Great Influencers: H.G. Wells--The War of the Worlds

H.G. Wells--The War of the Worlds

Recently to my absolute horror, I mentioned The War of the Worlds to someone and they were not aware that it was a book. Instead, they seemed to think that the concept came from the infamous radio drama based on the novel that was directed and narrated by Orson Welles in 1938. The fact that people might not be aware of Wells and his novels alarms me but also saddens me so I've learned that 1) I cannot make assumptions about these things and 2) I definitely need to discuss the original influences.

Herbert George Wells was a British writer who started writing "scientific romances" (known as science fiction today) in the 1890s. Now in spite of the name, these works don't involve love affairs with beautiful alien women on faraway moons or a scientist having a heated love affair with his Bunsen Burner (I'm sorry for making that joke but at the same time, I'm really not sorry at all). Back in the day, "romance" was used to describe things that were fanciful or to describe things that diverged from reality somewhat. I suppose it was a way of separating it from "real Literature", like the highly realistic works of Charles Dickens and George Eliot. Calling something a romance was basically a clear indication that it wasn't a serious work. Basically, it was considered trashy. Since then, science fiction has certainly had its fair share of accusations of trashiness and went through a period where you could find tonnes of it published in pulp magazines. In other words, it was printed very cheaply on very poor quality, low cost paper, because it was considered disposable.

I digress a little bit here so let's rewind a bit to Wells's era. It's the end of the Victorian era, the British are a little afraid that their empire might collapse at any moment and they've realised that Queen Victoria might not actually live forever. Basically, being the end of the century, people are having a bit of an existential crisis. Think of the run-up to the millennium but minus Y2K and that kind of thing. That being said, in the same way that some people thought that the computers were going to go whacko when 2000 hit and enslave us all, late-Victorian literature shows a real paranoia that someone was going to enslave/kill the British. It should also be noted now that as far as Britain was concerned, they were the world at this moment in time. That's something that's very important to understand, especially in relation to The War of the Worlds.

Britain had an empire and in the 1890s, it was quite a large one. Furthermore, they had major influence in the parts of the world that they didn't have under their control. When it came to trade and economics, Britain had so much international power that they honestly thought that they were the world. London was considered to be the most important capital in the world. I'm sure that some other capitals of the time would be willing to argue against that but from a British standpoint, that's what they thought. Actually, believe it or not, some of that sentiment still holds as after that attack in Westminster a few months ago, I heard a British politician call London the most important capital in the world. I definitely had a weird moment where I thought we'd gone back 120 years or so and managed to keep current technology.

Getting off the point a little bit here again.

Literature in the 1880s and 1890s reflected a lot of contemporary anxieties. Britain had sent their army into many different countries and beaten them into submission before taking their children and educating them in the British-style. This was beginning to come back to bite them. They'd managed to create a class within subjugated countries that understood exactly what had been done to their motherlands and were feeling more than a little resentful. Hence, you get things like Dracula, The Beetle, She and more, where a foreigner comes close to taking control of Britain. 

Enter the ALIENS!

Considering that everyone seemed to be taking a pop at Britain, invasion from outer space was definitely something that had to be considered because late Victorians had reason to believe that they weren't alone! Yeah, you might think that the theme tune from The Twilight Zone or The X-Files should be playing right now but this was a genuine belief at the time. Victorians thought that there might be a race of extraterrestrials living on Mars.

This fun idea was greatly popularised by an exceptionally rich American who took up the hobby of spreading claims that actually had no real basis in fact. Remember that this is over 100 years ago so no, it isn't the guy with the horrific spray tan and something on his head that may once have been another living creature (OR plot twist, IT MIGHT STILL BE ALIVE). Totally different rich American who had more money than sense and somehow got people to listen to him. The man in this case was called Percival Lowell.

