TWOTW SPIN-OFFS

The War Of The Worlds spin-offs

In conversation with author C.A Powell

How I came to write The Last Days of… pastiche series


I’ve always wanted to write stories that people would enjoy reading. I think this came from English literature classes and an enthusiastic teacher that taught us so many things to look out for. I also became an avid reader travelling from Hornchurch in Essex to the city of London once I started work at the age of sixteen. I read a vast number of books that had an influence over me. I was especially fond of science fiction. 


H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds was one that I enjoyed immensely. One of my favourite parts was the short section concerning HMS Thunder Child’s valiant attack on three Martian tripods and the heroic sacrifice the ship and crew make to save a paddle steamer. It always stuck with me and I often let my own fantasy take over. I would imagine these Victorian and rather conservative people having their world turned upside down and destroyed by these hideous beings from another planet. I looked at areas where I lived and asked ‘what if it happened here’ questions.

The Last Days of Thunder Child – the first story


Our writing tutor always gave us around 500 to 1200 words of homework each week. One week we were asked to do a well-known story we had read and to approach it from a slightly different angle. Use our imagination - come into an established story for a short episode from an alternative perspective. I chose HMS Thunder Child sinking - Boy Seaman Perry waking from unconsciousness amid fire and smoke upon the sinking ship – HMS Thunder Child.


I read my 1200 words out in the class the following week and so many people liked it. Some of the established members began to encourage me to do a complete pastiche story about it. I had a Victorian ship design in mind and began to write as an aside project.


One day I finally realised that I was having great fun with the plot of my sci-fi pastiche novel. I decided to call it The Last Days of Thunder Child and realised that I had started to develop a good plot. Upon publication, I realised it was generating a steady flow of interest.




The Last Days of Purgatory – the third story


Then for my third story, I imagined East London where I lived as a kid, where I played in the 1960s and early 1970s. I wondered what it would be like there in 1898 when the Blackwall Tunnel had only just been opened.

I remembered the old Poplar dockers hospital.


For characters, I decided upon an over-confident whipper-snapper of a lad. Something like myself at age ten. I wanted a criminal who would somehow come good in a changed environment.


I also wanted a completely controversial character. A strange contradiction that is somehow acceptable in the post-apocalyptic world. I saw a graffiti piece of a nun with a gun. I’m not sure where, or if it was a Banksy but I wondered how such a contradiction (nun with gun) might be acceptable.



The Last Days of the Fighting Machine – the second story


My mind began to work overtime on a new story set in the part of Essex where I lived, an outer-lying hamlet called Paglesham Church End. I wondered and asked questions of myself, while working in the area:


1.“What would happen if a tripod came here?”

2. “Would the place be smothered in red weed?”

3. “Did the red weed start to die when the Martians began to die from disease and all manner of Earthly blights?”


I began to wonder about the survivors and what they did when they realised the Martians were susceptible to colds, measles and chicken pox, etcetera. Once again, I had splendid fun inventing a second story of survivors. I was like a school boy again, living inside my fantasy of Martian invaders and brave human survivors.

The Last Days of the Wake Men – the fourth story


For the fourth story, I wanted to elaborate on these Martians dying of disease. The minute Earthlings (germs) that were more lethal than anything the Martians could see.


I was now living in the Fenlands (eastern England) and I often passed a place where an old Victorian railway once stood. The fens and farmlands were below the level of the dyke walls of the River Nene and there were flood trenches all about the fields.


I thought of all the old railway infrastructure and piping networks that could be laid along the flood trenches, air circulation units like they had in mine shafts, conning towers and water tanks. Blow up the embankment wall and allow the fields to flood with people under water and inside the pipework. Pendulum mines below water level and a fanciful method of attack with medical staff dissecting the Martians and learning of the alien susceptibility to various germs.


