The Martian War

Last updated

First edition (publ. Pocket Books) The Martian War.jpg
First edition (publ. Pocket Books)

The Martian War: A Thrilling Eyewitness Account of the Recent Invasion As Reported by Mr. H.G. Wells is a 2005 science fiction novel by American writer Kevin J. Anderson, published under his pseudonym Gabriel Mesta. [1] [2] It is a retelling of H. G. Wells' 1898 novel The War of the Worlds similar to Anderson's past work War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches . It recounts the Martian invasion from a variety of viewpoints, and has ties to Wells' other work.

In War of the Worlds, Wells himself is the main character who witnesses the Martian attack alongside his fiancée Jane, Thomas Huxley, and Percival Lowell. The British government brings them together with Dr. Moreau and Hawley Griffin, who help develop a strain of cholera to be used against the Martians. Wells travels to the Moon to free the Selenites, who have been enslaved by the Martians, who join forces to end the Martian menace once and for all.

The premise is similar to the earlier The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II as both involve a group of literary figures being brought together by a secret agency of the British government to fight the Martians. Both books end the invasion by using a biological weapon, and Griffin and Moreau are involved in both.

The Martian War uses the same first name given to the Invisible Man by the creators of the comic book The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. II (in the original book, the Invisible Man had no first name. The comic book author Alan Moore gave him the first name 'Hawley' as a reference to Hawley Crippen). Anderson had previously written the novelization of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film.

Related Research Articles

<i>The Invisible Man</i> 1897 science fiction novel by H. G. Wells

The Invisible Man is a science fiction novel by British writer H. G. Wells. Originally serialised in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man to whom the title refers is Griffin, a scientist who has devoted himself to research into optics and who invents a way to change a body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light. He carries out this procedure on himself and renders himself invisible, but fails in his attempt to reverse it. A practitioner of random and irresponsible violence, Griffin has become an iconic character in horror fiction.

<i>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</i> Comic book series by Alan Moore and Kevin ONeill

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (LoEG) is a multi-genre, cross over comic book series co-created by writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O'Neill which began in 1999. The comic book spans four volumes, an original graphic novel, and a spin-off trilogy of graphic novellas. Volume I and Volume II and the graphic novel Black Dossier were published by the America's Best Comics imprint of DC Comics. After leaving the America's Best imprint, the series moved to Top Shelf and Knockabout Comics, which published Volume III: Century, the Nemo Trilogy, and Volume IV: The Tempest. According to Moore, the concept behind the series was initially a "Justice League of Victorian England" but he quickly developed it as an opportunity to merge elements from numerous works of fiction into one world, in a matter akin to the shared fictional universes of Marvel and DC Comics.

Griffin (<i>The Invisible Man</i>) Titular fictional character from H.G. Wells novella The Invisible Man

Griffin, also known as the Invisible Man, is a fictional character who first appeared as the protagonist of H. G. Wells' 1897 science fiction novel The Invisible Man. In the original work, Griffin is a scientist whose research in optics and experiments into changing the human body's refractive index to that of air results in him becoming invisible. After becoming invisible, he wraps his head in bandages and dons a pair of goggles or glasses in order to enable others to see him. Unable to reverse the invisibility process, he descends into insanity and becomes a criminal.

<i>The First Men in the Moon</i> 1901 novel by H. G. Wells

The First Men in the Moon by the English author H. G. Wells is a scientific romance, originally serialised in The Strand Magazine and The Cosmopolitan from November 1900 to June 1901 and published in hardcover in 1901. Wells called it one of his "fantastic stories". The novel recounts a journey to the Moon by the two protagonists: a businessman narrator, Mr. Bedford; and an eccentric scientist, Mr. Cavor. Bedford and Cavor discover that the Moon is inhabited by a sophisticated extraterrestrial civilisation of insect-like creatures they call "Selenites". The inspiration seems to come from the famous 1865 book by Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon, and the opera by Jacques Offenbach from 1875. Verne's novel also uses the word "Selenites" to describe inhabitants of the Moon.

