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Study 093 - The War of the Worlds - Part 1 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-06-06 14:47:37
Imported:
2024-06
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Content

Nobody would have believed in the early years of the 21st century that we'd be celebrating 15 years of podcasting with The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, yet here we are!

Please support our excellent reader: Greig Johnson!

Review our conversation with Mason Starr - a Missions Operations Specialist who operates cameras aboard the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers ON MARS!

Also referenced: THE XIPÉHUZ!

And check out this seductive illustration of H.G. Wells playing war games on the floor.

Next up: More WAR OF THE WORLDS!

Files

Comments

Rob Valentine

I've really been looking forward to this one, fellas! I was born near Ottershaw and grew up just a couple of miles from the sandpit on Horsell Common, so Martian country has always felt like home. However, it's only been in the last year or so that I decided to chart the narrator's flight from the common back to his house on Maybury Hill, where he passes out for a spell near 'the bridge that crosses the canal by the gasworks'. The gasworks may be gone, but the bridge is still there. By the way, here's a link to an Atlas Obscura article on the Woking Martian, which is a terrific piece of public art in Woking town centre. We're very proud of our Martian overlords around here. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-martian

Jason Thompson

Awwwwww hell yeah!!! 👽❤️❤️

Mooncubus

I am so panicked by you covering this story. I've been waiting for this one!

MonsterTalk

I assume everyone and their shoggoth has been begging you to cover the Jeff Wayne musical version of this as bonus content. I guess I'm going to have to +1 that if I'm gonna stay true to my values.

REO Jackwagon

Mecha from Mars! Where's a Gundam when I need one?

Allison Albright

It's funny how much things have changed since this was written - Wells is trying to relate the Martian to something his readers will be familiar with so they'll be able to visualize it, so he compares it to a milking stool. However I am much more familiar with the idea of a metal tripod with machinery on top than I am with a milking stool. It's also kind of notable how often I encounter some idea in a science fiction story that exists now and learn that the inspiration for it comes from the story. Really looking forward to the coverage of this book!

Cole Caron

Naming an astronomer “Ogilvy” is pretty on the nose, considering the definition of “ogle.” He might as well have been named “Spacepeeper” or “Starpervert.”

KateSherrod

Martian Clown Cylinder is my new ICP cover band. Woop!

Jeremy Impson

I haven't listened yet, but I had to comment that the opening sentence of this post is perfect.

Eldritch Golem (JPM)

This is a novel I've been anticipating your coverage of for some time now. Chad already mentioned the 1938 Orson Welles radio broadcrast but I wonder for this month's bonus episode if Chris and Chad will discuss some of the other adaptations and/or sequels to War of the Worlds? I thinking of Jeff Wayne's musical, Stephen Baxter's novel The Massacre of Mankind, the short story collection War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches (which includes a story of a tripod landing in Providence during HPL's childhood), Ian Edginton and D'Israeli's graphic novel Scarlet Traces, the second volume of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, John Christopher's YA series The Tripods, and of course the 1953 and 2005 films as well as Independence Day.

anfearglas

I eagerly await Chad Fifer’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

Jeremy Impson

I didn't realize how completely the New Jersey/New York setting of the Mercury Radio Company of the Air performance had supplanted the original setting in England in my mind.

Jeremy Impson

The sweet-seller and his son are surely descendants of (and perhaps inspiration for) Pratchett's "Cut-Me-Own-Throat (CMOT) Dibbler" Discworld character.

Jim Cannon

There is no end to the pop culture minutiae that owes a debt to this book. Superman has heat vision because of _The War of the Worlds_

Jim Cannon

Speaking of sequels, one of the oddest is from HP Lovecraft's favorite astronomer, Garret P. Service. It is entitled _Edison Conquers the Martians_, because it documents how Thomas Edison invented a death ray and spaceships and led an army to Mars to pay them back for invading Earth. Chris pointed out that the anti-colonial message of _The War of the Worlds_ isn't even subtext (Wells was no coward!) and STILL people completely missed the point.

Ann Knight

Congratulations on fifteen years of podcasting, and thank you for the innumerable hours of listening enjoyment. I'm so glad I found you guys.

