their phones for everything instead of just to make calls. [E.M Forster's The Machine Stops comes to mind]

The ending is very interesting and I'm still not sure what to make of it. Satire maybe? You could say the whole novel is satire. I only know that I think its fantastic. It left me in a state where after I read it at a lunch break at work, finished it, clocked back into work, and thought "I just finished reading a masterpiece". Realistically and thinking back on it a day later, its just a great work of style. 

Pohl is a stylist here. This is New Wave science fiction with a high literary style and voice. This is beyond the 50s and 60s pulp science fiction. More technical, more scientific but in the end its all great made up fiction, which is really the only thing that matters in the end. Never mind all the biological and technological jargon regarding the machinery and the climate/habitat of Mars. Forget how the frog's eyes work. All that is just extra for great writing and great ideas. 

Another important factor is the psychology of the characters involved. This novel is intellectual in a psychological way. None of them are say villains but they ain't saints, especially Roger's best friend, who ends up going to space with him. [you can guess what happens on Mars when that happens] 

This book was so captivating that I could hardly put it down. I finished all 180 pages in two days and was thoroughly satisfied upon completion. Great classic science fiction read, recommended to anyone who loves space, adventure, as well as an intellectually stimulating narrative.