Going back a little bit to 1877, Mars was in opposition with Earth. This meant that it was on one side of Earth while the Sun was on the other side of it, the three bodies being in line with one another at the time. As such, Mars was pretty close and the technology of the day presented a rare new glimpse of its surface. During the opposition, an Italian astronomer by the name of Giovanni Schiaparelli realised that there were a number of lines on the surface of Mars. Now, Schiaparelli saw these lines and called them "channels", which he saw as a natural occurrence caused by different processes on the planet's surface. However, he was an Italian and so, shockingly, he spoke Italian. So when he recorded his findings, he used the Italian word canali, which was mistranslated as canals. This got some people thinking that there were artificially made canals on Mars and thus, intelligent life!

Enter Percival Lowell, an American with far too much money and free time on his hands. He spent the 1880s travelling in the Orient, particularly Japan, and thus thought that he could enlighten the Western world with his great knowledge. He wrote a few books on the Occult in Japan and wrote a book about Korea before he found a new interest to throw money at, namely astronomy. I'm being a little bit scathing of him here, which isn't entirely fair given that the observatory that he founded (yes, he was that rich) went on to discover a number of important things, such as Pluto, albeit after his death.

Anyway, he founded an observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona after reading some interesting theories about Martian canals and he somehow came to the conclusion that the canals were built by intelligent life for the purpose of water conservation because Mars was dying. Now, if that seems like a bit of a jump from "there may be canals on Mars", you'd be right. I can't fathom how he came to that rather complex idea but he did gain a great deal of praise for the idea. He did have a serious detractor from the start, namely the Welsh man, Alfred Russel Wallace, who seems to be largely forgotten by many as the co-author of On the Origin of Species. He's the guy who worked out the theory of evolution at the same time as Charles Darwin!

It turned out that Wallace was entirely correct in pointing out that Mars would be an exceptionally cold planet and had little atmosphere (Lowell seemed to think that the equator of Mars had the same temperatures as southern England at certain times of the year), thus making intelligent lifeforms an impossibility. The world didn't disprove Lowell's theory until 1909 and there were some people who had taken his ideas to heart.

H.G. Wells was a rather intelligent man who had studied under Thomas Huxley, also known as "Darwin's Bulldog" and whose grandson, Aldous Huxley went on to write Brave New World. Given that Wells was exposed to other men of science, particularly those involved in biology, he may have deemed Lowell's theory as highly improbable. At the same time, he may have had complete fate in it. Whether he believed in the idea or not is unimportant, as it was only the concept of Martian life that acted as the springboard for his idea of a Martian invasion in The War of the Worlds.

So we have a bit of an idea about why the Martians were the interesting invaders that Wells chose but why did he choose an alien invasion in the first place? You could say that the time was right for aliens to do that sort of thing in fiction and given how paranoid Britain was, they certainly thought everyone would be aggressive towards them as the world power. Really though, Wells had just moved to Woking in Surrey, the very town that would become the ground zero for the Martian invasion in The War of the Worlds. Apparently, Wells was out walking in Woking with his brother discussing Britain's colonial activities, namely invasion for the sake of land and how the natives were so easily felled. The specific example that Wells gives in the opening chapter of his now famous novel points to Tasmania and how Britain decimated its native population in the space of 50 years.

What does Tasmania and Woking have to do with aliens? Well, the way the Wells brothers saw it, they imagined a superior power, in this case aliens, coming to Woking and decimating them in a similar way the British had done to the Tasmanians. That's right, Wells basically places Britain in the shoes of the natives of the many countries that they'd invaded. Do the Martians have better technology, do they seem deadly efficient and uncaring, literally sucking the life blood of the humans they find? Guess what? The British did exactly the same thing. They entered a county, killed with little thought for the possible intelligence of the natives and took everything that they wanted: slaves, resources, land. While the Martians drink human blood (yeah, they're the sci-fi vampires of the time), the British sucked the life out of a new "colony". It's terrifying but it's also a fantastic piece of social commentary, and believe me, Wells loved social commentary!

So now that your minds have been blown by learning that The War of the Worlds is all about the British being colonial arseholes (that's a technical, very academic term!) and getting a taste of their own medicine, let's move onto some other little interesting aspects.

Wait a second... I'm not supposed to be doing the assumption thing so let me do a quick overview of what The War of the Worlds is actually about.

