Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Wow. This thread has been dark for over a month, nearly 2.
Just finished The Massacre of Mankind by Stephen Baxter. It's an "official" sequel to H. G. Wells' seminal s-f novel The War of the Worlds. It picks up the story a decade or so later and carries it on from there, revisiting and fleshing out many of the characters from the original, which is good because characterization was not Wells' strong suit and many of his characters are more symbols than people. It also take the real history of the early twentieth century and figures out how the Martian invasion would have changed/influenced it. The story is well told for about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way, handles the alt-history well, and does a good job on the characters. However, the novel bogs down in the last third and has a denouement that is waaaaay too long. Also, it's pointless to read it if you're not familiar with the original. They are that tightly tied. I enjoyed most of it and would say it would be a good, entertaining read for fans of Wells or s-f in general. Others should probably pass.
Bootnote: I'm putting "official" in quotes because Wells died in 1946 so even in the US where copyright is life + 70 years, his stuff is now public domain. So anyone can legally write a sequel to anything he wrote or use his characters and ideas in their own writing. Baxter did get the approval of Wells' estate (hence "official"), but that's more a marketing tool than anything at this point, rather than a legal necessity.
Just finished The Massacre of Mankind by Stephen Baxter. It's an "official" sequel to H. G. Wells' seminal s-f novel The War of the Worlds. It picks up the story a decade or so later and carries it on from there, revisiting and fleshing out many of the characters from the original, which is good because characterization was not Wells' strong suit and many of his characters are more symbols than people. It also take the real history of the early twentieth century and figures out how the Martian invasion would have changed/influenced it. The story is well told for about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way, handles the alt-history well, and does a good job on the characters. However, the novel bogs down in the last third and has a denouement that is waaaaay too long. Also, it's pointless to read it if you're not familiar with the original. They are that tightly tied. I enjoyed most of it and would say it would be a good, entertaining read for fans of Wells or s-f in general. Others should probably pass.
Bootnote: I'm putting "official" in quotes because Wells died in 1946 so even in the US where copyright is life + 70 years, his stuff is now public domain. So anyone can legally write a sequel to anything he wrote or use his characters and ideas in their own writing. Baxter did get the approval of Wells' estate (hence "official"), but that's more a marketing tool than anything at this point, rather than a legal necessity.
