H.G. Wells - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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Join the Laser Pistol Gang

I plead guilty…to violating many laws of science in my writing. But I’m not alone. I’m in good company with many other science fiction writers. Call us the Laser Pistol Gang.

Authors of so-called ‘hard SF’ should adhere to known scientific principles and knowledge, but aren’t above bending or breaking the laws of physics for the sake of a good story.

Mary Shelley really stretched biological science in Frankenstein when her fictional scientist animated a human from dead tissue. Jules Verne knew human astronauts wouldn’t survive the acceleration of a manned projectile launched from a canon in From the Earth to the Moon. H.G. Wells disobeyed temporal causality in The Time Machine. When he wrote Fantastic Voyage, Isaac Asimov understood the impossibility of miniaturizing people. From his medical training, Michael Crichton must have realized not enough intact DNA fragments remain to create the living dinosaurs of Jurassic Park.

These represent a small sampling from SF literature. Don’t get me started on SF movies, which seem to break more laws of science than they obey.

On what charges could the science police arrest me? Consider my rap sheet:

“The Steam Elephant” (from Steampunk Tales, Issue #5 and The Gallery of Curiosities #3). The state of steam and mechanical technology in the 19^th Century did not allow for a walking, steam-powered, quadrupedal vehicle.
“Within Victorian Mists.” Everything needed to invent lasers existed in the 1800s except the conceptual framework, so if it had happened, it would have required dumb luck.
“Bringing the Future to You” (from Cheer Up, Universe!). That story contains too many science violations to list, but I meant the tale to be funny.
“Leonardo’s Lion.” Some accounts state Leonardo da Vinci built a walking, clockwork lion. Even if true, it’s doubtful the creation would have supported a child’s weight or traveled over rough terrain, as it does in my story.
“The Six Hundred Dollar Man.” Yes, steam engines existed in the late 19^th Century, but no one then could have made one small enough to fit on a man’s back and power the man’s replacement limbs.
“A Tale More True.” Try as you might, you can’t build a metal spring strong enough to launch yourself into space as my protagonist does.
“The Cometeers.” In this story, I violate the same laws Verne did in launching humans to space using a canon. In fact, I used his same canon.
“Time’s Deformèd Hand.” Nobody in 1600 AD built walking, talking automatons powered by springs. However, I did mention the wood came from magical trees.
“A Clouded Affair” (from Avast, Ye Airships!). You couldn’t build a steam-powered ornithopter in the 1800s, and you’d find it difficult even today.
“Ripper’s Ring” Human invisibility remains impossible today, let alone in 1888. Even if it were possible, it would render the subject blind.
“The Cats of Nerio-3” (from In a Cat’s Eye). Evolution allows organisms to adapt to new environments, but neither cats nor rats would likely evolve in such a rapid and drastic manner as my story suggests.
“Instability” (from Dark Luminous Wings). According to legend, a Benedictine monk constructed a set of wings and tested them sometime around 1000 AD. The wings work no better in my story than they would have in reality.
“The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall” (from Quoth the Raven). Just because Edgar Allan Poe wrote about a balloon trip to the moon didn’t mean I had to repeat his error.

With so much law-breaking going on, how can we hope for an orderly reading society? Must we be forever besieged by the criminal authors of the Laser Pistol Gang?

That answer, I’m happy to report, is yes. Authors write to entertain readers. That’s a writer’s ‘prime directive,’ to steal a phrase. If the writer must bend or break a rule of science to tell a good story, the writer is going to do it.

One key phrase there is ‘good story.’ The better the story, the easier it is for a reader to forgive a scientific flaw. Of course, if you can tell a good story while keeping the science accurate, by all means, do that.

If you aim to join the Laser Pistol Gang, be aware we have a tough initiation ritual. You have to write a story where a law of science gets broken. Not a very exclusive gang, I admit. But it’s a proud, longstanding group. Take it from one of its most notorious members, known by his gang name—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 18, 2023Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Filby’s Question

To begin the world anew, you get three books. Which do you choose? That’s Filby’s question. Let’s explore it.

At the end of the movie The Time Machine (1960), David Filby discovers his friend George has departed in his time machine, again. Filby says to the housekeeper, “He’s gone back to the future, to begin a new world. But it’s not like George to go off without a plan. He must have taken something with him. Is anything missing?”

Mrs. Watchett replies, “Nothing…” and then sees a blank space on a bookshelf. “Except three books.” Filby asks, “Which three?” Mrs. Watchett replies, “I don’t know. Is it important?”