So the year is... um... well, it's all left a bit vague but I think it's either very contemporary (the novel was first serialised in Pearson's Magazine in 1897 and published as a whole in 1898) or it's just after the century changed. Let's just say that it's turn of the century and leave it at that! So we have a narrator who's a writer living in Woking who basically talks about the folly of mankind for thinking that we were superior and for not realising that the Martians were watching us and coveting our planet!

*cue the dramatic music*

All jokes aside, the narrator basically outlines how the Martian invasion came about. First, they witnessed flashes of light from Mars and then a few days later, the first cylinder arrived. The cylinders are cylindrical space ships, probably more like escape pods rather than actual ships you could pilot. Anyway, the first cylinder crashes in Woking and everyone gets really excited right up until the cylinder opens and horrible, blobby head things with tentacles plop out. They aren't pretty and then they stick something out of the crater that their crash landing created and kill a few hundred people around the pit. This particular weapon of destruction is what the narrator calls a heat ray which super heats and burns everything in its path, except the narrator, which is a very lucky thing indeed for the reader!

The Woking Martian, credit to diamond geezer

So there's a great deal of panic, the army gets called in and of course, everyone thinks that the British army will be far superior to these blobby alien things but more cylinders fall and the ones that originally landed construct a huge three-legged fighting machine, or tripod. As a visual, I've included the sculpture of "The Martian" by Michael Condron that now resides in Woking. Anyway, the Martian fighting machines tear across the countryside around Woking, eventually going on to London to cause a great deal of death and destruction. A great deal of the book involves the animalistic reactions of humans who would literally run over one another in their desire to put as much distance between themselves as death. Also there's a point where a man stays out in the middle of the road, picking up gold and ends up having his back broken because he's ultimately too distrusting of everyone so he doesn't ask for help and he's shown to be greedy.

Plaque for "The Martian", credit to sarflondondunc

Ultimately, humans are shown to be terrified animals who don't possess the technology to deal with big fighting machines, heat rays and poison gas clouds, and the Martians themselves are no match for Earth's micro-organisms. The germs get them basically so they all die and humanity is left to reverse-engineer their technology. While the technology they gain is beneficial, the British are left with something like PTSD as they realise that another attack could come again at any moment.

When you think about it, it's a pretty grim invasion narrative and the toll taken on the British people in the aftermath of the Martian invasion, is very like that found among people in post-colonial nations. Well, predicted, Mr Wells!

Before I go off on a tangent about post-colonialism, let's keep on point here. What did Herbert George do with The War of the Worlds and why am I calling him a great influencer? Well, imaginary voices in my head that I'm still talking to, Wells basically set out the template for the alien invasion narrative. So if you have ever come across an alien invasion narrative where humans are up against some pretty nasty odds, you've got Wells to thank. He wasn't the first to write about aliens or superior beings to humans but his contribution was certainly one of the most memorable. Certain motifs that he used have become quite commonplace in some areas of sci-fi. Just by taking the image of the fighting machines, you can find a number of specific examples.

1) John Christopher's The Tripods series

You may recall that I earlier called the Martian fighting machines "tripods". Well, that's due to the fact that beginning in 1967, a number of young adult novels began appearing that were written by John Christopher about an Earth under the control of big, three-legged fighting machines called Tripods. Hm, let's see, have we ever come across a concept like that before... Big, three-legged machines, alien invaders, take over Earth... Oh my it sounds just like The War of the Worlds!

There are differences of course but the Tripods don't exactly come across as a unique invention when you realise it was quite famously done 70 years before PLUS it gained renewed fame when Orson Welles adapted the novel to a radio drama that made it seem like America was being invaded and the broadcasts were real. That sort of thing tends to stick in people's memory a little bit. So it's safe to say that Christopher was inspired by Wells's novel. Ultimately at the end of his series, it turns out that Earth's atmosphere kills The Masters (the series' aliens) when they're exposed to it, which isn't miles away from the Martians being killed by the micro-organisms in the natural terrestrial environment.

