The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

I read this one last year (2010) but I had two pages of the afterword that I hadn't finished and I just finished it.

I can't say I completely liked this book. I think that H. G. Wells really captures the chaos and reactions that people would've had if something like this really happened on Earth. I liked the realism and the way the narrator spoke to the reader.

I'm not exactly sure what it was, but I think perhaps sci-fi isn't a particular genre that I like and I felt like for a classic, it should've had more meat to it than it did. The only real themes that I got were of panic, chaos and the sanctity of life. As humans became a lesser species, all of a sudden, human life isn't worth much. Yet I felt like H. G. Wells did pose the question - is human life really worth all that much? Why is it that some people are spared and others aren't? Some live purely because of luck. It really made life seem hopeless. Or perhaps just pointless.

I think that what I didn't like about the novel was that the text wasn't really engaging. It was somewhat engaging (to the point where I eventually finished it) but it wasn't to the point where I just couldn't put it down. The movement of the plot was good enough that I wanted to know what happened next. I think because the plot was set up precisely to show how chaotic and aimless everything becomes in light of such attacks but I guess because there was no direction, it was hard for me to become completely engaged in the text. You know what I think it was? I think it was the fact that even though the narrative was in the first person, there was still less "showing" and more "telling." What I mean is that instead of "A single tear trickled down her face when she found out he no longer loved her." it was "She was really sad that her boyfriend told her that he didn't love her." I guess since the narrative was more detached it was harder to really sympathize with the narrator.

At any rate, I had a mediocre response to this book that supposed to be so pivotal to science fiction as a genre. I suppose as a forerunner fiction novel, it isn't terrible.

I don't think I'd recommend this novel to other people - it is an easy read but I just didn't think it was AWESOME.