“Oh, I suppose not,” Filby answers. “Only…which three books would you have taken?”

There’s an interesting question. If you were headed to a place where people had no knowledge of civilization, where you had to start from scratch, what books would you take?

At this point, you may be thinking the premise of the question is so unlikely that it’s not worth thinking about. True, you won’t be travelling through time to restart civilization with only three books.

However, there are many similar—and more likely—scenarios in which you might need to make such a choice. Our civilization could collapse economically, militarily, through natural disaster, or some other way. You might be the one who saves the three most useful books needed to start up again.

Besides, it’s the thought process that’s important, not the specific problem. It’s good to know how to prioritize things when resources are highly constrained.

Therefore, to return to Filby’s question, here are some book topics to consider:

Technology. You could bring a book about how things are made, how things work.
Literature. You might bring the complete works of Shakespeare, or the works of Homer. One of those books would help your civilization understand what it is to be human.
Culture. Maybe you’d take sheet music of our greatest composers, or books with pictures of timeless art and sculpture, if only to preserve them.
Governance. You could bring a copy of the U.S. Constitution or a book about various forms of government.
Religion. The Bible, Torah, or Quran. When starting a civilization, the spiritual side is important.
Philosophy. You could pick a single philosopher or a general book on the subject. Philosophers consider the biggest questions of all.
Survival. Perhaps a camping handbook or some other manual about survival techniques, growing and preparing food, etc.
Science. Maybe you’d need an up-to-date science reference so your civilization can avoid rediscovering things.
History. If you bring a history book, maybe this new civilization can learn from our mistakes.

There are certainly some categories I’ve missed. Even if you restrict your choices to the categories above, the limit of three books is frustrating. No matter which three books you choose, you’ll wish you’d brought others.

As for me, I think I’d bring one book on technology, a second on survival, and the third on systems of governance. I sure wish my time machine had room for more books!

With all the time in the world, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 8, 2020Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Stepping on the Moon…Again…Someday

As you may have heard, July 20, 2019 marked fifty years since a human first set foot on the Moon. What follows is one fiction writer’s perspective of that event.

I was eleven years old then, and watched the landing on my family’s small black-and-white TV. I stayed awake to watch the “first step” too, though it occurred close to 10 pm central time. There was no way to watch that live event and not feel pride and awe. Even those who balked at the mission’s expense knew how historic it was.

Fiction writers had long been imagining the moment, and had prepared us for the wonder of it. From Lucian’s True History, to Rudolf Erich Raspe’s Baron Münchhausen’s Narrative of his Marvelous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall,” writers had taken us to Earth’s silver satellite in our imagination.

Later science fiction writers gave the trip greater clarity and realism in such works as Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon, H.G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, and Robert Heinlein’s The Man Who Sold the Moon.

As a writer of historical technological fiction, I’ve written of flights to the moon occurring before 1969 as well. In “A Tale More True,” a rival of Baron Münchhausen travels to the moon in 1769 using a gigantic clock spring. In “To Be First,” my characters from an alternate Ottoman Empire are returning from the moon in 1933 when the action starts. And in “The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall,” you can read about Dutch citizens traveling to the moon by balloon in the 1830s.

Although fiction writers helped us imagine the first trips to the moon, nobody prepared us for a five-decade lapse in missions. Nobody in 1969 thought we’d finish out the Apollo series of moon landings, and then stay away for over fifty years. If you could travel back in time from 2019 to 1969 and tell that to the world, not a soul would believe you.

The moon was ours! Surely by 1979 we’d have a moon base, then by 1989 a moon colony, and by 1999 the moon would be our springboard for trips to asteroids and other planets. The excited folks of 1969 would inform the time traveler that by 2019, naturally, average families would take trips to the moon for vacations.

How odd that we’ve stuck to our planet and near orbit for close to forty-seven years (since Apollo 17). Historians may well wonder what took humanity so long to go back, given the advances in technology that have occurred since the early 1970s. Here are some possible reasons for the long gap:

The Mercury/Gemini/Apollo series ingrained in the public mind that only governments can finance moon missions, and only at colossal expense.
The moon wasn’t that exciting, after all. Gray, dusty, airless, and lifeless, it was a place only an astronomer could love.
The war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal shattered the public’s former confidence in government’s ability to accomplish great tasks.
We’d gone there to accomplish the late President Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the moon before the end of the decade, and to win the supposed ‘space race’ with the Soviet Union. With no further goal, schedule, or apparent rival, we’d lost all impetus for further trips.

