HG Wells The War of the Worlds Abridged Read by Leonard deals Nimoy Vinyl Record Album LP Caedmon TC 1520
HG Wells The War of the Worlds is an Abridged recording of this Sci-fi classic read by Leonard Nimoy. Written between 1895 and 1897, it is one of the earliest stories that detail a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. From the back cover: There is no question but that H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, published in 1898, was his most successful science fiction story. It was, in fact, the most successful science fiction story ever published up to that time. It was a trail-blazer, too. Before Wells' time, writers had spoken of creatures from other worlds coming to Earth, but had always come in the role of observers. Wells was the first to bring extraterrestrials here in anger, the first to introduce interplanetary warfare, the first to speak of the conquest of Earth by outsiders. Such is the power and realism of the story he told that when Orson Welles dramatized the story on radio in 1938, and made it seem contemporary, numbers of his listeners fled in panic before what they thought were invading Martians.
Wells did not, of course, invent the story in isolation from his times. No writer does. The War of the Worlds was written 1898 because that was a natural time for it, and because it served a purpose then.
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War of the Worlds by HG Wells Read by Leonard Nimoy
Vinyl: VG+ with sleeve marks
Cover: VG storage wear, soiling, splitting on top with edge wear.
Side 1: 23:38
Side 2: 26:24
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In 1877, you see, Mars had made an unusually close approach to Earth and astronomers had turned their latest and most advanced telescopes upon it. One of them, G. V. Schiaparelli produced, as a result of his observations, the best map of Mars anyone had yet managed to draw. He noted dark areas which he considered to be bodies of water, and light areas which he considered to be land. Connecting the dark areas, Schiaparelli saw a few dark markings that were rather straight and thin. He called them “canali'' which is Italian for "channels”; that is, for naturally occurring narrow waterways.
However, “canali” was translated into English as “canals” which are, of course, man-made waterways. That seemed to imply that there was life on Mars – intelligent life – an advanced civilization, in fact.
In 1894, the astronomer, Percival Lowell, established an observatory in Arizona, from which he studied Mars closely through the clear air of the southwestern desert. He drew maps that showed an intricate lace-work of canals and, eventually, placed five hundred of them on his map of Mars.
Mars became a great object for speculation. It is smaller than Earth is; it has only one-tenth Earth's mass and only two-fifths of Earth's surface gravity. Mars might have been like Earth to begin with, but with its lower gravity it could, perhaps, not hold on to air and water as easily.
Mars' atmosphere is considerably thinner than Earth's is, and it seemed very likely that its water had been slowly leaking away into outer space, too. It could be, then, that indomitable Martian engineers were desperately building world-girdling canals to put what water remained to best use; to stave off as long as possible the inevitable day when the planet would be a complete desert.
During the period when the canals of Mars were entering the consciousness of astronomically-minded people, something else was happening which, apparently, was utterly unconnected with that. The nations of Europe; Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, even little Belgium; were cutting up Africa and, little by little, expanding their control of the continent. By 1898, almost all of Africa was under the control of one European nation or another, not one of which was in the least concerned about the rights of the Africans to their own land. The Africans, after all, were merely "natives.”
Now combine the two – the Martian canals and the conquest of Africa - and what do you have? What if the Martians, scientifically advanced, despaired at last of rescuing their dying planet and migrated to another more comfortable world.
Would they not take over that world – Earth – with as little concern for the “natives” as Europeans showed in Africa?
Wells was showing his public themselves from the other side, as small and helpless before the proud conquerors from beyond the horizon. Because Great Britain was the greatest of the Imperial powers and had taken over nearly a quarter of the globe, Wells found it appropriate to have the full fury of the Martian invasion fall on that nation.
But Wells wasn't merely preaching; he was also telling an exciting story. In the three-fourths of a century since the novel deals was written, the canals of Mars have been shown to be non-existent, the European empires have vanished, Africa is free. —Yet listen to the story. It will still grab you.
-Isaac Asimov
Dr. Isaac Asimov began his professional career at the age of 18 with the sale of his science fiction story “Marooned Off Vesta” to Amazing Stories. He went on to become a Ph.D. in chemistry and a professor of Biochemistry at Boston University, but he continued to write and is now perhaps America's best-known writer on science and science fiction. He has had enormous success with books that run the full range from Asimov's Guide to Science and Asimov's Guide to the Bible, right down to The Sensuous Dirty Old Man and Lecherous Limericks. So far, 173 books have been published all told.
Before Leonard Nimoy catapulted to fame in the role of Mr. Spock on NBC's Star Trek series, he had appeared in over 100 guest roles on various television series. He had also worked in several films including Jean Genet's The Balcony with Shelley Winters and Peter Falk, and Deathwatch. Following the success of Star Trek, Nimoy went on to star as the versatile Paris in CBS's Mission Impossible, and the host/narrator of NBC's In Search of. . . . Even with all his film and television work, the theater never lost Nimoy.
Among his stage credits are Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, Fagin in Oliver, Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sherlock Holmes in the play by the same name. Nimoy's favorite creative outlets aside from acting and directing are writing and photography. His black-and-white studies have been shown in various displays and his books You and I and Will I Think of You have been published by Celestial Arts.
Other Caedmon titles read by Leonard Nimoy are THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES (TC 1466) and THE ILLUSTRATED MAN (TC 1479). William Shatner reads FOUNDATION for Caedmon on TC 1508 as well as MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES (TC 1509).
CREDITS: Cover: Rick Sternbach Library of Congress #: 76-740045
© Caedmon 1976
Directed by Ward Botsford Recorded at Capitol Records, Hollywood, California
Engineer: Cecil Jones Tape Editing: Daniel A. Wolfert Mastering: Howard W. Harris
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