AT-AT, credit to Jason Kneen

This series of novels spawned a number of comic books and a TV series. The TV series also drew inspiration from Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End (which I'll definitely write about at some stage!) in that The Masters in fact serve alien beings made of pure energy, which is like Clarke's Overlords serving a giant energy being.

2) Star Wars franchise

The franchise that really requires no introduction, Star Wars has a number of fighting machines such as the AT-AT and the AT-ST, commonly known as Walkers. It makes sense that the franchise would draw upon an image that somehow wormed its way into the mainstream. The Martian fighting machines get everywhere.

3) TV Shows and other films

Aliens in Chicken Little

Chicken Little has alien fighting machines that have a lot in common with Martian fighting machines. They go around on multiple tentacles instead of just three legs but they're clearly something to fear. Honestly, the aliens in that film are probably most inspired by Christopher's Masters given the three eyes but hey, we've already established that Christopher was inspired by Wells so I'll take it! To be fair though, the aliens in Chicken Little are basically just heads, which is what the Martians are, except they have tentacles as well.

Boglodite ships in Men in Black 3

Men in Black 3 contains a possible present where the Boglodites invade Earth because Boris the Animal escapes prison, goes into the past and kills Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) so that a series of precautions don't happen thus allowing his race to mount an invasion. That's really not important. However, the Boglodite ships do have tentacle things. Okay, I'll admit, they look more like jellyfish and they are flying but I'm saying they could be inspired by Wells so don't tell me otherwise. I Want to Believe! Um... different popular franchise.

Moving on!

A lot of alien fighting machines have appeared, pretty much everywhere when it comes to TV in particular. Obviously you have Mechs in Falling Skies but you also have the robot that Zim pilots during Operation Impending Doom 1 in Invader Zim so these things aren't always done seriously. Hey Arnold! had a Halloween special that revolved around The War of the Worlds and honestly those fighting machines get everywhere.

While it doesn't fall into my films and TV section, it should be noted that in John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, the triffids have some things in common with Wells's Martians that seem too close to be coincidental. While the triffids are plants and don't operate technology, they do get around on three appendages as the Martian tripods do. Furthermore, they suck the juices of human beings. Admittedly, they wait until they die and have decomposed a bit, extracting food from them in a manner similar to a Venus Fly Trap, but it counts! They're seen herding humans as the Martians do and they even come with their own weapons, a lashing sting that can instantly kill to parallel the Martian heat ray. More of a home-grown invasion than an extraterrestrial one but it's still worth thinking about...

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Aliens with telepathy? Yeah, Wells's Martians could do that. Ugly aliens with weird tentacles? I'm looking at you Predator franchise, but also Wells did that. Alien invasion narratives that follow one or two plucky characters that seem to survive against impossible odds? Yeah, Wells did that. Something like Independence Day definitely falls into that category although it was preceded by the novel Ender's Game, which it definitely owes a debt too, but that's a story for another blog post. Independence Day does use a computer virus to bring down the aliens and that certainly seems like a homage to what kills off Wells's Martians.

Basically, aside from scaring the absolute beejaysus (a nice, phonetically spelled, technical term) out of people, The War of the Worlds helped inspire a whole genre of science-fiction, namely the invasion narrative, led to a whole slew of adaptations including films, radio broadcasts and a sequel written 119 years later.

Sequel?! Yes, believe it or not, the estate of Wells has authorised Stephen Baxter to write a sequel to The War of the Worlds, which has been newly published this year and goes by the cheery title of The Massacre of Mankind. It's safe to say that they don't invite the Martians over for a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. I'll definitely jump on it at some point for the sake of curiosity but you'll be glad to know that a lot of the cover art I've seen for it revolves around the tripods. Baxter also drew inspiration from The War of the Worlds (and multiple other Wellsian works) for the authorised sequel of The Time Machine, The Time Ships, which was published in 1995.

Considering the wealth of imagination that Wells passed on with just one novel, you can imagine how important his various works are. However, you don't have to rely on imagination because I'm going to be writing about other Wellsian novels, with the next one taking a little step back in time (I'm hilarious) to 1895 and The Time Machine.