Karl Haikara

You guys should cover the adaptations of this book in movies and even stuff like Mars Attacks and Independence Day as well for your bonus episode this month i think that'd be awesome

Runninghead

Chris & Chad would not have believed, 15 years ago in the early years of the 21st century, that Strange Studies of Strange Stories would being listened to, keenly and closely by so many great minds... and me. Yet, across the gulf of the internet, an intellect small and tepid and sympathetic regarded the podcast with eager ears and, slowly and surely, grew impatient for an episode covering The War of The Worlds... but I am NOT disillusioned! Congratulations on 15 years of close scrutiny guys, this episode was everything I'd been hoping for. 👏👏👏 Like The Time Machine, this is a story I read again and again so I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. TWotW became a blueprint for so much work that followed. As Chad pointed out, the impact of this story was immense and Welles clearly has a winning formula for Pace and Appeal. As others have probably pointed out here, both the pacing and the frequent name-drops of UK, mostly London, locations are probably due to the episodic publication of the original tale in a London-centric periodical. All those places would be very familiar to the original audience and reading of their destruction would be incredibly suspenseful and evocative. I hope next week we cover how Welles was punched on a train station by the husband of "Railway Children" author, Edith Nesbit! 🤯 I wish I had a Time Machine so I could fast-forward to next week and hear the second episode now!

Dan Pratt

This is a great gift for my birthday month. Thanks, guys!

Our old pal Brendan Gardiner

Chad’s reference to the Tom Waits song “What’s He Building?” left me equal parts distracted / delighted by the idea of Waits peering through his window blinds at the new Martian neighbors, agitated at how completely the quiet routine of the district has been upset. Try as he might, he is unable to reconcile himself to their noises, the many nondescript packages they receive, their reclusiveness, and finally, their deployment of the heat ray.

It's a Ghost.

Wait! This month marks your 15th anniversary of doing the podcast!? I’m pretty sure this month also marks the 10-year anniversary of me discovering and first listening to HPPodcraft! Congrats and thanks for all the great episodes!

Tom Král

Miniature gaming has been my hobby for couple of yesrs now and this is the first time I'm hearing about it here haha What an amazing month this is gonna be!

Philip Cowan

A great new twist to the show for the fifteenth anniversary - a novel based on a 70s discotheque concept album. How about finding novels inspired by Saturday Night Fever or Grease? A bit of research into the back catalogue of Earth Wind and Fire will unearth a few gems I am sure. Donna Summers? Love to love, you Baby. I bet old HG enjoyed a boogie. Sorry, but a great book that I am glad you are covering, but Jeff Wayne’s War of Worlds is a bigger national embarrassment than The Suez Crisis.

Akeel1701

Whenever I hear the words: "... and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us, " the opening bars of "Eve of the War" from the Jeff Wayne album start to play in my mind.

Alex Beal

You guys referenced him being a mess when trying to describe what had happened, but skipped over the details of one of my favorite lines from the book! "He met a waggoner and tried to make him understand, but the tale he told and his appearance were so wild--his hat had fallen off in the pit--that the man simply drove on." The fact that it specifies that his missing hat is what makes his appearance so wild always made me laugh. As though if he had managed to hold onto his hat the waggoner might have stopped to hear about the martians.

MR ZEEL

Hiya, did you know there is a connection between Rosny (Les Xipehus) and Wells? They knew each other when Rosny spent time in London. As Rosny basically invented a new form of SF. Did he influence Wells? It's such a shame that so little of Rosny amazing work has been translated into English.

Robby H.

As to why the pub owner was still working - I was considered an "essential worker" during the start of the pandemic. I was worried about the disease, but still needed money.

Scott McCrate

I read War of The Worlds for the first time in the early 90's and scenes of long lines of people evacuating the cities on rural roads with their goods was so disturbing to me. At about the same time the Balkan War was raging and news videos showing peasants streaming out of villages on rutted roads with their belongings piled on horse carts--in the late 20th Century!--just resonated so powerfully.

Shachaf Karvat

I'm still catching up on 16 years of episodes after stumbling across this podcast by chance a few months ago—right after listening to the HPLHS audiobook anthology. I've already devoured over 700 episodes, and now I can finally contribute something! The book is incredibly detailed and accurate about the landscape of north Surrey and parts of London. There's a great BBC Radio 4 series about the real journey and locations, which is well worth a listen: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/b08hdpd9?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile