Book of the Week

The War of the Worlds by HG Wells 
Recommended by Jasper Parish

HG Wells’ thriller, The War of the Worlds, follows the desperate survival of a single unnamed protagonist throughout an unprecedented martian invasion. The novel explores everything, from the sighting of activity on Mars to the effect of earth’s hostile conditions on extra-terrestrials.

Wells’ style of writing appealed to me because he leaves out no details and describes everything as if he were truly setting eyes on it. He is very careful to make every nook and cranny believable. This really adds a huge amount to the already good plot because without these realistic descriptions, the novel would be almost unreadable. So, with solid descriptions, Wells’ thriller becomes a very interesting read.
However, the intense, ruthless description, in my view, subtracts from the events substantially during periods of high intensity action. This is because it often displaces opportunities for emotional description and this takes away from the tension leaving a more boring novel behind.

The plot behind The War of the Worlds seems difficult to believe at first but the more I read on, the further engrossed I became. The plot revolves around the narrator’s journey before, during and after the invasion. H. G. Wells clearly thought a lot about the plot to this novel and I enjoyed reading through the meanders of the story-line. I did, however, find the end anticlimactic and wish that this ending, although clever, were more conclusive and rewarding and gave a lasting sense of intrigue in the topic.

There are few characters in The War of the Worlds which works well and keeps the focus on the actual aliens. The narrator himself isn't given any background, though, which takes away from the book’s substance again and makes the book seem like a scientific report rather than an action-thriller novel. If H. G. Wells had replaced or simply added more history to the protagonist and a true family for him then the plot would have a much stronger base and the book would be much harder-hitting, sadder and a more thrilling, striking novel. This lack of background is fundamentally my main disagreement with the book as it doesn’t, in my opinion, make sense to start with a character that we don’t even know the name of, let alone their family, appearance or hobbies.

Overall, I think that H. G. Wells has thought so hard about trying to be realistic scientifically that he has lost sight of a basic fictional novel. Having said that, I do like that his descriptions are so vivid and clear. I think that this book is still a great read for any patient reader and would challenge one to find a novel so well thought out.