(in english)"THE WAR OF WORLDS" Herbert George Wells 1898 UK

Kind : Classical SF Landscape : The english contryside in the area of London, where small towns are scattered, green hills....and the streets of London destroyed by the ray of death of invaders...

The story :

The martians land on Earth in aim to dominate our world, because theirs is dying. They destroy all they touch, letting no chance to the human beings.All kind of weapons are tried to destroy them but it's a failure. The writer describe how some humans try to survive in hiding in cellings. The martians are finaly destroyed by bacteria, naturally living on Earth...

Topics :

- The humans are so proud ( at that time, at least ), that they believe to be alone in the Universe.

- They are also able of a lot of courage ( to rebuilt a completely destroyed world )

- The aliens are the bad guys ( Is there a parallel with the communists ? Who knows...)

- The biological danger of a world for another

Historical context :

The story is written at the time of Churchill, the First Minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945 and 1951 too 1955, who was a famous well known anti communist. But I don't know Well's political feelings, so...

Comments :

As mad as it seems, teleportation does exist. Yes indeed... When I opened this book, Wells took me by the hand and I was just in the middle of a report, right in the heart of the action. The writter succeeds, with a very living writing style, to make us follow events decribed with a very plausible way, it is amazing...

The human and mass reactions face to fear and terror are wery well described, and could happen this days, because if we are very evolved in a technological point of view, ourselves doesn't change....Imagine you are lost in a very black and deep forest.....Even if you are the president of the United States or the best scientist on Earth, you will be scared to death ( me too !!! ), before recovering your temper...

To conclude, a very very good book, in which you can nearly smell the odour of trees burned by the extraterrestrials, you can hear the crowd scream for fear..... an incredible travel !!!