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The Massacre of Mankind: Authorised Sequel to The War of the Worlds by [Stephen Baxter]

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Stephen Baxter

The Massacre of Mankind: Authorised Sequel to The War of the Worlds Kindle Edition

by Stephen Baxter (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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It has been 14 years since the Martians invaded England. The world has moved on, always watching the skies but content that we know how to defeat the Martian menace. Machinery looted from the abandoned capsules and war-machines has led to technological leaps forward. The Martians are vulnerable to earth germs. The Army is prepared.

So when the signs of launches on Mars are seen, there seems little reason to worry. Unless you listen to one man, Walter Jenkins, the narrator of Wells' book. He is sure that the Martians have learned, adapted, understood their defeat.

He is right.

Thrust into the chaos of a new invasion, a journalist - sister-in-law to Walter Jenkins - must survive, escape and report on the war.

The Massacre of Mankind has begun

Length: 464 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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H.G. Wells
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$0.00
Stephen Baxter
41
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$1.42
Harlan Ellison
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$10.44

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Book Description

The War of the Worlds, the best alien invasion novel ever written, gets a superb sequel from the man who knows Wells' work best, the author of the official sequel to The Time Machine. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

"Alien invasion juiced up by alternate history, with real people as well...from sci-fi's Valhalla, the shade of Wells must be applauding. Perhaps with a touch of envy."--Wall Street Journal

A highly enjoyable work of homage and extrapolation. Baxter's chapters are short, sharp shocks, and he cleverly reuses many of Wells's original characters...[and] regularly offers intertextual winks to readers who know their Wells.--The Washington Post

"Tightly gripping storytelling [that] reads like a genuine labour of love. I can't think of another living writer more deserving of the "official heir of Wells" tag than Baxter." - The Guardian

"The style and tone are spot on...cleverly extrapolates Wells's themes and incorporates scientific theories of the day."--Financial Times

An ingenious work by a perceptive admirer...never less than highly diverting.--Times Literary Supplement

"A superb sequel...turns the terrific tale Wells told in his time into the foundation of something greater. [A] fitting and filling follow-up to one of science fiction's great standard-bearers."- Tor.com

"An audacious exercise in alternative history...and a hugely exciting adventure."--SFX Magazine

"Very much a tribute to HG Wells...a wholly unexpected treat of a sequel."--SF Crowsnest

"Surprisingly thoughtful...[a] page-turning novel that pays homage to the original story but then enhances it." - SFFWorld --This text refers to the paperback edition.

ASIN : B014SV4TM6
Publisher : Gollancz; 1st edition (19 January 2017)
Language : English
File size : 1819 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 464 pages
Page numbers source ISBN : 1473205093

Best Sellers Rank: 234,701 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 363 in Steam Punk Fiction
- 876 in High Tech Science Fiction
- 1,235 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)

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Mason S.

The Woke War of the Worlds

Reviewed in Australia on 10 January 2021

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Unfortunately the author spent much time injecting modern leftist social justice theory into his story. It really didn't fit with the time, but I guess that is what we must have in all forms of entertainment- re-education. The main character also didn't help as she was truly a very unsympathetic heroine, a third-age feminist sneering her way through battles with the patriarchy as she went. I was disappointed by this novel and wish I didn't buy or read it.

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Tom Clement

Struggling

Reviewed in Australia on 25 February 2017

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I am struggling so hard with this book. You hardly get to know the characters and it switches from continent to continent.
There's just not "depth" to it like you get with a Peter F Hamilton , Neal Asher book ( my 2 favourite authors ) . This is just
my opinion

2 people found this helpful

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Keep on learning

Adequate, but in a lesser league

Reviewed in Australia on 9 February 2017

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Where Wells was tight in his writing, painting broad sketches with few words and few scenes but always marching towards his conclusion, this book tends to wander and ramble ... i suspect the hand of an imposing publisher (hey, the scene in Independence Day where it looked at the invasion of lots if cities was popular, lets do that!) but the author clearly tried hard to match Wells tone and perspective.

One person found this helpful

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Chris Hibbert

Very disappointing, especially from someone of Baxters pedigree

Reviewed in Australia on 5 April 2017

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I'm a big Baxter fan, Zeelee sequence, Manifold series, Evolution... etc.
But this is absolute pants. It's as if he's under contract with a deadline looming and had to rush it before the publish date. There is absolutely no suspense or drama at all. Characters lack depth, plot is foreshadowed, action scenes are rushed and key battles ignored. Such a disappointment from such a good British Sci/Fi writer, especially since he wrote the excellent Time Ships, which was a sequel Herbert would have approved of.

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NickS

Overly long

Reviewed in Australia on 28 September 2020

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Very slow, and when stuff happens, the description is not well developed. Wish I'd not bothered finishing. My comments may reflect this being more a literary work.

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N. W. Backstrom

Satisfying sequel

Reviewed in Australia on 3 September 2017

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A much more wide-ranging story, a true war involving the whole world. Good fun, a satisfying ending to the war

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Andy Hayler

Worlds Collide

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 March 2017

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The Massacre of Mankind

To write a sequel to a great classic is a major challenge, but if anyone could pull it off then it would be Stephen Baxter. His "Timeships" sequel to H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" was an extraordinary achievement, a mind-expanding classic of hard sci-fi that fully utilised his background as a physicist who had studied at Cambridge. "The Massacre of Mankind" is less ambitious in scope. It adopts the scientific views of the early 19th century and accepts these as facts: the Martians really built canals, Venus is covered in oceans, the sun is cooling, spaceships are launched by huge cannons etc. The book seems partly an alternate history, with mankind having made advances since the first Martian invasion of 1907 partly by having borrowed captured Martian technology.

