The Massacre of Mankind

It has been 14 years since the Martians invaded England. The world has moved on, always watching the skies but content that we know how to defeat the Martian menace. Machinery looted from the abandoned capsules and war-machines has led to technological leaps forward. The Martians are vulnerable to earth germs. The Army is prepared.

So when the signs of launches on Mars are seen, there seems little reason to worry. Unless you listen to one man, Walter Jenkins, the narrator of Wells' book. He is sure that the Martians have learned, adapted, understood their defeat.

He is right.

Thrust into the chaos of a new invasion, a journalist - sister-in-law to Walter Jenkins - must survive, escape and report on the war.

The Massacre of Mankind has begun

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The Martians are marshalling a fresh invasion force – and this time they’ve learnt from their mistakes. A newly-written sequel to H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, published 118 years after the original story, will join the catalogue of classic fiction given fresh life by contemporary authors.

Publishers Gollancz announced that Stephen Baxter, an award-winning author who has collaborated with Terry Pratchett, has been chosen to write a new sequel to one of the most influential science fictions works ever published.

First published in 1897, The War of the Worlds has spawned half a dozen feature films, a famous Orson Welles radio drama which created a national panic in the US and a hit record album and stage production adapted by Jeff Wayne.

Baxter promises that his sequel, The Massacre of Mankind, will tell an equally terrifying tale. Set in late 1920s London, the Martians return, and the war begins again. But the aliens do not repeat the mistakes of their last invasion. They know their vulnerability to microbial infections caused their demise last time. They target Britain first, since this nation led the resistance but “the massacre of mankind has begun.”