We’ll go back to the moon, of course, and with any luck, the next lunar landing will be witnessed by you and by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 21, 2019Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Chessiecon Turkey Award, Second Worst Place

Every year, the science fiction conference Chessiecon offers an award, called the Chessiecon Turkey Award. The idea is to write the “worst possible opening to the worst possible SF/F novel (n)ever written.” It’s a SciFi version of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest.

I submitted an entry this year for the first time. As I was leaving the con, one of the Turkey Award judges told me I’d won second worst place! I couldn’t believe it.

Before I unveil my entry, please have all children at least exit the room, or preferably, the solar system. This entry is suggestive, racy, and risqué, but not necessarily in that order. Are all the kiddies gone? Good.

With apologies to H.G. Wells, here’s what I submitted:

“No one would have conceived in the last months of 2018 that this world was being debauched obscenely by protuberances straighter than man’s, as thoroughly as a man with a proctoscope might sodomize the prurient lechers in a tub of water. Yet across the gulf of space, inter-sexuals fast and cool and un-prophylactic regarded this earth with lascivious eyes, and Roly and Shirley spewed from their glands against us.”

Hmmm. I guess you’d have to call that novel Whore of the Worlds, or something. Good thing for humanity that nobody wrote that book. Ever.

Pictured below is the prize I won for getting second worst place. You guessed correctly; it’s the Flickin’ Chicken game, rated for ages six and above. My wife says I might be mentally old enough to play it next year. Yay!

On the package it says it’s “The Go Anywhere Game,” which is handy, because I won’t need a passport anymore.

It is my high dishonor to accept this “award.” I’d like to take this opportunity to blame all the people who helped me along the way, including my parents, my teachers, and H.G. Wells.

To all those who said, “Steve, don’t enter that bad-writing contest; you’re not immature or unskilled enough,” I say, “nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah, nyah. I am too. Thphthph.”

Besides, you doubters, who’s got a firm grasp of his Flickin’ Chicken now? I’ll tell you who, it’s—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 27, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Orwell or Wells—Can Science Save Humanity?

Will Science save humankind, or lead us to our doom? The Internet is buzzing lately with various online outlets reprinting this article by Richard Gunderman in The Conversation, about a debate between H. G. Wells and George Orwell on this topic.

H.G. Wells, best known for his science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, believed science was the best hope for humanity’s future. George Orwell, an essayist, critic, and author of 1984 and Animal Farm, took a less optimistic view.

The article makes it sound like a lively back-and-forth argument ensued, but from the essays cited, it seems rather one-sided. In the early 1940s, H.G. Wells was in his late 70s and near death. George Orwell was in his late 30s, (though not too far from his own death at 46). From what I can glean, this was mostly Orwell criticizing Wells, not the other way around.

Before we explore the ‘debate,’ let me define terms. Science is a systematic process for gaining knowledge about the universe through experimentation. Since it involves the accumulation of knowledge, it’s unlikely that Science, by itself, can either save or destroy humanity. I think of Engineering as the application of scientific knowledge to design, invent, and produce useful products.

When both Wells and Orwell refer to Science, I think they meant to include Engineering. For the purpose of this blogpost, I’ll use that same shorthand meaning of Science.

Wells grew up in an era far different from Orwell’s. He saw the rapid development of science—automobiles, submarines, airplanes, relativity, skyscrapers, rocketry, and medicine—and foresaw amazing wonders that would benefit mankind. He figured the same scientific process that could produce those wonders could also lead to better government if we placed scientists in charge.

Let’s give Wells some credit, though. He was no Pollyanna. Many of his novels portrayed the misuse of science for destructive ends. But George Orwell seized on some of Wells’ more optimistic—though lesser known—writings.

In the early 1940s, Orwell watched with growing horror at the growth of Hitler’s Germany and saw it as the embodiment of Wells’ ideas, a nation of submarines, rockets, and airplanes, with science-minded people running the show. To Orwell, Deutschland was no Utopia. He castigated Wells in a couple of scathing essays.

In his article in The Conversation, Gunderman claims the debate is still relevant today. It’s been 75 years since Orwell penned his criticisms; have we learned enough to settle the argument?

Since that time, Science has split the atom to provide electricity, visited the Marianas Trench, landed on the Moon, built and commercialized the Internet, put instant communication in our pockets, sent probes to explore the outer planets, multiplied crop yields, mapped the human genome, and extended lifespans through medical breakthroughs.

