The Massacre of Mankind (2017) is a science fiction novel by the British writer Stephen Baxter, a sequel to H. G. Wells' 1898 classic The War of the Worlds, authorised by the Wells estate. It is set in 1920, 13 years after the events of the original novel, as a second Martian invasion is chronicled by Miss Elphinstone, the ex-sister-in-law of the narrator of War of the Worlds. Baxter also wrote an authorised sequel to Wells' novel The Time Machine, called The Time Ships.[1]
From New York City in 1920, four people sail to England to meet with Walter Jenkins, the original author of the War of the Worlds story. Jenkins has seen signs that the Martians may be planning a second attack. They arrive to find London has become a totalitariandystopia and the whole country is gearing up for war. Walter's brother, Frank, is conscripted the next day and London prepares for war. Beginning at 7:00pm, 50 cylinder-shaped Martian missiles land on the city, wiping out nearly half of the British Armed Forces. At midnight, another group of cylinders lands, carrying Martian warriors. The Martians emerge immediately, in contrast to the 19 hours required in their 1907 landings, and engage the British military with their heat rays. Counterattacks by the Army, the Navy and the relatively new Air Force prove mostly harmless against the Martian fighting-machines. Over the next few days, the Martians cripple London, carefully selecting targets of infrastructural importance, such as bridges, factories and railway stations. Many Londoners escape or take shelter.
Two years later, the Martians control England, though they mostly remain within their cordon. Jenkins asks Julie Elphinstone, his former sister-in-law, to go into the Martian cordon to try to communicate with them. She and her group make the long journey to there, dodging several Martian attacks along the way and meeting a saboteur named Marriott. At the Martian base, they discover that the Martians are carnivorous, keeping humans and humanoid species in holding tanks for future harvesting. They witness breeding experiments between Martians and humans. Eventually, they come to the feeding hole, where the Martians have humans hung upside-down from scaffolding while they inject the human's blood directly into their Martian bodies.
As the Martians continue to conquer other parts of Earth, Julie comes up with a plan. Knowing that the Martians communicate with their home planet by using sigils carved into the earth's surface, she wonders whether it would be possible to change the sigils and therefore disrupt communications. Eric Eden, a veteran of the first Martian war, agrees to let her attempt it. Eden transports Julie inside the cordon with his "landship", a massive tank-like vehicle the size of a battleship. Julie contacts the saboteur Marriott, who agrees to detonate numerous explosives to change the Martian sigils into the circular Jovian symbols. Within two hours, the Martians have withdrawn and the Jovians leave their circular sigil on the moon.
The book jumps forward 14 years. The Martians are still on Earth but no one knows where. Jenkins takes Julie half a mile into the earth to the underground Martian city in England. He speculates that this is how they live on Mars, that they have no secrets because of their telepathy, and that they are all treated as equals. The British Martians built a space gun and fired themselves back to Mars.
Reports say that other Martians moved to the Earth's poles where the climate is more Mars-like. Julie, Jenkins, Eden and some others take a massive German Zeppelin to the Arctic, where they see a Martian terraforming operation. Jenkins theorizes that, with the Jovians watching, they are forced to colonize rather than conquer, and that humans should work with them instead of against.
When Earth-Mars opposition comes around again, the Martians do not launch any cylinders. The war of the worlds is over.
In addition to the main storyline, the novel contains various standalone vignettes depicting Martian attacks in New York City, Berlin and Los Angeles.
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in planetary science. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s, when it became clear that there was no life on the Moon. The predominant genre depicting Mars at the time was utopian fiction. Around the same time, the mistaken belief that there are canals on Mars emerged and made its way into fiction, popularized by Percival Lowell's speculations of an ancient civilization having constructed them. The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells's novel about an alien invasion of Earth by sinister Martians, was published in 1897 and went on to have a major influence on the science fiction genre.
Stephen Baxter is an English hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials and the antagonists in the 1960s British Supermarionation science-fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967–68) and its 2005 animated remake, New Captain Scarlet. They are the remnants of the original Mysteron race: alien beings that originated in a galaxy other than the Milky Way and maintained a colony on Mars. They are symbolised by ubiquitous, projected green rings of light and the deep bass voice of their human convert Captain Black.
An extraterrestrial or alien is a lifeform that did not originate on Earth. The word extraterrestrial means "outside Earth". Extraterrestrials are a common theme in modern science-fiction, and also appeared in much earlier works such as the second-century parody True History by Lucian of Samosata.
This is a list of occurrences of space elevators in fiction. Some depictions were made before the space elevator concept became fully established.
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.
A flag of Mars is a concept of a possible flag design, meant to symbolize the planet Mars or to represent a fictional Martian government, in works of fiction.
Scarlet Traces is a Steampunk comic series written by Ian Edginton and illustrated by D'Israeli. It was originally published online before being serialised in 2002, in the British anthology Judge Dredd Megazine. A sequel, Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, followed in 2006.
Edison's Conquest of Mars is an 1898 science fiction novel by American astronomer and writer Garrett P. Serviss. It was written as a sequel to Fighters from Mars, an unauthorized and heavily altered version of H. G. Wells's 1897 story The War of the Worlds. It has a place in the history of science fiction for its early employment of themes and motifs that later became staples of the genre.
Superman: War of the Worlds is a DC Comics Elseworlds graphic novel, published in 1998, written by Roy Thomas with Michael Lark as the artist. The story is a rough adaptation of the H. G. Wells 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, but is primarily based on the Superman mythology. Wells' story is transported from early 20th century Britain to Metropolis in 1938, where the Martian invasion is met with a Golden Age-style Superman who is not blessed with the full range of powers that he typically has in modern comics.
War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches is a 1996 science fiction anthology, edited by Kevin J. Anderson and published by American company Bantam Spectra. It is a tribute to H. G. Wells' 1898 novel The War of the Worlds; each story envisions a famous individual's reactions to the Martian invasion and the impact of the invasion on a different part of the world.
"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.
The Seetee series is a golden age science fiction series by the American writer Jack Williamson, under the pseudonym "Will Stewart."
War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave is a 2008 direct-to-DVD science fiction-thriller film by The Asylum, which premiered on Syfy on Tuesday March 18, 2008, directed by and starring C. Thomas Howell. The film was produced and distributed independently by The Asylum.
The War of the Worlds is a 1953 American science fiction thriller film directed by Byron Haskin, produced by George Pal, and starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. It is the first of several feature film adaptations of H. G. Wells' 1898 novel of the same name. The setting is changed from Victorian era England to 1953 Southern California. Earth is suddenly invaded by Martians, and American scientist Doctor Clayton Forrester searches for any weakness to stop them.
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 are invaded by Martians. It is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon.
Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds is a vehicular combat third-person shooter video game. It was based primarily on the 1978 concept album Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, but also draws from the original 1898 War of the Worlds novel by H. G. Wells. The game was developed by Pixelogic and released in Europe exclusively for the Sony PlayStation in 1999. The game was never released in North America.
Leviathan Wakes is a science fiction novel by James S. A. Corey, the pen name of American writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. It is the first book in the Expanse series, followed by Caliban's War (2012), Abaddon's Gate (2013) and six other novels. Leviathan Wakes was nominated for the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the 2012 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. The novel was adapted for television in 2015 as the first season-and-a-half of The Expanse by Syfy. Five short stories that take place before, during, or after Leviathan Wakes were published between 2011 and 2019.
The Long War is a science fiction novel by British writers Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. It is a sequel to their parallel-Earth novel The Long Earth. This book is the second in a five-book series.
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