The War of the Worlds door H.G. Wells

The War of Worlds is written by H.G. Wells (1866-1946), this book was first published in 1898 by William Heinemann Ltd.

The story begins with a message, in which stands that the creatures of Mars are examining the earth, those creatures are much further developed then the humans in the 19th century. The main character (has no name, but I call him Wells, because this story is written in first person narrative) did look on an evening through his telescope, and sees an explosion on Mars, this is repeats ten times in every 24 hours. The scientists think it’s some kind of volcano on Mars, but on one day there is a green light seen by some people. Wells and the scientist are going to look what it is, when they arrive at the place where is landed, they saw some kind of weird cylinder. And after some minutes they see that the top is un-screwing, when the top has fallen off; there is a ‘head’ coming out. It’s like a huge brain with some kind of bill, and ten tentacles. It has difficulties with moving, but it has some kind of camera which sends out a very very hot ray of light, which is almost invisible. With this ray, it kills almost all people who gathered there. Wells escapes luckily.
The next day more cylinders arrive, the army tries to destroy the creatures, called Martians, which fails. Then Wells and his wife fly out of the city, they go to there nephews, but Wells have to get back; because he lent a horse and has to bring it back, and so he does. On his way back, a new cylinder crushes front of him. He doesn’t want to get close to that thing, so he goes together with a soldier to England. When he comes in Weybridge, 3 Martians are melting the whole place down, 1 Martian is shot by a British cannon, the other 2 become angry, and destroy the whole city. Wells has jumped in the Thames and survives the explosion.
Wells meets another man, and together they stay under in a house, then there crushes another cylinder close to the house, then the man starts screaming, and the Martians notice that. They take the loony with them, and Wells escapes and locks himself in a little dark room, without much food and drink. After about two weeks he hears a dog, when he goes outside, he notices that there are no Martians anymore, there only is a huge amount of red weed from Mars, which has died because they weren’t immune of the bacteria on earth. Then he decides to go back to London again, and on his way he meets the soldier again. When they arrive in London nobody is alive, and the Martians all have died because they couldn’t take the bacteria of the death bodies on earth. Wells decides to go back to his house again in Mayburry, and there he sees his wife again, alive.

The story is set in the end of the 19th century, in England. The story covers a period of about a month. It plays in various places, mostly around London. It’s written in a special kind of way, you recognise the emotions of Wells, that are very happy in the beginning, but at the end you notice that he misses his wife and thinks of dieing, because he has no-one to live for anymore. In the destroyed cities you ‘feel’ a sense of hopelessness. The book mostly describes the darker-days, where everyone is afraid of dieing.

There are not very many characters involved in the story, it’s only about the ‘I’ person, who I called Wells, and sometimes about his wife, and the little loony where he dug under with in a house. Wells is a very brave man, also ambitious, because when he hears about the cylinders, he goes and looks for it. Wells has got all the luck of the world in the story, maybe a bit too suspicious. He’s also very adventurous, and does many things on his own, and he likes helping people. He almost gives up when he thinks about that his wife is dead, but at the end he finely realises she isn’t and he’s very happy then. The little loony, with who Wells dug under in a house, is very afraid for the Martians, and lost his mind because he has seen so many people that died in front of his eyes. He is hopeless, and lost all of this loved-ones. He’s driving crazy, while Wells is very cold-blooded…

The story is written in the first person narrative, which was not very easy to stuck on too, the vocabulary were easy, but it was also a later print of the book. There were not very much difficult sentences used, although the time went very slowly, it was still a nice booklet.

The main themes are about love, and the war, about peace and fights…There is much loved involved when people die or just meet again after a long period of hiding. The war is very important for the book, and the scenery, many people died because of the Martians, there is a hopeless fight, which the humans can’t win. Eventually when all humans died, the bacteria ‘kill’ the Martians.

It was a very adventurous story, compared to other sci-fiction books I’ve read, this was just a normal story, but in that time when it was first published, it must have been a wonderful story. I think it has affected the style of sci-fiction books in the future years.