On the other hand, Science also brought us nuclear weapons, the Apollo 1 fire and two space shuttle disasters, Chernobyl, computer viruses, armed drones, and electronic spying. Soon, perhaps, an artificial intelligence Singularity may be looming.

In my view, science is a tool, like a knife or hammer. People can use it for good or evil. It amplifies our capacity for both. The concepts of good or evil reside in the individual human mind. To ask if Science will save humanity is like asking if a hammer will save humanity. It depends on how we use the tool.

The real question is whether our good natures will prevail over our evil ones. I think there are far more good people than evil ones, but the evil ones have greater influence per capita. For some reason, a few clever evil people can sway many good people to their side.

So far, across the span of human time our good natures have won out and the products of science have proffered more benefits than harm. On average, life is better now than in the past, for most. But it’s a close thing, and our history shows frequent backsliding.

Whether humanity achieves Utopia, destroys itself, or some outcome in between, Science will deserve neither credit nor blame. Only the human capacity for love or hate will determine our future. And that’s the realm of fiction writers like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 31, 2017Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Happy Birthday, H.G. Wells!

Science Fiction pioneer H.G. Wells was born September 21, 1866, 150 years ago. Although he died in 1946, his works live on and inspire us today.

The novels of his I’ve read include The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon, and The Sea Lady. Most of those remain classics today.

As readers of my blog know, my main author-crush is with Jules Verne, but Wells gave us several archetypal story themes and ideas that Verne did not explore.

The two authors approached their writing differently, too. Verne strove for scientific plausibility and accuracy, but Wells concentrated on telling a good story and gave only a passing nod to the science.

After Verne read The First Men in the Moon, which includes an anti-gravity substance named cavorite, he wrote, “I sent my characters to the moon with gunpowder, a thing one may see every day. Where does M. Wells find his cavorite? Let him show it to me!”

Despite my preference for Verne’s stories, I have to say, “Lighten up, Jules. If a scientist does invent an anti-gravity mechanism, your criticism will look antiquated. Further, you knew your gunpowder cannons couldn’t really launch men to the moon when you wrote From the Earth to the Moon, so you’re not a paragon of accuracy, yourself.”

As discussed by Steven R. Boyett, this dichotomy between scientific exactitude and telling a good story with a smattering of sciency stuff persists today in the arguments between hard and soft science fiction.

Returning to Wells, you do have to overlook his personal life and philosophy as you read his books. A believer in socialism, anti-Semitism, and eugenics, he also led a sex life that was, well, complicated. Fortunately, his early, less philosophical works don’t give hints of any of this.

My readers know that Wells’ The War of the Worlds inspired my own story, “After the Martians,” so I owe him a great debt.

So, happy birthday, Herbert George Wells! Your legacy is looking great after all these years. Your works remain classics today, read and enjoyed by millions, including—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 25, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Twain’s Attack on Cooper

In 1895, Mark Twain published “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” a lengthy criticism of James Fenimore Cooper’s writing, especially his novels The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer. Since it’s one of the more famous examples of literary criticism, let’s explore it, as well as the overall reasons for such criticism.

Twain vs Cooper In Twain’s acerbic style, he starts by accusing three Cooper-praising reviewers of never having read the books. He then lays into Cooper, saying, “…in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.” Twain asserts there are 19 or 22 rules “governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction” and says Cooper violated 18 of them. He lists those 18 rules.

Twain scorns Cooper for over-using certain favorite “cunning devices, tricks, artifices.” He also slams Cooper for some improbable events involving shore water undertows, cannon ball rolling, and footprint erasure by erosion.

At length, Twain ridicules Cooper for creating a forest stream of varying breadth, for conjuring a boat so big as to be unlikely to navigate the stream, and for having five Indians lay in wait for this giant craft and yet miss it when attempting to jump aboard. For several paragraphs, Twain then takes Cooper to task for scenes involving implausible target-shooting with rifles, and eyesight beyond human capability.

In Twain’s judgement, Cooper’s dialogue is inconsistent, and his word choices “dull” and “approximate.”

That’s the summary version of the “Literary Offenses.” Twain’s writing style is humorous and satirical, making the essay fun to read and accounting for its lasting popularity.

Once published, Twain’s essay itself became subject to criticism, and one fine example of this is “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Defenses,” by Lance Schachterle and Kent Ljungquist of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Schachterle and Ljungquist take Twain to task for attempting literary criticism while accomplishing little more than sniping at the physics of certain scenes. Twain, they say, gets some of his physics wrong, and in the case of the river craft and the awaiting Indians, fills in his own details to prove that Cooper’s scene wouldn’t work.

