AFTERWORD

“H.G. AND ME”

It started in the Fall of 2004 with a phone call from Tim Underwood, Publisher of Underwood Books, whom I’ve known for thirty-five years or more. He was considering publishing an illustrated, coffee-table-style volume as a tie-in to the then forthcoming motion picture version of War of the Worlds—itself a very loose adaptation of the classic science-fiction novel by H. G. Wells—and wanted me to write the commentary. The project never developed, for a variety of reasons; and I’ve never viewed the Spielberg film, again for a variety of reasons.

Late in the Spring of 2005, Tim called me out of the blue, and asked me to do a quick rewrite of the second half of Wells’s 1898 original novel, which Tim had already started recasting into a modern-day version set in the San Francisco Bay Area. I agreed, and quickly finished the job on a rush-rush basis. After seeing my work, he then asked me to revamp the entire book into one consistent, unified voice, and to use what I could of both his contribution and H. G.’s seminal work. Shortly thereafter, I proposed—and Tim agreed—that I pen two sequels to War of Two Worlds, as it was now called. These would be set some years after the action in the first novel, and would be entirely of my own devising.

The first two books in the sequence were announced for publication in the Fall of 2005. Covers were designed and orders solicited. I rewrote Volume One in its entirety, with an eye towards creating the sequels; and then promptly plunged into Volume Two, Operation Crimson Storm, completing it at the end of July. The books were typeset and I approved the galleys. I also prepared a brief outline of Volume Three, which was due to be written and published the following year, depending on the sales of the first two.

Once again, however, fate intervened, and the titles never appeared as scheduled. Well, c’est la vie—I’d been paid an advance and I’d done the work, and my publisher liked my work, more to the point. Maybe the novels would eventually see the light of day in some other venue. Indeed, I’ve never yet penned a book that wasn’t eventually released in some professional forum.

There the matter rested for several years. And then, early in 2007, I again heard from Tim, and he suggested that we do all three novels as an omnibus (mind you, número tres had yet to be written!). So, I reread and re-edited the first two books, to familiarize myself again with the material, and then wrote The Martians Strike Back! as the concluding volume to the trilogy. The books were published under a new title, Invasion! Earth vs. the Aliens later that year—to a resounding clap of silence from the critics.

When the three-in-one version was declared out-of-print in 2010, I asked Tim for a reversion of the rights, and decided to have the novels reissued in the way that they were originally intended to be published—as separate works. So here they are, released finally as individual fictions—but with the titles of the first novel and the series switched, at the urging of my publisher. I hope you enjoy their new incarnations.

* * * *

Recasting a famous book by an equally famous deceased author presents the writer with an interesting set of challenges. On the one hand, you enter the forum knowing full well that some of the original creator’s fans will never be reconciled to any tampering with sacred writ, and will either find fault with one’s poor efforts, or dismiss them out-of-hand as being unworthy of the master. Then, too, the rewriter runs the risk of moving so far beyond the intent of the creator or the basic concept of his story as to warp it out of any semblance with the material that inspired it.

However, I had several things working in my favor. I really liked War of the Worlds, as well as many other of Wells’s fictional prognostications; I not only felt that they were the crème de la crème of the science fiction stories of his era, but that they still remained highly readable more than a century later. In particular, H. G.’s early works possess a vividness, a fictional presence, if you will, matched by few writers of any period.

I was also well aware of his defects as a wordsmith. His female characters, particularly in these early creations, are mere stick-figures, having no personalities whatsoever. Even his strong-minded protagonists often display no personal identities (or names) beyond their professions.

Moreover, Wells is often so intent upon scoring points against his perceived enemies in society—the social ills and classes against which he railed in nonfiction form—that his fiction can easily descend into diatribe. This doesn’t happen as frequently in these early fictions as in some of his later work—but it’s there nonetheless.

Each writer carries with him- or herself certain prejudices, preconceived notions, favorite phrases, and personality traits that taint one’s fiction, or perhaps make it distinctive, to use a kinder term. I am no more exempt from such authorial displays than H. G. was.

Still, it seemed to me entirely feasible to regarb the 1898 version of War of the Worlds with modern dress. Tim Underwood had already started the process in the first half of the new version, by setting it in a region that he personally knew quite well; and since I had at least visited the area on occasion, and had a general feel for the geography and layout there, I felt comfortable leaving the initial setting in the country just north of San Francisco—as well as in the city itself. I also maintained some of the character assignments that Tim had made in his initial rewrite of Part One, as a nod to my hidden collaborator.

As to how much of Tim’s original contribution yet remains, I really can’t be sure at this point. I rewrote the first half of the book (the section on which Tim worked) at least twice in its entirety, and later did some additional heavy edits of selected passages there; and I also inserted a new storyline set in the Inland Empire region of Southern California), and added several new characters, plus a new Prologue (the last piece to be created for the omnibus edition).

Similarly, I do recognize some of H. G.’s prose echoing in selected passages, but here again, much of what Wells wrote has been so altered that it’s now very much a blend of “me and thee.” The book sounds like one of my novels, at least to me; and it certainly shares the themes common to my other fictions, particularly the issue of communication. Alex Smith (the 1898 narrator has no name) is my Everyman, although he’s not quite an “everyman” as most folks would define that term.

In rereading my version of Wells’s vision again this past week, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it flowed, considering the choppy and occasionally chaotic history of its creation. War of Two Worlds is indeed the result of two worlds clashing, two cultures separated by a century of constant change. My world is wholly unlike H. G.’s in so many respects; but we at least share a common tongue and some common visions; and the resulting collaborative fiction is, I hope, a blend of the best of both worlds.

Well, that’s something that you, the reader, will have to judge for yourself. I’ve made very few changes in the text for this new release—its first publication, I might add, as a separate work—because I felt that none were needed. I hope you agree.

Robert Reginald

San Bernardino, California

23 January 2011