Once again, I had great fun writing this story allowing all sorts of things to come to light. I was building and developing an approach of resistance aided by contagion and illness that H.G. Wells envisioned. I was trying to keep within the framework of his story, though I think

H.G. Wells might think I’m being optimistic on the mankind front.



This series is available in various formats on Amazon here https://amzn.to/3Revmlt


A fifth story, The Last Days Of The Unsightly Killers, will conclude the series. Find out more about C.A. Powell and his other books here https://www.facebook.com/AuthorC.A.Powell/








 being optimistic on the mankind front.

In conversation with author Mark Hood

In conversation with Mark Hood about his sequel to The War Of The Worlds

Mark Hood is a British author of several novels and is currently working on a series that continues The War Of The Worlds. Amy's Story is a short novella featuring what happens to the wife of the H.G Wells narrator during the Martian invasion. The Return Of The Martians takes up where The War Of The Worlds finished and there will be a further book, Earth Under The Martians.

Q1. Hi Mark, it's good to talk with you. How did you first discover The War of the Worlds, and what made you decide to write a sequel to H.G. Wells' original story?

I have always loved the classics of Science Fiction, and Wells undeniably wrote a good few of them. I must have read it for the first time when I was about ten or eleven, and the imagery of giant Martian fighting machines striding around England hooked me immediately. I lived in Woking for a while, driving past Horsell Common every day, and so the events of the book were never far from my mind.
The sequel came about when I had the idea of how we might fare if and when they returned. We got lucky the first time, and we would have our work cut out to defeat them in a fair fight. Once I started imagining us turning their own weapons against them, I knew I had an idea for a sequel.

Q 2. How would you summarise the books in your series in one or two sentences?

We believe we're prepared, but when the Martians come back stronger and more aggressively than ever, humanity is on the run. Desperately turning their own weapons against them, we struggle to save humanity.

Q 3. What kind of research did you do for your series and how did you approach that?

Most of my research consisted of checking that what I was writing lined up with the scientific understanding of the time. Some of the Martian technology could be explained by modern science (lasers, nerve gas, etc) but would have mystified a contemporary mind. So I had to make sure that a modern reader could infer the means of operation of the Martian machinery without putting words into the mouths of my characters that they could not have known.

Q 4. What was the greatest challenge in writing your sequel?

Trying to balance the feel of the original against what a modern reader expects from a novel. Only one character is named in the original, the narrator doesn’t really ‘do’ anything, but merely reacts to events around him, and his poor wife is woefully sidelined for the majority of the story. I’ve tried to bring my storytelling more up to date without losing the sense of a period piece that so many of us love about Wells’ original.

Q 5. You have had some great reviews. What are your three favourite comments? 

"Probably the best sequel to War of the Worlds I've read so far."
"Can't wait for the next one!!"
"Very much 'in tone' with the original"

Q 6. You've written other books and series – what inspires you to write?

I love exploring the stories we tell to make sense of the world around us. For that reason I particularly enjoy myths and legends, and try to work them into the background of my fantasy stories. In much the same way, I feel Sci-Fi is at its strongest when it tells us something about ourselves. While you need strong characters and a compelling plot, I find things resonate better with us when they make us think beyond the story itself.

Q 7. What else are you working on?

I am close to publishing an urban fantasy novel, titled ’The Fairies Want Me Dead’. It’s set in the present day, and follows Richard Williams as he discovers his grandfather was a member of a secret society that is defending us from the creatures and monsters we thought were myths and fairy tales.

Q 8. For people looking to read you books, what is the easiest way to buy?

You can find my books on Amazon, or via my website https://markhoodauthor.com/ You can also sign up for my mailing list to get a free book, and keep up to date with how my writing is going. If people want to try my writing before they buy, they can get a free book at https://ares.watch/amy Amy's Story tells what happened to the narrator’s wife during the original novel, when she was packed off to Leatherhead.


Thanks, Mark, for these interesting insights, and all the best for the future.

You can check out Mark's work at https://markhoodauthor.com/ 

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