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14 December, 1998
One hundred and one years ago H.G. Wells created a new sub-genre of fiction. Beginning in the April, 1897 edition of Pearson's Magazine, through the December edition, readers in Great Britain anxiously followed The War of the Worlds. U.S. readers were only slightly behind, as Cosmopolitan magazine began serializing the novel in its May, 1897 edition. (1898 is often somewhat mistakenly given as the year of publication of this novel; it didn't come out in hardcover until 1898, but it had already been published in both Great Britain and the U.S.)
Dozens of U.S. newspaper moved swiftly to sign deals with Wells to customize his novel for their city. Very slightly altered versions, such as Fighters from Mars, or the War of the World in and near Boston, began appearing as early as December, 1897. And swift on its heels came the sequels (some authorized, most not) and stories inspired by the novel. Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garett P. Servis, was published in the Boston Globe beginning in March 1898. At War with Mars, or the Boys Who Won by Weldon J. Cobb was serialized in the boy's weekly Golden Hours beginning in September, 1897. To Mars with Tesla, or the Mystery of the Hidden Worlds, also by Cobb, published in 1901. And there were many, many more.
Two decades before the Great War, Wells envisioned chemical weapons, biological warfare, and the engineering of living creatures. His novel had such a powerful impact on the collective psyche, that for the next 50 years it was virtually impossible for any writer to use aliens without also writing of an invasion.
While monstrous invaders seem a creaky cliche to us now, when Wells wrote of them, no one had ever thought of such a thing before. It was a breakthrough concept.
On one level, Wells was writing a morality tale based on his study of the European invasion of Tasmania. It was a stroke of genius on his part to make micro-organisms the saviors of the invaders, rather than the cruelest cut of all. The War of the Worlds has also done a good job as morality tale. It, and the many invasion stories that followed, created a fertile ground in our collective conscience. Would such a thing as Gene Roddenberry's Prime Directive have seemed reasonable before the War of the Worlds? U.S. history books once blithely talked of the settling of the west as a good thing. The natives were underusing the land, the books said. Now they usually speak of it as a conquest, and a regrettable one, at that. No, Wells can't take all of the credit. But clearly The War of the Worlds, and the many invasion tales which followed in its wake, helped us to see a little bit of ourselves in the face of the invading monsters, as well as to empathise with those who were being invaded.
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This page is copyright 1998 by Gene Breshears. Photograph is copyright 1998 by Julie Rampke. All Rights Reserved.