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Jan 09, 2011

Jacob rated it:

Think of the Martians. Oh, won’t somebody think of the Martians? Seems to me we're not being fair. Seriously, how would you feel if you’d been born on this little red bumblescrew of a planet? You’re this giant head-with-tentacles-on, it’s red and cold and monochromatic, the sponge-people are bland and tasteless, a game of I-Spy leads to all-out war (“I spy, with my massive, pulsating eye, something r--“ “Don’t say it! Don’t you f*cking say it! I will f*cking shove this heat-ray down your f More...

30 comments like (60 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2011

Joe rated it:

I acknowledge that I am one of the few people who actually enjoyed the recent "War of the Worlds" movie. The reason for this has to do more with the original book than Tom Cruise or Steven Speilburg's tendency to wittle everything, including alien attacks, down to simple family problems. In a lot of ways, "War of the Worlds" (2006) was a close to dead-on adaptation of the original Victorian novel.

Just a few words on why you should like, or if you don't like, resp More...

1 comment like (22 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2011

Benjamin rated it:

I somewhat lazily and arbitrarily clicked this book onto my "science fiction" Goodreads shelf, but it isn't, not really. Sure, the monsters happened to come from Mars, but that isn't essential to the plot. They could just as easily have come from deep under the ground, from the bottom of the ocean, or from Mordor. All the story requires is that they be from Somewhere Else, and Mars fills that bill perfectly well.

So, leaving aside the creatures' extraterrestrial origins, War o More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2011

Becky rated it:

As I was reading this, two thoughts struck me.

The first was that this book was less about Martians than it was about how humanity views itself as the "Kings of the Earth". Mankind has always had this annoying tendency to think that whatever serves us is good and right, despite whatever injury is done to the Earth and any other living creature on it in obtaining whatever it is that we want. The Martian invasion served only to open our eyes to this blindness and willful igno More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2008

Chris rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2007

Willa rated it:

This book is brilliant! To think that Wells wrote it before anyone else had imagined visitors from other planets coming to Earth is simply incredible... The influence on the genre continues to this day... Well-deservedly, I might add...

But not only is this book a great example of science fiction, it's also a commentary on social practices... Wells points every so often to the feelings of the humans and compares them to the feelings of 'lower' animals who must contend every day with t More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Oct 14, 2007

Russell rated it:

The book, as it is in many, many cases, was better than the movie.

Except for the movie's Death Ray. The book the Martians used a Heat Ray thing. Think of a giant hairdryer set to "Sear - Cajun Style". Not as cool as a ray that turns people to dust and levels buildings.

Aside from the special effects, I liked the whole execution of the book better than the movie.

I'm not going to do the standard bits about Wells' prophetic visions and how he wrote about More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jul 08, 2007

Chazzbot rated it:

I use this book as part of my class on terrorism. There are many passages here that will resonate with post 9/11 readers. It's a story of mass cultural anxiety caused by the appearance of an enemy who is highly intelligent, casually destructive, and ultimately unknowable. In this early novel, Wells has yet to fully develop the cynicism and misantropy of his later years, though his disregard for religion and blind faith is obvious. One can easily read it as a sheer adventure story, but there More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 29, 2011

Marvin rated it:

Finally! A five-star novel by H. G. Wells!

I'm not sure if I read this in my childhood or not. I think not. If I didn't, I should have since I read almost every other H. G. Wells novel as a boy. And this is far and above his best. It is the granddaddy of alien invasion stories and still holds up rather well. Wells foresaw a number of science fiction themes in this book, alien invasion, post-apocalyptic, he even toys with the idea of terra-forming. His descriptions of the Martians and More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 16, 2011

Lennie rated it:

When a capsule falls from space and lands on Earth, the people who discover it don’t know what to make of it at first. It is only after extraterrestrial creatures crawl out of it, that they realize they are being invaded by Martians. These Martians are gigantic, metal figures on tripods which cause death and destruction by using Heat Rays and black, deadly vapors. They move from town to town, destroying everything in their sight. Armies with guns can’t seem to stop them. The human race is i More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 21, 2011

Ben rated it:

It's easy to be a jaded reader of science fiction, especially if you grew up with the conveniences of Star Trek, Star Wars, and the reality of spaceflight. So it's important to remember that writers like H.G. Wells never got to see the famous Blue Marble photograph of Earth; they never got to see what our planet looks like from space—something most of us take for granted in this era. This awareness, our conception of the Earth as a big blue marble, has become so pervasive as to make descriptio More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2010

theduckthief rated it:

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own."

I was happy to read this book as it's on my BTRBID list. It describes the invasion and subsequent takeover of England by Martians. We follow the first-hand accounts a man and his brother who experience the Martian landings and their various attacks on the populous. The reader witnesses More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 13, 2008

Kristen rated it:

I have been planning on reading this book for over 10 years. I remember watching the movie when I was little (and then the remake a few years ago). First of all, this was far better than either of the movies.

Written in first person from the account of a survivor of the attack (who is never named) and then recounting the tale of his brother, this is a very immediate and unsettling tale. What I did not expect was the time frame the book was written in. I assumed (for some idiotic r More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Apr 10, 2008

Evan rated it:

The War of the Worlds may not be the greatest science fiction novel ever written, but it is possibly the purest.

Stately, economical prose, sometimes reaching delightful peaks of intensity and suspense. Grand, cleanly-thought-out ideas whose full expression produces in the reader a sense of wonder. A plot whose primary function is to showcase the grand ideas in a dramatic fashion. And passages on science that are short, speculative essays.

