Science Fiction is famously a genre in conversation with itself, and in her latest novel Apostles of Mercy, author Lindsay Ellis finds herself in direct conversation with one of the most famous science fiction writers of all.
LINDSAY ELLIS:
Talking about H.G. Wells in a context of his influence on the genre of science fiction can sometimes feel too basic to be worthy of discussion, like Shakespeare’s influence on the theater or Weird Al’s influence on parody songs about food. It’s easy to take for granted Wells’ influence on science fiction because it is just so omnipresent — The Time Machine was so successful it spawned the subgenre of time travel fiction and even created the term “time machine.”
The Isle of Dr. Moreau codified the “mad scientist” archetype by adding new layers to Mary Shelley’s repentant, regretful Dr. Frankenstein and turning him into a character not horrified by his creations but intrigued and excited by them, giving rise to characters like Back to the Future’s Doc Brown, Fringe’s Dr. Walter Bishop, the lovable Jumba from Disney’s Lilo and Stitch franchise, and the character of Enola Gay/Nikola Sassanian from my own series. But in terms of absolute cultural pervasiveness, you can’t talk about Wells’ influence without The War of the Worlds.
The influence of The War of the Worlds on both the genre of fiction and on my work, in particular, cannot be understated, from the technology that man cannot comprehend, to the implementation of anti-colonial parable, to the enduring popularity of alien invasion narratives, to the very title of the book I have written this article about:
“We must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its own inferior races. The Tasmanians . . . were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?”…
Apostles of Mercy: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
Source: The Big Idea: Lindsay Ellis | Whatever
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