From a narrative point of view, the 449 page story races briskly along, the writing lively and with some sly references to other science fiction as well as faithfully matching up the content of the Wells original. Some elements seem a little forced: the series of short chapters on the Martian invasion of further flung global cities feels as if it was added in later to somehow give a sense of how broad the war was, yet these chapters seem disconnected to the main narrative. The main characters also encounter an implausible number of historical figures in the course of the action. However these are relatively minor caveats to what is certainly a superbly researched book that stays faithful to the spirit of the original. My main sense of disappointment is simply one of expectation: "Timeships" was so blisteringly brilliant that I had hoped for something similarly remarkable, and that was to load this book with too heavy a weight of hope.

22 people found this helpful

Carl

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 October 2018

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Mr Baxter has indeed written a sequel to War of the Worlds. This is its great problem. For in trying to follow up every character and answer every problem left unanswered by Mr Wells, Mr Baxter has neglected to write a novel without a convincing centre. There are at least three novels stitched Frankenstein like. The one I enjoyed the most was the alternative historical background which I felt could have stood on its own as a more interesting work of fiction. I finished this book last night and was left with a similar feeling that I experienced after slogging through Ulysses. This is a month of my life that I will never get back. This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown with great force

8 people found this helpful

Francis James Franklin

A true masterpiece

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 September 2018

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The Martians are back, and they’ve learned from their mistakes. The technology’s the same, but there’s less vulnerability – and this time there are more of them, initially in England, but later all around the world.

We get to see more of the Martians themselves, and perhaps the most chilling aspect is the bioengineering. The Martians see humans as food, as animals to be engineered and eventually domesticated.

The Martians have superior technology, superior intelligence, and their planet is dying. Would we really stand a chance against them?

A sequel to the original novel, by an author who treats the source material with due reverence, and who uses modern scientific knowledge to give credibility to the Martians’ technology. The Massacre of Mankind is a true masterpiece, weaving characters and themes from the original novel together with real people and events of the time to create an alternative history.

8 people found this helpful

Kevin Dearn

Over-Written Waffle

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 June 2020

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I was very disappointed with this book. If this were a debut novel, I could understand its flaws. The fact that it is recognised by the estate of H.G. Wells raised my expectations for this novel.

The story is mostly written from the point of view of the ex-sister-in-law of the narrator of Wells' <i>The War of the Worlds</i>, Julie Elphinestone. The Martians have learned from their mistakes from the first War of the Worlds and return with a second invasion. During a long-winded introductory section, we learn that the narrator of the original story is called Walter Jenkins. He is injured in mind and body and now divorced from his wife, Carolyne. In Baxter's timeline, the first Martian invasion happened in 1907, nine years after Wells' book was published. That made no sense to me.

Baxter creates a plausible alternative history, post-Martian War. There is no Great War in this timeline, but Germany invades and occupies France and is at war with Russia. The British Government is more tyrannical than in real history: personal telescopes are banned. We don't meet with Winston Churchill, but we do hear about his activities to fight the invaders.

We, eventually, get to the second Martian war. Germany is allied with Britain against the aliens. We also discover that Jupiter and Venus are inhabited. It is believed that the Jovians are the oldest and most powerful species in the Solar System. Astronomers observe sigils on Venus and Jupiter. It is realised that the Martians have invaded Venus and enslaved its primitive population.

The meat of the story is our heroine penetrating the cordon around the Martian centre of operations with a plan to wipe them out. She even meets the Artilleryman from the original story, herein named Albert Cook.

We get accounts of Martian landings around the world that add nothing to the narrative. After the defeat of the Martians, we are treated to an epilogue that reads like the start of another story that fizzles out.

Stephen Baxter has obviously done his research: he put it in the novel. Alas, he failed to murder his darlings in the editing process. There are chapters that could have been condensed to a paragraph or two. Most of book three could have been shrunk down to a couple of chapters. I find it surprising that a writer as experienced and renowned as Stephen Baxter wouls so over-write a novel. I found it necessary to speed read through chapters that lay between me and the meat of the narrative.

One person found this helpful

Andrew Smallwood

Great sequel that brings together two Sci-fi greats.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 April 2018

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Generally a very good sequel to HG Wells’ masterpiece. Picked this up as I was a fan of both The War of the Worlds and of Baxter.

It sets the scene well and I enjoyed how it explored the characters from the first book. Baxter does a good job of capturing Wells’ inimitable style, while adding some of his own well thought out and thought provoking writing. He particularly captures the Martians very well, they are as vividly intimidating and coldly terrifying as in the original.

One thing I like about Baxter’s plot is how once again the Martians are scary and grossly superior to mankind, but are not infallible or invincible. That was a key part of Wells’ novel, and it really has you hoping and rooting for the army and navy. The fact that they can be hurt and killed makes the story far more gripping than modern ‘invisible force field’ aliens.

The downsides is (rather oddly for me as I bought this because it was written by Baxter) that it takes certain plot turns that were very typical for Baxter, but did not fit well into this particular world. I am not going to post spoilers here but for a good portion of the novel the Martians don’t seem to be doing a lot. And part of the appeal of the first book is the way they keep relentlessly moving forwards. At one point there is a large time jump, but very little progress (at least territorially) from the Martians. Only to hit the afterburners for the final act. Baxter really tries to explore the human side of the conflict, exploring social and emotional themes that Wells’ novel lacked. Most of them work well, but a few miss the mark and seem out of place in the world Wells created.

Overall if you are a fan of the original, it is well worth a read especially if you have enjoyed Baxter’s work before.

4 people found this helpful

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