Books

The 'War Of The Worlds' Sequel Sounds Terrifying

by Emma Oulton

Next year, one of the most iconic science fiction novels of all time is being given a new lease of life: author Stephen Baxter is writing a sequel to The War of the Worlds . This update comes a massive 118 years after the original — and I thought George R. R. Martin was slow at writing sequels. Baxter, as well as being a science fiction author in his own right, is also an expert on War of the Worlds author H.G. Wells, whom he calls “the daddy of modern SF.”

Before the 2005 Boston-based Tom Cruise film, The War of the Worlds was an 1897 English novel about a Martian invasion. It was so popular that it spawned not only a film adaptation but several theatre stagings — and, of course, the infamous Orson Welles War of the Worlds radio broadcast that allegedly started a national panic.

Baxter’s terrifyingly-named War of the Worlds sequel The Massacre of Mankind moves the action forward to 1920s London, where the Martians are back to fight another day. If it’s anything like the original, we’re all about to be terrified out of our minds — and considering how well Baxter has researched Wells’ legacy, I’m willing to bet that this sequel is not going to disappoint. Baxter has even taken up the H.G. Wells baton once before, when he wrote the well-received The Time Ships as a sequel to Wells’ The Time Machine.

The Massacre of Mankind will be published by Gollancz in January 2017, so we have just over a year before the aliens, and the inevitable Hollywood remakes, take over.

Image: Amblin Entertainment