The Comet is Coming
-The Day of the Martians by H E Wilburson
The Martian Diaries, volume 1
The War Of The Worlds Begins Again as Martian Tripods Return to Earth!
The terror of the coming of the Martians is all but a distant memory, a bad dream that has faded with time. All George wants is a quiet suburban life – but at breakfast one morning his newspaper reports the shocking discovery of a Martian cylinder, found intact and unopened, and carefully transported to London. Could it be from the first alien invasion and are Martians still alive inside after more than ten years?
By teatime George learns that vengeance seeking Martians and their tripod fighting machines are already on their way back. This time they are armed with a doomsday weapon, able to destroy all bacteria and completely annihilate Earth. The countless numbers of their projectiles form a huge green comet and invasion day will be just before Christmas.
The first attack by aliens was enough for any lifetime, but who would expect to be involved with two? Can George and his wife escape this new Martian apocalypse and how will our planet survive a second time?
The Day Of The Martians continues the iconic Mars novel by H.G. Wells, in this exciting, unmissable action adventure with original music and immersive sound effects – the first volume of The Martian Diaries audio drama science fiction series.
This audiobook transported me to a particular place, somewhere somehow familiar, and of another time. Set against our now more sophisticated imaginings of alien civilisations, the idea of the Martians and the descriptions of these tentacled monsters strikes us, just over a century and a quarter after The War of the Worlds was first published, as being naïve. To us today, H G Wells’ portrayal of Martian invaders displays a certain innocence, and in H E Wilburson’s The Day of the Martians, that innocence remains in full view. But it’s precisely because of this that the author’s superb sequel is rooted authentically in its time. This is, after all historical fiction – and I’m a fan of honest writing, matched to the period.
I remember quite clearly watching the original 1960 film of H G Wells’ The Time Machine when I was a kid. The film, shot in technicolour, captured my imagination, possibly introducing me to science fiction – along with Star Trek. I loved the possibilities of the time machine, to travel far into the future and equally far backward in time. I remember one section of the film vividly, when the time machine became entombed within the rock of a mountain (as did Marvin, the paranoid android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) until eventually, through eons the geology transformed and the time machine was released from its tomb. In The Day of the Martians, the science fiction worlds created by H G Wells are authentically reimagined. Wells’ world and the sense of time are perfectly captured in the writing. Not only in the description but in the characters: how they speak, the way they behave.
This audiobook presentation deliberately connects with Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. I remembered it also from my childhood and listened to it again while writing this review. The style of the narration in The Day of the Martians and the integration of words and music is similar to The War of the Worlds, but here the words are given centre stage over the music. The music is always there but the focus is reversed. Once you get used to it, having the musical bed behind the narration suits this audiobook very well. In fact, it would only be half the book without it. Changes in mood and pace in the story are carefully set by the musical score, created also by the author. It works well, with the intention of this project deftly realised. Richard Burton is without question a hard act to follow, but the narrator here does a sterling job in telling the story in the first person from the perspective of the protagonist, and I felt his voice suited the book extremely well.
At two hours, the story is a short listen. The plot therefore gets underway without much preamble and it gallops along from there. The pace is fine but the shorter form precludes depth and anything much in the way of character analysis. Characters from The War of the Worlds reappear here, notably the astronomer, Ogilvy, whose flaky character is given his own suitably drifting voice by the narrator. Good stuff indeed. Production values on this audiobook are high. In addition to the musical score, and professional narration, we get sound effects thrown in too. Dutifully respectful to the original work, this homage has clearly been created with great care and love. All of this adds up to an engaging and highly enjoyable listen.