Wells’s war revisited

Ian Edington and D'Israeli's Scarlet Traces is both a masterful extension of HG Wells's War of the Worlds - which they've also adapted - and a fine example of the 'Steampunk' genre. Forty years after the Martian invasion of Wells's novel, Britain has transformed itself through alien technology and is now exercising its imperialist tendencies by waging a counter-invasion of Mars; an aristocratic young photojournalist is sent to unravel the dark secrets of the failing conflict. D'Israeli excels at rendering a vivid vision of Britain where a new order not only smothers familiar vistas but also aggravates the government's repressive impulses.

Danny Graydon