The Massacre of Mankind

H.G. Wells' “The War of the Worlds” has long been one of my favorite speculative fiction novels, and I have read good and not-quite-as-good other books based on that original story, so I was a little cautious when picking up this latest effort from Stephen Baxter (I didn't want the concept ruined). I have generally enjoyed Baxter's books and his “The Time Ships” was a very enjoyable sequel to Wells' “The Time Machine”, so I decided to give it a read. I needn't have worried. Baxter so well captures the voice of the original and so deftly brings to life characters that were mere sketches in the original that it truly felt as if somehow Wells himself was writing again. The Martians have returned! And they have learned much since their last appearance - but they are still quintessentially those same dispassionate and creepy entities that Wells first described. And the humans are still no match, at first. Bit by bit, Baxter turns this tale into a true “war of the worlds” epic. I don't want to say more for inadvertently exposing “spoilers”. This book will forever (to me) be THE standard against which all other tales told about these particular Martians will ever be measured against, and as near a perfect book as I have read in a very long time.