The Massacre of Mankind
Sequel to The War of the Worlds
1 of 1 copy available
It has been fourteen years since the Martian invasion. Humanity has moved on, always watching the skies but confident that we know how to defeat the alien menace. The Martians are vulnerable to Earth germs. The army is prepared. Our technology has taken great leaps forward, thanks to machinery looted from abandoned war-machines and capsules.
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 first incursion was merely a scouting mission, a precursor to the true attack—and that the Martians have learned from their defeat, adapted their methods, and now pose a greater threat than ever before.
He is right.
Thrust into the chaos of a new worldwide invasion, journalist Julie Elphinstone—sister in law to Walter Jenkins—struggles to survive the war, report on it, and plan a desperate effort that will be humanity’s last chance at survival. Because the massacre of mankind has begun.
Echoing the style and form of the original while extrapolating from its events in ingenious, unexpected fashion again and again, The Massacre of Mankind is a labor of love from one of the genre’s most praised talents—at once a truly fitting tribute to a classic and brainy, page-turning fun for any science-fiction fan.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
August 22, 2017 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780525496465
- File size: 438713 KB
- Duration: 15:13:59
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Baxter's sequel to H.G. Wells's WAR OF THE WORLDS is an earnest follow-up to the story of Martians on the attack. It could have been published in the early twentieth century, the same period as the original. Nathalie Buscombe narrates with distinct British authority befitting a thriller that's deliberately Anglocentric. The story picks up 14 years after the original, when a truce between the Martians and Earth's humans is in place. As the story details the extraction of Martian raw materials through a human-led infrastructure, the Martians suddenly coordinate a devastating series of attacks across the globe. The result is a prolonged wave of terrifying events as unstoppable Martian tripods land and embark upon a mysterious plan that humans must rise to defeat. S.P.C. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine -
July 3, 2017
This estate-authorized sequel to H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds is set in the early 1920s, but it has the feel of one of Baxter’s modern SF extravaganzas. It’s been 13 years since marauding Martians were vanquished by Earth bacteria, and the red planet is launching another invasion. The Martians have learned from their earlier experiences, but so have humans. Baxter presents this second conflict as one that pits the superior technology of the Martians against the guerilla ingenuity of scrappy Earthlings. The author takes a sweeping approach, providing a global panorama of the novel’s events, but most of the action is seen through the eyes of Londoner Julie Elphinstone, the former sister-in-law of the unnamed narrator of Wells’s novel (here named Walter Jenkins). Meticulous detail gives the story vividness and immediacy, but it draws the plot out unnecessarily, as do the repetitive scenes of devastation wrought by the Martian fighting machines. Once readers let go of any hope of a pastiche of Wells’s style, they’ll appreciate this capacious reworking of his themes. Agent: Christopher Schelling, Selectric Artists Literary & Talent.
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