(Frequent readers will recall my 3D printed Ring of Gyges from my story “Ripper’s Ring.”) For the tripod, she used a Printrbot brand printer, the Simple (Maker) Edition, and PLA filament. I enlisted the aid of a close acquaintance to make a wonderful 3D printed version of the fighting machine.
In “After the Martians,” I take readers inside the carapace as human pilots control the alien machines to battle other tripods. In The War of the Worlds, we see the fighting machines from the inferior vantage point of puny human victims on the ground. Combining huge size with the human attribute of walking somehow adds to the horror. Since then, the tripod from The War of the Worlds has become a science fiction icon, inspiring the walking weapons of Star Wars, the AT-AT and AT-ST. Such a machine would have terrified the readers of 1897. The tripod’s other weapon was a poisonous black gas. Two of these tentacles held a box with a lens from which shot the devastating heat ray. He did not describe the carapace or main body of the machine, except to say that several flexible tentacles protruded from it.
Wells depicted a fighting machine as being three-legged and about one hundred feet tall. In my tale, humans make use of the Martian technology, especially the fighting machines, to fight World War I.
“After the Martians” takes place in the world of Wells’ story, but sixteen years have passed since the alien attack. At the end of the novel, the Martians all died from our terrestrial bacteria. In that book, the Martians assembled the machines after their arrival on Earth, and they caused considerable destruction. My upcoming story, “After the Martians”-to be released this month-features the fighting machines, or tripods, of H.G.
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