Hi all,
I've just released SWEET OBLIVION: A WAR OF THE WORLDS STORY, which is now available on Amazon (links below), and thought/hoped y'all would be interested. I've been working on it since September 2021 - essentially it's a re-telling of the original story but with the action shifted from 1890s Surrey to present-day Cornwall. From the start the intention was to try and translate basically every beat of the original story into a loyal but original adaptation - I think we've all noticed that every adaptation misses this or messes up that, and I wanted to see what happens if you tried to include everything AND add plenty of your own stuff. And it does it all while also satirising the original text and the world it's now set in, just as Wells' story did.
The official blurb is below:
“I had by now wandered through so many near-death experiences that I ought to be giving them high-fives as I passed.”
Cornwall basks in an Indian summer. Tourists flock to golden beaches and abuse minimum-wage staff, hikers explore heather-dressed fields and argue with farmers, and seagulls dive for every child’s ice cream in sight. Then, one morning, the sky bursts open – and something falls out of it.
So begins SWEET OBLIVION – a modern-day retelling of H.G. Wells sci-fi masterpiece THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, at once bombastic and high-octane but poignant and funny, the action shifted from the Victorian glories of suburban Surrey to the seaside jewel of a gloomy nation far less at ease with itself. Part satire and part tribute, the beats of the original tale are loyally followed while simultaneously subverted as SWEET OBLIVION doesn’t just retell a story but finds new ones lurking in old pages.
As indefinable beings from another world spread death across the land, and all the might of helpless mankind is brought to bear against them, a thoughtful and dry-humoured narrator has only one priority – get the hell out of the madness, somehow, preferably with her beloved and sickly cat. As the world falls apart around her, hopefully she can also try not to lose her mind.
Trekking across a disintegrating human world, the invaders dominant wherever they stand in a land where reality seems to be giving way to fever dream, our narrator will meet a strange cast of characters in her quest for survival, witness unimaginable horrors, and face uncomfortable questions as stunning twists mould a familiar fable in SWEET OBLIVION; a story of life, death, being, and the human condition.
I really do hope you give it a go - I drove myself a little insane writing it and as a huge fan of the original book it was such a passion project that I'm excited to share.
Its official theme song, of course, is Forever Autumn by the Moody Blues (though Oblivion by Grimes nearly clinched it for some reason).
USA link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1ZHV2W9
UK link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C1ZHV2W9
I've just released SWEET OBLIVION: A WAR OF THE WORLDS STORY, which is now available on Amazon (links below), and thought/hoped y'all would be interested. I've been working on it since September 2021 - essentially it's a re-telling of the original story but with the action shifted from 1890s Surrey to present-day Cornwall. From the start the intention was to try and translate basically every beat of the original story into a loyal but original adaptation - I think we've all noticed that every adaptation misses this or messes up that, and I wanted to see what happens if you tried to include everything AND add plenty of your own stuff. And it does it all while also satirising the original text and the world it's now set in, just as Wells' story did.
The official blurb is below:
“I had by now wandered through so many near-death experiences that I ought to be giving them high-fives as I passed.”
Cornwall basks in an Indian summer. Tourists flock to golden beaches and abuse minimum-wage staff, hikers explore heather-dressed fields and argue with farmers, and seagulls dive for every child’s ice cream in sight. Then, one morning, the sky bursts open – and something falls out of it.
So begins SWEET OBLIVION – a modern-day retelling of H.G. Wells sci-fi masterpiece THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, at once bombastic and high-octane but poignant and funny, the action shifted from the Victorian glories of suburban Surrey to the seaside jewel of a gloomy nation far less at ease with itself. Part satire and part tribute, the beats of the original tale are loyally followed while simultaneously subverted as SWEET OBLIVION doesn’t just retell a story but finds new ones lurking in old pages.
As indefinable beings from another world spread death across the land, and all the might of helpless mankind is brought to bear against them, a thoughtful and dry-humoured narrator has only one priority – get the hell out of the madness, somehow, preferably with her beloved and sickly cat. As the world falls apart around her, hopefully she can also try not to lose her mind.
Trekking across a disintegrating human world, the invaders dominant wherever they stand in a land where reality seems to be giving way to fever dream, our narrator will meet a strange cast of characters in her quest for survival, witness unimaginable horrors, and face uncomfortable questions as stunning twists mould a familiar fable in SWEET OBLIVION; a story of life, death, being, and the human condition.
I really do hope you give it a go - I drove myself a little insane writing it and as a huge fan of the original book it was such a passion project that I'm excited to share.
Its official theme song, of course, is Forever Autumn by the Moody Blues (though Oblivion by Grimes nearly clinched it for some reason).
USA link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1ZHV2W9
UK link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C1ZHV2W9