Laying aside the particulars of the criticisms, why would Twain write such an essay at all? Cooper couldn’t respond, having been dead some forty-four years. (In fairness, Twain didn’t reserve his barbs only for deceased authors. He criticized his contemporaries George Eliot and Robert Louis Stevenson as well.) That gap in time is illustrative, since Cooper wrote in the Romantic style, a style no longer in vogue in Twain’s time.

Was Twain trying to tarnish Cooper’s reputation? That was unlikely to suffer, Cooper having become a best-selling author whose works remained popular well into Twain’s era, and even now.

I suspect Twain, like many writers, chafed at the inexplicable popularity of other authors who didn’t write the way he did. In a sense, he’s criticizing the book-buying public. He’s saying, “Americans, here are the rules for literature, and I adhere to them in my stories. Why do you keep buying books by Cooper, who violates them at every turn?”

Still, who can explain why readers line up to buy certain books and ignore others? What makes a book popular? Strict adherence to Twain’s self-imposed rules doesn’t seem to be the answer; otherwise, we’d be reading little else but Twain.

Similarly, Jules Verne criticized H. G. Wells’ book The First Men in the Moon for using a fictional anti-gravity metal. Wells did not obey rules Verne imposed on himself, and Verne couldn’t understand why readers would accept that.

Authors are free to comment on other authors, of course, but should be wary of applying their own criteria of merit on others, or of assuming readers use those same criteria in their book-purchasing decisions.

I must admit, I’m glad Mark Twain never had the chance to criticize any books by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

One more thing: remember Smashwords is selling many of my books at ½ price through the end of this month. These deals don’t come along often. Buy two or more!

July 17, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

After the Martians—the Story Behind the Story

It’s the question readers ask authors most often: “Where do you get your ideas?” I’ve blogged about that before, but today I’ll reveal the birth of the idea behind my just-launched book, “After the Martians.”

It wasn’t my idea at all.

My friend, fellow author, and critique group partner, Andy Gudgel, thought of the idea. Heaven knows where he got it. At one of our critique group meetings, he mentioned he’d like to write a sequel to H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, but his story would deal with the aftermath, with dead Martians lying around, but also their technology. After all, the tripod fighting machines would be still standing where they stopped. The assembly machines would be intact and stationary near the landing sites of the Martian projectiles. Even a few flying machines might be available.

Andy’s idea was that humans would then use these weapons in a very different version of World War I.

This notion captivated me, and I urged him to write the story. Each time he sent us manuscripts of other tales, I’d ask him about the Martian story. “This one’s good, Andy,” I’d say, “but when are you going to give us that War of the Worlds sequel?”

Then at one December meeting, (at which we exchange little gifts to each other), I unwrapped his gift to me, and there were all his notes, and his copy of H.G. Wells’ novel. A note stated he was giving his story idea to me. I should write the tale, since he would not likely ever get around to it.

Wow! That could be the greatest gift one writer could give to another.

I say ‘could be’ because of an emotionally painful event that happened to me some twenty years earlier. At that time, I belonged to a different writing critique group. One other group member had written more than half of his novel. As I recall, it involved a modern-day (well, mid-1990s) nuclear attack on the United States.

Sadly, this writer died young. He had not completed writing that novel, let alone sent it to any agents or publishers.

His wife wrote to me to say how much her husband had appreciated my critiques of his work, and said he’d wanted me to finish, and seek publication of, his novel.

With a heavy heart, I had to decline the offer, but found it gut-twisting to tell his widow that. To write a story, I must have passion about it and care deeply about it and about the characters. I just didn’t feel that way in this case. Moreover, even if I’d had that enthusiasm, I would have had to rewrite large portions of the other writer’s novel to make it mine, and would have felt terrible about not honoring the deceased writer’s wishes exactly, or not living up to his hopes.

In the case of Andy’s WotW sequel, he hadn’t started writing yet. He’d compiled some notes and a rough outline, but I decided to take the story in a different direction than he’d planned. I didn’t feel badly about that, since he hadn’t begun the actual writing and my passion drove me toward the story that became “After the Martians.”

That’s the story behind the story written by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 15, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

World War One—After the Martians

One century ago, war raged across Europe. They called it the Great War then. The year 2018 will mark a hundred years since the ending of that massive conflict. Today I thought we’d examine an alternate history scenario. How might WW I have been different if H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds had really occurred in 1901? My recently launched book, “After the Martians,” explores this scenario.

