OK This is probably the most nerdy post that I have ever written, but here goes anyway...........
WhiteKiboko said:
i thought the heat rays were supposed to be invisible
..... oh well.... i do love the name of the battleship in the book.....
Absolutely, the heat rays were indeed invisible in the book, though this does not make for a very dramatic image in illustrations so I think we can forgive artists for depicting visible beams!
As you probably know, there never was an
HMS Thunderchild. Interestingly, although it normally seems to be depicted as a battleship, such as the Formidable class (?) vessel on the Jeff Wayne's musical version cover, the Thunderchild is referred to as a torpedo ram in the novel. Indeed the Royal Navy did indeed have a vessel of this type in service at the time of the WOTW setting (1894) and this vessel must have provided the inspiration for Wells when he chose the ship type. The vessel in question was HM
S Polyphemus which was built in 1881 and served much of its career in the Mediterranean. The construction type was unusual as it had a massive ram under the bow in a manner similar to ancient Greek and Roman triremes. It was armed with forward and midships torpedo tubes below the water line and six quick firing rotating machine guns on deck. It seems the Martians must have been vunerable to machine gun fire! I attach a picture of
HMS Polyphemus if anyone is interested.
Anyway, on the subject of cephalopods it is interesting that HG Wells depicts the Martians as very octopus like with a quivering beak and sixteen tentacles arranged around the mouth in two bunches of eight. There is a subtle implication in the text that this form of arrangement is the ultimate end of the evolution of hands, and that the Martian form stems from creatures not too dissimilar to ourselves. The Martians also brought with them bipedal creatures to feed on en route to earth in their cylinders, doubtless reinforcing the view that vertebrates were just cattle to the aliens and that the cephalopod arrangement was a far superior one.
Perhaps we are all changing into cephalopods slowly?
Hmm..........must get out more.