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A review by oz617
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
5.0
Cannot put into words how much I enjoyed this book, which really surprised me, since Victorian English literature rarely agrees with me. Politically, the anti-colonialist message felt ahead of its time, at least for a white English writer, despite occasionally repeating propaganda messages (e.g. comparing assorted native peoples to the dodo, despite their continued resistance and survival). What sets the novel apart from its many adaptations is that, on reading, I never felt the Martians were either warriors to be envied or villains to be hated. They just Were, aided by the narrator’s insistence that, of all people, the English had no right to their attack unheard of or incomprehensible.
Usually I find that message accompanied by ideas of either atheism or divine punishment – somehow, The War of the Worlds pushed neither. Instead, the narrator admonishes a priest he meets for being so arrogant as to think that God should have either punished the town of Weybridge over the rest of the world, or to have spared it before now due to its inhabitants’ righteousness. It’s rare for me to find a book (especially from a Christian perspective) that seems to endorse completely my own line of religious thinking, or that treats the subject with such confidence and nuance.
I connected immediately with the highly (and realistically) traumatised narrator, and with those he met along the way. So many of the book’s discussions of human suffering both physical and mental have stuck with me, without feeling like they revelled in it. Women in the book were also surprisingly competent, given the era and this being a male writer, shooting guns and rescuing both men and each other.
The sci fi elements of the plot, despite being well over a hundred years old, still felt fresh, enough so that each reveal along the way - ending included - genuinely surprised me, and much of the phrasing (like capitalising Heat Ray) felt strangely modern. This is still top tier sci fi for a reason.
Usually I find that message accompanied by ideas of either atheism or divine punishment – somehow, The War of the Worlds pushed neither. Instead, the narrator admonishes a priest he meets for being so arrogant as to think that God should have either punished the town of Weybridge over the rest of the world, or to have spared it before now due to its inhabitants’ righteousness. It’s rare for me to find a book (especially from a Christian perspective) that seems to endorse completely my own line of religious thinking, or that treats the subject with such confidence and nuance.
I connected immediately with the highly (and realistically) traumatised narrator, and with those he met along the way. So many of the book’s discussions of human suffering both physical and mental have stuck with me, without feeling like they revelled in it. Women in the book were also surprisingly competent, given the era and this being a male writer, shooting guns and rescuing both men and each other.
The sci fi elements of the plot, despite being well over a hundred years old, still felt fresh, enough so that each reveal along the way - ending included - genuinely surprised me, and much of the phrasing (like capitalising Heat Ray) felt strangely modern. This is still top tier sci fi for a reason.