Fairy Tale Spotlight: The First Cylinder [Book Review]

[This blog spoils some important details of this book.]

A while back, I reviewed "The War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells. It was a fascinating story that did not really explain everything. There was a lot of assumptions made about the aliens. You might have noticed that we never really communicate with the Martians anywhere in the book. They just showed up and started killing us.

From there, we have come up with our own idea of what the Martian race is like. Probably a cold and war-faring race. But what do we really know about them? The truth is that we don't actually know them. We only know how they acted when they got here.

"The Last Cylinder" is a novel written by Joseph Dougherty. It was published in 2023. This may actually be the newest book I have read in a long time. I did not realize how new it was until I had already purchased it.

This book answers the question of what was going on in "The War of the Worlds" from the Martian's perspective. It tells their story. If you are curious about what that may be like, then this is the book for you. It is even written in a way that fits the period of the first book.

Going into this book, I thought it was going to be a hard war novel about how the Martians waged it against us. That's not what I got. As it turns out, things were not anything like you probably thought. After all, we never really talked to them in the first story.

The hilarious truth was that the Martians did not even know Earth had intelligent life on it at all. They were coming here to take control of the planet and its animal life for food. They had no desire to kill other intelligent beings. But because of all the miscommunication and mistakes made by the first group of Martians, it all turned into a war, one unwanted by both sides.

I know the previous paragraph might seem more uninteresting than the original idea, but the execution is so wonderfully done. The story, at its heart, is what I call a "dramedy." It's a comedy that is taken so seriously that it becomes compelling. You quickly begin to relate to the Martians early on. Yes, they are very different creatures than we are, but there is a social link that we can easily comprehend. These are not military-hardened invaders, but grumpy conscripts sent forth to conquer a planet that they don't even have much interests in. Heck, the tripods are more intended for farming than war.

The story centers around Vvv, the first Martian to make footfall. All of the alien's names are a single letter that is typed three times. My brain kept pronouncing them in weird ways. Vvv ended up "Veev." Qqq sounded like "Kyook." Mmm read to me like "Mem." You get the idea.

As you read this story, you will soon come to realize how really sad this whole disaster was. Interesting though, you entirely side with the aliens in this one because you only get their side of the story. The plight of the humans are really handled better in the original book.

Although "The First Cylinder" seems to start off as a joke, it gets deadly serious real fast. It fills in the gaps that the originally story seemed to leave out, such as why it took so long for the aliens to assemble the first tripod. Remember that? Anyone? I sure noticed it! This book explains it!

You may also find the scene with the crazy pastor interesting too. The book explains what happens to him after he was grabbed. I won't spoil it though! After all, I totally recommend this book! The funny thing is that I might not have read this if I had known it was so new. Guess I lucked out.

This blog was written on January 10, 2023.

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