A guest post by David Turnbull
I'm proud to have a novella included in the upcoming Black Beacon Steampunk Sleuths anthology. It's set in the aftermath of the Victorian-era alien invasion depicted in HG Wells pioneering scifi classic, The War of the Worlds.
I seem to have been aware of War of the Worlds for as far back as I can remember. My first exposure was watching the 1953 George Pal film version sometime back in the late 60s or early 70s. That led to my first reading of the novel in a paperback I borrowed from a school friend. The biggest revelation was that the Martian war machines had three legs, unlike the flying saucer design George Pal had come up with for the movie.
I know for sure I reread the novel in 1978 when Jeff Wayne first released his War of the Worlds concept album. Since then I have been back to the novel a dozen or more times, as well as being an avid watcher of new film and television adaptations, and the whole gambit of War of the Worlds inspired alien invasion films and TV shows.
Lately though I have found myself digging deeper into the life and works of HG Wells, who was born a couple of miles away from where I live in South East London. And this digging has been leading me to write and do quite a lot about him and his work.
It started last summer when I was asked to devise a steampunk themed guided walk as part of the Vauxhall Victorian Day in South London. Vauxhall train station was the start point of the walk and that gave me the opportunity to point out the influence the South West Rail route to Waterloo from Woking had on the locations Wells has the Martian War machines destroy in the first part of the book. Wells was living in Woking at the time. The first Martian canister lands on nearby Horsell Common. The subsequent Martian progress towards London takes place at many of the towns and suburbs Wells would have passed on commuter journeys between Waterloo and Woking.
Waterloo station and the area around it also play a pivotal role in the stories of both the narrator and his brother in the novel. I subsequently wrote a short blog about Waterloo in The War of the Worlds. https://lambethfantastical.blogspot.com/2024/09/lambeth-fantastical-september-2024.html
Vauxhall Gardens was known as Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in the Regency era and, amongst other things, was famed for its public and often record break hot air balloon ascents. That gave me an opportunity to talk there about how early scifi writers like Wells, Jules Verne and George Griffiths depicted hot air balloons and airships in many of their works. This later evolved into a Substack article on the subject. https://dturnbull.substack.com/p/lambeth-fantastical-episode-thirteen
Having looked into the locations in The War of the Worlds I decided to visit some of them with a train ride to Woking to follow the HG Wells Heritage Trail. The town really celebrates their Wells associations. There's a plaque on the house he lived in, a statue of him in the town centre and nearby a towering sculpture of a three legged Martian war machine. Inside the HG Wells pub there's sculpture of the Invisible Man with his trademark bandages and dark glasses. Wells also wrote the Invisible Man while residing in Woking. My review of the Heritage trail formed the basis of another Substack.
https://dturnbull.substack.com/p/lambeth-fantastical-episode-ten
Once I had Woking under my belt I decided to try and visit other homes that Wells lived in. I'm not sure which writer holds the record for the most plaques but I reckon Wells is in with a good chance. There are many, from his birthplace on Bromley High Street, to his three house in Sandgate on the Kent coast, and the apartments on the edge of Regents Park where he died in 1946. This has led to an online talk called "HG Wells Lived Here" which I will be giving on the Rest Less platform very shortly.
I know for sure I reread the novel in 1978 when Jeff Wayne first released his War of the Worlds concept album. Since then I have been back to the novel a dozen or more times, as well as being an avid watcher of new film and television adaptations, and the whole gambit of War of the Worlds inspired alien invasion films and TV shows.
Lately though I have found myself digging deeper into the life and works of HG Wells, who was born a couple of miles away from where I live in South East London. And this digging has been leading me to write and do quite a lot about him and his work.
It started last summer when I was asked to devise a steampunk themed guided walk as part of the Vauxhall Victorian Day in South London. Vauxhall train station was the start point of the walk and that gave me the opportunity to point out the influence the South West Rail route to Waterloo from Woking had on the locations Wells has the Martian War machines destroy in the first part of the book. Wells was living in Woking at the time. The first Martian canister lands on nearby Horsell Common. The subsequent Martian progress towards London takes place at many of the towns and suburbs Wells would have passed on commuter journeys between Waterloo and Woking.
