https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-massacre-of-mankind-by-stephen-baxter/

This is a sequel to The War of the Worlds, authorised as such by the H.G. Wells estate, set in an Earth which overcame the original Martian invasion and where England has become a dystopian dictatorship. The narrator is the suffragette sister-in-law of the narrator of The War of the Worlds, with vignettes from all over the world as the Martians launch another assault, having learned lessons from their first unsuccessful attempt.

It’s an interesting contrast with the two sequels to The Time Machine that I have read in recent years, The Time Ships, also by Stephen Baxter, and The Space Machine, by Christopher Priest, which also has some Martian sequences in it. Unfortunately it’s not quite as good as either; there are some vivid set-pieces, but otherwise the plot rather plods along from place to place and battle to battle. ( )

I have to admit I was a bit hesitant to read a sequel to H.G. Wells classic The War of the Worlds. Usually I am left disappointed by continuations of classic stories that I love. Authors either try too hard to copy the writing style and feel of the earlier tale, or they don't try hard enough. In a majority of cases, sequels leave me feeling a mix of disappointment and annoyance. So when I received a lovely hardback copy of this new book by Stephen Baxter, I have to admit that the book sat on my desk for weeks because I had to build up the courage to read it. The book is high quality and the cover art is wonderful....so it looked quite nice on my desk. But an unread book is an adventure not taken....so I finally took a deep breath and started reading. Immediately I knew that Baxter was not going to disappoint me! The Massacre of Mankind is well-written and a fitting sequal to Wells' classic.

It has been 14 years since the last Martian invasion.....and they are back. Martian technology looted from the remnants of ships from the last invasion has been used to give humanity a huge tech boost. With one eye on the sky, humanity moves on, content that they can thwart any more threats from Mars. One man, Walter Jenkins, tries to caution people.....the Martians might have learned from their loss and become better prepared to fight for control of Earth. Turns out he's right -- the aliens return and attack again, with even more fire power and nastiness than they unleashed the first time.

This book is in an alternate timeline where the Martian invasion and alien technology have an effect on history and world events. Wave after wave of Martians and colonization of our planet take H.G. Wells vision to an all new level.

Just a lovely and thrilling sequel to one of my favorite classic sci-fi stories!! Before this, I had only read a Doctor Who book by Baxter. I will definitely be checking out more of his books! I thoroughly enjoyed this story!

The cover art is superb as well!

For more information on the author and his books, check out his website: http://www.stephen-baxter.com/

**I voluntarily read a copy of this book from Blogging for Books. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

( )

It's OK.

Stephen Baxter has done a good job with getting HG Well's style right, and the story, although sluggish to get started does clip along after 200 pages or so.

The 'world building' is clever; how he's characterized the response to the invasion in the first book, and the ramifications on British society and European politics is interesting.

The ending is a bit flat, and in order to show the worldwide spread of the conflict there are some first person accounts from different places added. Frankly they don't add anything to the story and are rather similar.

My main problem with this book is with the literary device of foreshadowing. It's really effective when Victorian writers use it sparingly, probably in response to the episodic nature of publishing arrangements at the time. But in this book they are used all the time, in every chapter. I counted 8 forshadows in one chapter alone and he even used one in the last chapter with less then 15 pages to go! ( )

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

I felt trepidation before beginning this because I kept seeing unfavorable reviews, but fortunately, I thought it was pretty awesome after finishing. I might have a bit of an issue with the end, and I think that's where most people are complaining, but it wasn't as bad as all that.

I remembered that the original [b:The War of the Worlds|8909|The War of the Worlds|H.G. Wells|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320391644s/8909.jpg|3194841] was written as an account, a narrative, and as such, there's generally no good wrap-ups unless forced... and that's true for reality, too.

That's the bad... but Now for the great!

The World-building is very, very neat, as is the sheer amount of research and history and tactics carefully laid out.

There's a comprehensive account of a much longer war that comes in several waves and with much greater numbers, and we get to see the horrible effects of the invasion and colonization of Earth from Martians across continents and over a good deal of time.

In a lot of ways, this reads as a pure and horrific tragedy where we know what's coming but we have no way to stop it. It keeps the blood pumping, that's for sure. The first invasion was just a scouting mission and they fixed the little issue with the pathogens, which is very reasonable considering just how much tech and implied tech these aliens have.

This is also set in an alternate timeline that takes into account exploited tech after the first war, and even though WWI happened again, the outcome was very different with a victorious Kaiser and an occupied England. It's little details like this that keep popping up that made this novel really delicious, but that's not to say the characters weren't fun as well. :)

This novel is a fully-authorized sequel from the Well's estate, and Baxter put a lot of time and research into making this one of the most thoughtful world-building exercises out there.

I'm a Baxter-phile. I remember the fantastic job he'd done on his direct-sequel to [b:The Time Machine|2493|The Time Machine|H.G. Wells|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327942880s/2493.jpg|3234863] back in the nineties. I also remember enjoying his sequel more than the original, too, making things much bigger, broad-scale, and utterly fascinating. He does the same here, with this, turning it truly into a war of worlds, including the entire Earth and it's population, and this is what makes this novel fantastic. Horrifying, but also fantastic.

Goodbye, humanity!
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I really wanted to like this book. H. G. Wells's original novel was one of my favorite books growing up, and I really enjoyed Stephen Baxter's sequel to [b:The Time Machine|2493|The Time Machine|H.G. Wells|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327942880s/2493.jpg|3234863]. And by and large what he has written is an entertaining book, filled with action and brimming with speculation as to how, in its aftermath, a turn-of-the-century world might have been changed by the first Martian invasion.

And yet there are serious flaws that prevent this from being as successful of a work as Baxter's [b:The Time Ships|62992|The Time Ships|Stephen Baxter|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1300997637s/62992.jpg|61184]. The main problem is the mismatch of structure and scope, as Baxter attempts as he did in his previous sequel to apply Wells's approach of relating events primarily through a single narrator to a book in which the plot unfolds on a global scale. While Julie Elphinstone is effective as a character, her inability to be everywhere at once means relying upon other characters (interviewed by Julie after the events), all of whom relate their stories with implausible accuracy. Perhaps Baxter would have been better off relying upon the "oral history" approach Max Brooks used so successfully in [b:World War Z|8908|World War Z An Oral History of the Zombie War|Max Brooks|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1528312647s/8908.jpg|817]. While the result would have been less Wellsian than Baxter intended, it would have been a better way to convey the epic scale to which he so clearly aspired. ( )