One chapter, "The Man on P More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 15, 2008

Mark rated it:

This book was excellent! And we must give "props" to Wells because this is allegedly the first novel ever written about an alien invasion. I was skeptical when I read that claim on the back cover, but Issac Asimov reiterated it in his interesting afterward. He also provides a post-colonial reading in which the Brits seek atonement for their own invasions of the 19th Century.

Of course the book is better than the movies. It was surprising to see how much the movies got so W More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 12, 2007

Dr M rated it:

A true classic of science-fiction, written in the naturalist style developed in 19th-century literature. The story, which probably does not need any further introduction (Earth is invaded by Martians), is set in contemporary, i.e. late 19th-century, England, in the greater London area. Later renditions of the story, in particular the latest movie, is set elsewhere and preserve only the most fundamental elements of the original story.

The story is told from the first person perspective More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 06, 2009

Rindis rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 21, 2011

Ego rated it:

I’ve been a huge fan of H.G Wells for almost as long as I’ve been reading books. War of the Worlds, a tale of extra terrestrial invader’s trying to replace man as the dominant species on Earth is perhaps one my favourite science fiction novels by Wells, rivalled only by his earlier novel the Time Machine. This grim tale which depicts man’s first encounter with interstellar life and the horrific, apocalyptic aftermath is still as shocking today as it was in 1898 when it was published.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 12, 2008

Andrew rated it:

I most recently re-read The War of the Worlds before seeing the Spielberg movie. I liked the film okay, but I'll give it this over the George Pal production: Wells's classic isn't exactly science fiction, it's really existentialist horror. I don't think it would go too far to say it's a fox hunt from the point of view of the fox. Almost literally. I think Spielberg captures this in the way he depicted some patterns of the Martians' behavior (okay, in his film it may not have been Martians) w More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 26, 2012

Alex rated it:

Note that Cindy has created a Google map of this book, which is laudably loony. I am SO impressed with that.

Wells just doesn't strike out for me: every one of the four books I've read of his so far has its own feel and succeeds in its own way. Here the story is much smaller than I'd thought it would be - okay fine, I saw that lame Tom Cruise movie a while back - which is a good choice. Wells focuses mainly - almost obsessively - on the reactions of various humans to an invasion that's More...

14 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2008

Anna rated it:

I haven't been a fan of alien-ist lit, at all - and I really don't know why since I love folklore/mythology. Why is it easier to accept eightlegged creatures that have created the world and put the sun in its place, than little green critters from Mars?

Anyhow - this has been on my classics-list for so long now and I had run out of excuses not to read it. I can only say I wish I had read it sooner. Not only were there no green creatures (they were brown, or grey or something) - More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 19, 2011

Colin rated it:

Last time I read this I was at School, many many moons ago, and my view then hasn't changed it's a true classic of science-fiction.

I read the book all those years ago, played the vinyl of Jeff Waynes Musical Version and now have the CD. I admit I watched the crap 1953 movie, and I have never watched the latest. Why cause its not the same. If you going to make a film of this classic book set it the time and place, the book was writern last years of the 19th century, London not modern More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 09, 2009

Amber rated it:

I really love Wells, despite his blatant stereotyping of anything not London. Or male. Or white. He always pushes the envelope with his ideas regarding modern science theory and religion.

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 24, 2009

Kennis rated it:

First of all, I wish I never saw any of the movies before reading it because I couldn't get the imagery from them out of my head as I read. It was super annoying. Fucking Tom Cruise. In any case, I gotta say that I really didn't care for it. The radio show was probably much more captivating than the book. The way it was told, in third person and everything having taken place in the past, was just not working for me. The story was intriguing enough to keep me going, but boy did I feel like not fi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 29, 2008

Blake rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Feb 09, 2012

Thom rated it:

I’m sure most people see the vast differences between novels (in their original state) and screenplays derived from those novels. Seldom does a screenplay mimic its inspiration. In some cases the film version of a book can be so distorted as to make the slightest resemblance impossible to recognize. This, the original novel, War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells is one such example.
I was once in the possession of a recording (October 30, 1938) of the radio play that so shocked the large portions More...

0 comments like

Jan 30, 2012

Apoorva rated it:

As far as I've read 'War Of The Worlds' is a good book (not great but good). The book uses some interesting concepts that until I started reading the book, I would not have believed such a book was written almost a century and a half ago. It has the great concept of having aliens invading Earth, and I like this concept a lot because it is almost the same concept used in the HALO series.

In the previous paragraph I have written the the book is good but not great, this is because I feel More...

2 comments like

Jan 29, 2012

Dong Hae rated it:

I have just started the book and read until the part that something big and bright fell down from the sky. It was confusing of the characters names because it started by saying man and men. when I knew that something fell from the sky, I thought about the title of this book and tried to match the story. I thought of two different ideas about the story that would possibly happen.
Based on the thing that fell from the sky, I think that the book is about space and the future. However, More...

1 comment like

Jan 29, 2012

Fredrik rated it:

I am almost in the middle of the book and I am understanding the plot and what is going on. In the beginning of the book, I must honestly say, it was very bad, and that is because it was so slow. I was thinking of changing books because it was so slow but now that i have read quite a lot, I feel that I am getting into it. Something that helped me to continue reading the book was going on the internet, and finding out what the book is about just because i could not understand what was going on. More...

0 comments like

Jan 29, 2012

Ben rated it:

I have just gotten to the part where he has just parted with the artilleryman. The book is somewhat interesting, at some points I just want to stop but at others its hard not to keep reading. It is a hard book to read with lots of words that I can't understand and it is really hard to keep up with the book, it keep confusing me. The books plot in my opinion is very boring and hard to understand.

It is very annoying with the way that the artilleryman says what is going to happen becaus More...

3 comments like

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