Reviews tagging 'Blood'

A Guerra dos Mundos by H.G. Wells

22 reviews

technobabbletime's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The beginning of this book was definitely slower paced at the beginning, but around the halfway mark it really picked up. The ending was beautiful and very satisfying. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Genocide, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, and War

pedanther's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Genocide, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Cannibalism, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, War, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

pholcidae's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

A very slow story with an anticlimactic conclusion but some ‘fun’ niches to appeal to the reader (at the time of writing, mind!). 

Wells clearly did his work in familiarising himself with the suburbs of London to create a sense of familiarity with the intended audience when he wrote this. I only recognised a few places since I am not familiar with the city and its surroundings, but I certainly got my own tour of them all in this story(!)

I did enjoy the pseudoscientific approach to the narrator’s telling of his story - if only the science wasn’t outdated by this time it might’ve been more convincing. 

Whilst I enjoyed the use of language and literary devices, I found it hard to feel immersed in the story by way of it feeling like listening to someone who is overly fond of their own voice ranting at me about aliens and society. 

The plot was so diluted by Wells’ insistence on dictating directions around the general geography of London, that by the end I felt the climax was not all too climactic. Also, character development was non-existence so there’s not much to comment there. 

Overall, an unfortunate low scoring for a book I was very excited to read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, and War

Moderate: Blood and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Misogyny

bones_jackson's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Se eu não me engano foi o primeiro livro que retratou sobre alienígenas, então tem uns conceitos muito interessantes. A primeira coisa que veio na minha cabeça com a primeira descrição dos marcianos foi o vilão de monstros vs alienígenas e foi assim que eu imaginei eles durante o livro todo. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Violence, Blood, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and War

bearystarry's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This felt very… meandering? Feels like 80% of the book was just descriptions of people running away and/or travelling to other places and how starving or mean or “silly” they are. Pretty sexist and racist; making reference to indigenous american people when talking about violent invading aliens was certainly A Choice.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

kosvic's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, and Murder

lorraine19's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

The pace kinda goes back and forth between fast and slow paced, but the imagery and descriptions in some of the scenes is really good. You have to keep in mind how old this book is when reading some of the more "scientific" parts. Wells did try to incorporate some actual science explanations which unfortunately are a bit outdated. So if that is something that really bothers you this book might not be for you. But if you don't mind more fiction in your scifi, it's a classic for a reason. 



<SPOILERS> I did find the ending to be disappointing but this is more of a personal preference. It just felt like it didn't match the tone of the rest of the book with it being all "oh everything turned out okay". I really wish he kept the tone dark or even left it more open ended. <SPOILERS>

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, Grief, Murder, and War

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Gore, Blood, and Alcohol

Minor: Alcoholism, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Police brutality

Starvation, survival, cannibalism

otisthedungeonmaster's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

the books world building was good but the characters just had no depth 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation

Minor: Animal death, Death, Genocide, Violence, Blood, and War

bebidocrimes's review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I've always been fascinated by the radio broadcast and subsequent panic, so I figured I should read the full story. I can imagine how petrifying it would be to tune into this story, not knowing it's fiction, and hearing about these Martians just tearing into humanity for apparently no reason. The descriptions got the point across but we're still vague enough that the incomprehensibility enhanced the terror. It's interesting that at any point in history, when there is a catastrophe, there's a white supremacist planning a ~new society~ which happens to rely on eugenics. We don't know how that character winds up in the end. It was truly pure luck that the Martians succumbed to Earth bacteria and not the other way around, like an invasive species or colonisation.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Violence, Blood, and Fire/Fire injury

eloise__'s review against another edition

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Blood