John L. Flynn

An accounting of every form and adaptation of The War of the Worlds since Wells originally published the novel in 1898* would be totally awesome, right? Yes, it would-- but not this book. God, not this book. It came out in 2005, obviously to tie in with the Spielberg film, and equally as obviously, before that movie had actually come out, which you can tell because everything he says is derived from prepublicity material. Also before the Pendragon Pictures version, which you can tell because he thinks it's a good movie. Or maybe he would even if he did see it; Flynn's criterion for a "good" or "bad" adaptation seems to be nothing more than book-faithfulness at times. And his selection is really random: those two 2005 films get a chapter each, but the Asylum one is only mentioned in passing; the comic adaptations are all strung together on one page; and the novelistic reworkings just get passing mentions.

But it's not a matter of space, because Flynn has enough room to recap the original novel chapter-by-chapter. This is for all those people interested in The War of the Worlds who haven't read the book, I guess? But that is by no means his most egregious waste of space. There also also chapters devoted to the television series V (on the basis that it has aliens coming to Earth), a listing of definitive movies involving aliens (where one movie is criticized as being derivative of Alien-- which isn't on the list!), a two-page overview of science fiction cinema (oh so useful), and alien abduction/UFO conspiracies (which Flynn obviously believes in). The more I read of this book, the angrier I got. He never cites sources for any of his increasingly bizarre information. When pointing out mistaken lines in the 1953 film, he continuously refers to the actors' ignorance, as if they somehow were responsible for their own dialogue. And he even whips out the term "gorilla warfare" at one point. (And no, he's not taking about Beneath the Planet of the Apes.) I want to know how this man ever got short-listed for three Hugos (for his fanfiction apparently). Or how he ever got a doctorate in anything. Or how he apparently works as a writing instructor. I'd ask how he got this piece of crap published, but I know the answer-- he owns the publishing company, and it publishes nothing other than books by him.

* Everything I read about The War of the Worlds totally overlooks the fact that it was originally published in serial form in 1897. It's an 1897 novel, damnit!… (meer)