LONDON has been flattened by a mass invasion from Mars which has threatened to wipe out Mankind. There’s nothing left of the metropolis and the Home Counties. The rest of civilisation is about to be laid waste in the grip of a marauding battle fleet from the Red Planet. The Martian invasion was more than a century ago, apparently—and we seem to have survived the onslaught, according to evidence this weekend
By Emelyne Godfrey
LONDON has been flattened by a mass invasion from Mars which has threatened to wipe out Mankind.
There’s nothing left of the metropolis and the Home Counties.
The rest of civilisation is about to be laid waste in the grip of a marauding battle fleet from the Red Planet.
But Londoners need not fear little green men turning up on their doorstep or getting the cat in safely.
The Martian invasion was more than a century ago, apparently—and we seem to have survived the onslaught.
That’s according to members of the HG Wells Society who are holding a two-day conference on Wells at War in East London at the weekend.
In was in 1898—a decade after Jack the Ripper terrorized Whitechapel—when Victorian London was gripped by the Martian invasion.
From Woking to Southend, from Weybridge to Chalk Farm, London and the Home Counties fell victim to “the rout of civilisation, the massacre of Mankind.”
It has been 110 years since these horrific scenes first appeared in Herbert George Wells’ novel War of the Worlds.
But the novel is still going strong, judging from the many adaptations since the late-19th century.
Jeff Wayne’s 1978 smash-hit musical, for example, celebrates its 30th anniversary with a tour this year.
Hollywood, of course, joined the interplanetary conflict with the 1953 film War of the Worlds starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson and again in 2005 with Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning.
The Wells at War’ conference at Mile End’s Queen Mary college on Saturday and Sunday aims to find out what motivated Wells to destroy London, the city he loved and where he lived.
He wrote dozens of novels and short stories while studying science at what is now Imperial College and also found time as a political campaigner who believed in votes for women.
But the conference focuses on his interests in war, both fiction and fact.
His 1908 novel War in the Air predicted aircraft as weaponry, while his 1933 Shape of Things to Come foresaw the Second World War.
That’s not forgetting his prediction of nuclear warfare in The World Set Free as early as 1914.
His other premonitions included the invention of battle tanks and biological warfare.
Wells famously coined the expression the war that will end all war’ about the Great War of 1914-18—but ironically that was one prediction he got wrong.
He was a pro-war advocate at the time, then turned anti-war in the 1930s and visited Europe, Russia, America and Australia preaching the cause of international reconciliation.
He somehow knew total warfare would come one day, as members of the HG Wells Society will be discussing at the weekend.
But thankfully his prediction of a “rout of civilisation and the massacre of Mankind” coming from Space hasn’t happened—well, not so far.
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There is more information about the September 20-21 HG Wells conference at Queen Mary College, Mile End, on the society's website:
or email:
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