First, some background. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna created a sustainable peace across Europe. Half a century later, that peace had frayed. Five nations then dominated the mainland continent and vied with each other for supremacy—Austria, Denmark, France, Russia, and Germany (under Prussian leadership).

Otto_Fürst_von_Bismarck — Chancellor Otto von Bismarck

Enter Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany, who combined the ‘balance of power’ concept with a pragmatic or ‘realpolitik’ approach to foreign policy. He ensured Germany maintained a changing web of alliances with two of the other powers, while engineering a series of short wars designed to unite and strengthen the German states while weakening enemies. After each war, he’d shift the alliances, always maintaining three on his side against two on the other.

This strategy sustained a workable balance until Bismarck’s resignation in 1890, after which he predicted, “One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.”

After that time, the European powers armed themselves against each other and tensions increased—the so-called “powder keg.” Without any minor wars to relieve this tension, the strain increased such that even a small event could trigger a major war. That’s what Bismarck had foreseen.

So far, that’s an interpretation of how things actually happened. Let’s insert a fictional twist. Assume the attack of The War of the Worlds really occurred, in 1901. In H.G. Wells’ novel, the Martians only invaded Great Britain, but it makes no sense for a superior alien race to restrict their assault to just one country, so we’ll suppose the Martians spread their forces more widely across the globe.

In time, the Earth’s bacteria sickened and killed the alien aggressors, but only after they’d wiped out a significant portion of the world’s population. Human weaponry of 1901 had been almost useless against the Martians, so our war machines lay in ruin. However, the aliens had left behind their tripod fighting machines, heat rays, “black smoke” poison gas, and some flying machines.

The nations of Europe, then, would have faced two choices. Stunned by the devastation of the Martian War and fearful of another attack from that planet, they could have joined forces and combined their energies to prepare for another assault by a common enemy. Or they could have examined the advanced Martian military technology and used it to refill the powder keg.

After the Martians assumes, as backstory, that the latter occurred. I postulate that the same triggering event—the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand—lit the fuse and set off the Great War.

Using the weaponry of Mars, WW I would have gone quite differently. Trenches would be useless against one hundred foot tall walking tripods with heat rays. Each side would have gone underground, using the Martian “assembly machines” to construct huge subterranean bunkers with hidden surface entrances.

Moreover, the heat rays and black smoke would have killed off the plant and animal life on every battlefield. There would have been vast areas of bare dirt. The combatants would have spared only the mountainous zones, since it would have been difficult to maneuver the tall three-legged fighting machines on sloped ground.

This is the (alternate) reality faced by my character Johnny Branch in my new book. As you mark the centennial of the real WW I, consider reading “After the Martians,” by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 8, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink

H.G. Wells’ Fighting Machines — After the Martians

My upcoming story, “After the Martians”—to be released this month—features the fighting machines, or tripods, of H.G. Wells’ book The War of the Worlds. In that book, the Martians assembled the machines after their arrival on Earth, and they caused considerable destruction. At the end of the novel, the Martians all died from our terrestrial bacteria.

“After the Martians” takes place in the world of Wells’ story, but sixteen years have passed since the alien attack. In my tale, humans make use of the Martian technology, especially the fighting machines, to fight World War I.

Wells depicted a fighting machine as being three-legged and about one hundred feet tall. He did not describe the carapace or main body of the machine, except to say that several flexible tentacles protruded from it. Two of these tentacles held a box with a lens from which shot the devastating heat ray. The tripod’s other weapon was a poisonous black gas.

Such a machine would have terrified the readers of 1897. Since then, the tripod from The War of the Worlds has become a science fiction icon, inspiring the walking weapons of Star Wars, the AT-AT and AT-ST. Combining huge size with the human attribute of walking somehow adds to the horror.

In The War of the Worlds, we see the fighting machines from the inferior vantage point of puny human victims on the ground. In “After the Martians,” I take readers inside the carapace as human pilots control the alien machines to battle other tripods.

I enlisted the aid of a close acquaintance to make a wonderful 3D printed version of the fighting machine. (Frequent readers will recall my 3D printed Ring of Gyges from my story “Ripper’s Ring.”) For the tripod, she used a Printrbot brand printer, the Simple (Maker) Edition, and PLA filament.

The .stl files you need to print the fighting machine yourself are on the Thingiverse site, and the design is by FuzzySadist (William Myers). I added the wire tentacles, and painted the machine to be generally consistent with my story’s description.

Very soon, I’ll give you details on how you can get your own copy of “After the Martians,” by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 1, 2016Poseidon's ScribePermalink