Notoriously, I've managed to go off topic or sort of tangentially to it throughout this blog post but I would just like to point out that there have been numerous, sometimes reputable fan-fictions written over the years that combine The War of the Worlds and Arthur Conan Doyle's character of Sherlock Holmes. This is a real thing, you should look it up. The most famous Victorian detective... and ALIENS!

Oh that final glorious note, I will love you and leave you and hopefully you won't hate me eternally for talking forever. I'm clearly not that much of an academic because who in the heck talks like this?!

The Land Remembers: Folk Horror and "Hekla's Children"

The eye-catching front cover of Hekla's Children

Hekla's Children by James Brogden

It's been well over a month since I've read this now, but I've been giving myself the chance to fully absorb it and letting my brain mull over things in the background. It's difficult to say what this post is exactly, as it's swinging somewhere between a review and an insight into things like folk horror or mythical horror.

The novel is a relatively new release as it came out in Ireland and the UK in March. As a result, I'm not inclined to provide any spoilers as I highly doubt many have had the opportunity to read it as yet. It's quite possible that it has slipped beneath the radar of many people. I was lucky enough to find it while browsing in the exceptionally large Eason store on O'Connell Street but to my horror, I've found that many bookstores (including the Eason in St. Stephen's Green Shopping Centre) do not seem to have a horror section set aside. Alas, I consider it a minor miracle when bookstores can adequately separate fantasy and science-fiction novels rather than lumping them both under one section labelled either science-fiction or fantasy, although I've seen more of the former than the latter. I consider it fate that I was in the right place at the right time and frankly the cover hit me quite hard. The whole thing screamed horror at me (which is good because it was in the horror section so it was doing it's job) and I was fascinated by an image that suggested I was looking up from the bottom or a well. The cover hooked me and the blurb did the rest. After that, there was no chance of me leaving without buying it and I'm glad to say that that was a very good decision on my part so GO ME!

So what exactly is Hekla's Children about? An excellent question imaginary audience! (Yeah, yeah, I should probably get those voices in my head checked out but they're useful at times)

Hekla's Children follows the mystery surrounding the disappearance of four teenagers while on a trip in Sutton Park. One of the teens reappears 24 hours later with no memory of what happened and the teacher who was supposed to have been watching them that day ends up haunted by what happened. Fast forward a decade and the teacher in question is still working with teens although he isn't a teacher anymore and he keeps thinking that he sees the teenagers that were lost. He's long been suspected by the families of the missing children for having murdered them and so when a body turns up in Sutton Park, everyone jumps to conclusions. Without giving much away, the body turns out to be a 3000 year old bog mummy that is definitely not what it appears to be and things are linked back an incident that occurs in the Bronze Age that has startling implications for the modern world.

The mystery is a gripping one and honestly, even if you think you've worked it out, Brogden manages to throw something your way that leaves you reeling and questioning everything. There's some trippy time stuff and you might think at more than one point that you might have given leave of your senses but despite that, it's actually easy to believe that such a thing is occurring right under our noses and no one is ever the wiser.

Hekla Volcano, photo credit to Alan Moore

Obviously I don't want to give away aspects of the plot, although believe me I'll write an in-depth analysis in the future, but I can give you some interesting background. The 'Hekla' in the title refers to a particular volcano in southern Iceland. It was actually known as the "Gateway to Hell" during Medieval Times so as you can tell, it has had a bit of a fearsome reputation over the years. It's quite possible that knowledge of some of its older eruptions were passed down in the oral tradition but we know through a number of scientific discoveries that it had some major eruptions in the BC era. One of the more recent ones, which occurred during the Bronze Age was known as Hekla-3 and it is that specific eruption to which Brogden's novel refers.

Hekla-3 was a devastating eruption that threw a great deal of volcanic ash and other debris into the atmosphere. You might remember the serious disruptions to air travel that was caused in 2010 by the eruptions of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull. However, that was considered minor volcanic activity. Consider that ash cloud but on a phenomenal scale, such a large scale in fact that the temperatures of northern parts of the world would have been affected for a few years afterwards. Some trees dating from that period have been shown to have had minimal growth for about a decade and the evidence is in the tree rings. Bogs have been shown to have preserved some of the volcanic ash, which ties nicely into the story within the novel as the bog in Sutton Park preserves the past. Brogden's title doesn't refer to what's preserved but rather to the effects of that eruption.