<i>The Invisible Man</i> (1958 TV series) British TV series or programme

The Invisible Man is a British black-and-white science fiction television series that aired on ITV. It aired from September 1958 to July 1959, on CBS in the USA, two seasons. Of which these shows amounted to twenty-six one-half-hour episodes. This series was loosely inspired by the 1897 novel which was authored by the famous H. G. Wells. This television program was one of at least four 'Invisible Men' television series. This interation deviates from the novel making the character's name Dr. Peter Brady. The character remains sane, opposed to a lunatic as in the book or the 1933 film adaptation. No characters from the novel appear in the series.

<i>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</i> (film) 2003 superhero film by Stephen Norrington

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, also promoted as LXG, is a 2003 steampunk/dieselpunk superhero film loosely based on the first volume of the comic book series of the same name by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. Distributed by 20th Century Fox, it was released on 11 July 2003 in the United States, and 17 October in the United Kingdom. It was directed by Stephen Norrington and starred Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran, Stuart Townsend, Shane West, Jason Flemyng, and Richard Roxburgh. It was Connery's final role in a theatrically released live-action film before his retirement in 2006 and death in 2020.

Martian (<i>The War of the Worlds</i>) Race of extraterrestrials from H.G. Wells War of the Worlds

The Martians, also known as the Invaders, are the main antagonists from the H.G. Wells 1898 novel The War of the Worlds. Their efforts to exterminate the populace of the Earth and claim the planet for themselves drive the plot and present challenges for the novel's human characters. They are notable for their use of extraterrestrial weaponry far in advance of that of mankind at the time of the invasion.

H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds is a 2006 comic adaptation of H. G. Wells' 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, written by Ian Edginton and illustrated by D'Israeli.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Crystal Egg</span> Short story by H. G. Wells

"The Crystal Egg" is a science fiction short story written by H. G. Wells in 1897.

<i>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier</i>

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier is an original graphic novel in the comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill. It was the last volume of the series to be published by DC Comics. Although the third book to be published, it was not intended to be the third volume in the series. Moore has stated that it was intended to be "a sort of ingenious sourcebook", and not a regular volume.

<i>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume One</i> Comic Book

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume One is a comic book limited series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill, published under the America's Best Comics imprint of DC Comics in the United States and under Vertigo in the United Kingdom. It is the first story in the larger League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series. The story takes place in 1898 in a fictional world where all of the characters and events from Victorian literature coexist. The characters and plot elements borrow from works of writers such as Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, H. G. Wells and Robert Louis Stevenson.

<i>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II</i> Limited comic book series

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II is a comic book limited series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill, published under the America's Best Comics imprint of DC Comics in the United States and under Vertigo in the United Kingdom. It is a sequel to the original volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and like its previous installment is a pastiche of various characters and events from Victorian literature; though it borrows a great number of characters and elements from various literary works of writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ian Fleming, Robert Louis Stevenson and Bram Stoker, it is predominantly a retelling of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.

<i>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</i> (novel) 2003 book by Kevin J. Anderson

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a 2003 steampunk/adventure novel by Kevin J. Anderson. It is a novelization of the script of the movie of the same name, written by James Dale Robinson, which itself was based on the comic by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill.

"Mars: The Home Front" is a short story by American writer George Alec Effinger, published in the 1996 anthology War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches. It is a crossover between H. G. Wells' 1898 novel The War of the Worlds and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series.

<i>The War of the Worlds</i> 1898 science fiction novel by H. G. Wells

The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was written between 1895 and 1897, and serialised in Pearson's Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan magazine in the US in 1897. The full novel was first published in hardcover in 1898 by William Heinemann. The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between humankind and an extraterrestrial race. The novel is the first-person narrative of an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and his younger brother who escapes to Tillingham in Essex as London and southern England is invaded by Martians. It is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon.

The following is a list of works by science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson.

Works of popular culture influenced by H. G. Wells' 1897 novel The Invisible Man include:

References

  1. "THE MARTIAN WAR: A Thrilling Eyewitness Account of the Recent Alien Invasion as Reported by Mr. H.G. Wells by Gabriel Mesta". publishersweekly.com. 2005. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
  2. "Publication: The Martian War: A Thrilling Eyewitness Account of the Recent Invasion As Reported by Mr. H.G. Wells". isfdb.org. Retrieved 19 September 2023.