Waterloo station and the area around it also play a pivotal role in the stories of both the narrator and his brother in the novel. I subsequently wrote a short blog about Waterloo in The War of the Worlds. https://lambethfantastical.blogspot.com/2024/09/lambeth-fantastical-september-2024.html
Vauxhall Gardens was known as Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in the Regency era and, amongst other things, was famed for its public and often record break hot air balloon ascents. That gave me an opportunity to talk there about how early scifi writers like Wells, Jules Verne and George Griffiths depicted hot air balloons and airships in many of their works. This later evolved into a Substack article on the subject. https://dturnbull.substack.com/p/lambeth-fantastical-episode-thirteen
Having looked into the locations in The War of the Worlds I decided to visit some of them with a train ride to Woking to follow the HG Wells Heritage Trail. The town really celebrates their Wells associations. There's a plaque on the house he lived in, a statue of him in the town centre and nearby a towering sculpture of a three legged Martian war machine. Inside the HG Wells pub there's sculpture of the Invisible Man with his trademark bandages and dark glasses. Wells also wrote the Invisible Man while residing in Woking. My review of the Heritage trail formed the basis of another Substack.
https://dturnbull.substack.com/p/lambeth-fantastical-episode-ten
Once I had Woking under my belt I decided to try and visit other homes that Wells lived in. I'm not sure which writer holds the record for the most plaques but I reckon Wells is in with a good chance. There are many, from his birthplace on Bromley High Street, to his three house in Sandgate on the Kent coast, and the apartments on the edge of Regents Park where he died in 1946. This has led to an online talk called "HG Wells Lived Here" which I will be giving on the Rest Less platform very shortly.
I've now designed the routes for a series of HG Wells guided walks which I am in the process of trying out. The first of which you can find on Eventbrite.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1377748716499?aff=oddtdtcreator
The latest Wellsian well I have found myself digging into is the graphic novel interpretations of his work. Again there are many.
In the 1940s Classic Comics launched their Illustrated Classics Illustrated series, which included graphic novelisations of the works of writers ranging from Jules Verne to Mark Twain, and even Shakespeare. The series ran for over 20 years and featured no less than 5 HG Wells works, including War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man.
In the 70s Marvel had a similar series (Marvel Classics). This series was much more scifi focused and HG Wells again made 5 appearances. Another series ‘Great Illustrated Classics’ by the Waldman Publishing Corporation includes 3 Wells’ titles.
The second book in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neil is set during the War of the Worlds and also features the Invisible Man and Doctor Moreau. Scarlet Traces by Ian Edgington and the graphic artist D’Israeli recounts The War of the Worlds plot in Part 1 before visiting post invasion Edwardian society in Part 2 and steampunk style interplanetary warfare in Part 3.
Wells himself appears in the Stoker and Wells graphic novels by Stephen Peros and Barry Orkin where he teams up with Dracula author Bram Stoker to travel into the future in a stolen time machine.
Who knows how deep I will end up digging into this particular well and, equally, who knows what I might end up writing about or doing as a consequence.
The latest Wellsian well I have found myself digging into is the graphic novel interpretations of his work. Again there are many.
In the 1940s Classic Comics launched their Illustrated Classics Illustrated series, which included graphic novelisations of the works of writers ranging from Jules Verne to Mark Twain, and even Shakespeare. The series ran for over 20 years and featured no less than 5 HG Wells works, including War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man.
In the 70s Marvel had a similar series (Marvel Classics). This series was much more scifi focused and HG Wells again made 5 appearances. Another series ‘Great Illustrated Classics’ by the Waldman Publishing Corporation includes 3 Wells’ titles.
The second book in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neil is set during the War of the Worlds and also features the Invisible Man and Doctor Moreau. Scarlet Traces by Ian Edgington and the graphic artist D’Israeli recounts The War of the Worlds plot in Part 1 before visiting post invasion Edwardian society in Part 2 and steampunk style interplanetary warfare in Part 3.
Wells himself appears in the Stoker and Wells graphic novels by Stephen Peros and Barry Orkin where he teams up with Dracula author Bram Stoker to travel into the future in a stolen time machine.
Who knows how deep I will end up digging into this particular well and, equally, who knows what I might end up writing about or doing as a consequence.