After Hekla's eruption, the temperatures in mainland Britain would have dropped dramatically, making the winters harsher and the summers cooler and shorter. The misery of such a landscape is what Brogden tries to capture in the Bronze Age segments of the narrative and don't worry, he does explain that one for his readers. He also explains the main 'villain' of his story, the afaugh.

Cannibalism is a taboo and a serious one in many cultures. For years, many people believed that so-called "primitive" cultures indulged in cannibalism. While in some, it is indeed a common practice, many cultures hold it in contempt. Often areas that undergo periods of extreme weather where starvation could be an issue have cannibalism taboos that have manifested in interesting ways. Certain areas of the northern US and Canada have wendigo mythology. A wendigo was supposed to be a spirit that would eat people and was associated with cold winter regions, particularly linked to famine and starvation. As people feared the need and even possible desire to eat their fellows, the wendigo seemed to provide the shape for such fears.

Interestingly, while the wendigo was considered a spirit, it either had human characteristics or possessed a human being, meaning that the thing natives truly feared was the idea of their neighbours turning around and eating them or vice-versa. The wendigo was a greedy, merciless creature and that was certainly something to be frightened of. It was better to point to a mysterious creature out in the woods and fear being eaten or turned into one than to fear your own neighbour in difficult winters.

The idea of turning into a wendigo is a real one. There is such a thing as Wendigo psychosis, which has been found in the areas where the wendigo myth is prevalent. Such a psychosis leads people to desire to kill and eat the flesh of those around them and when you disapprove of cannibalism that's a pretty scary deal.

The Inuits have the Atshen, another cannibal spirit that hunts in cold regions and there are many more. Of course, cannibal stories are prevalent in many parts of the world--Native American culture is a particularly rich source--but it this particular sort of spirit is associated with starvation and cold. Although it eats out of greed rather than necessity, it is still a creature of famine, eating all it can but never being satisfied. The afaugh of Hekla's Children draws roots from just such a tradition.

The idea of sacrifice is also one that permeates Brogden's narrative, linking it with the likes of the famous burning in The Wicker Man. The folk (horror) tradition is strong in this one.

Hekla's Children is very, very British and also quite contemporary but interestingly, Brogden claims to have been inspired by a source that came from somewhere quite far away. Brogden was originally from Tasmania, spending his teens in Australia before he finally settled in Britain. As a result, there's definitely a bit of a Aboriginal Dreamtime flavour to the narrative but the source he names is a novel from 1967 called Picnic at Hanging Rock. The novel was written by Joan Lindsey and was set around 1900. The plot involves the disappearance of a group of female students from an Australian women's college. While the mystery is never solved, the ending is left ambiguous and the story is framed as a true one. Interestingly, after Lindsey's death, a chapter that was removed from the novel was published, explaining what actually happened to the missing young women. While I haven't read it myself, the excised chapter seems to follow a similar concept as Brogden's novel. No spoilers though! If you want to know about it, you have to read one of them and even then, Brogden's novel doesn't go the same way, they just have some things in common.

I bring up that particular novel not just because Brogden claims it as an inspiration but also due to the effect it had in Australia. Being viewed as a story that may have happened, Picnic at Hanging Rock has gained a folkloric status in the country. While Australia might not seem as old as somewhere like Britain (native peoples don't count; ask anyone who took their "empty" lands) but it can still carry stories that hark back to something older than current civilisation.

The land remembers.

On that note, I've said all I'm going to say for the moment with all my rambling but I would highly recommend Hekla's Children if you're a fan of horror, the supernatural or anything a little out there and a little weird. If you read Lovecraft... well, he's a very special brand of weird but you might like this if you like him AND with the added bonus of an author not hating everything that moves. Ah, I won't pick on poor Howard but suspend your disbelief and read this!