Talk:The Poison Belt

War of the Worlds up-beat ending?
Whereas The War of the Worlds ends by stating that any future attackers would suffer the same fate as the Martians...

Does it? I seem to remember something like "Is our planet really safe? Or is this merely a reprieve, while the Martians make ready for another attack?" in the closing chapter of the book.

Anybody can confirm this? -- Syzygy 09:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * No, it's right. "By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his birthright, and the earth was his against all attackers." That's from memory, but it's close to accurate. The earth was given to humanity. Of course, a poison belt could also happen along and destroy Mars, so not everything is bleak. -Litefantastic 13:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hm:

"A question of graver and universal interest is the possibility of another attack from the Martians. I do not think that nearly enough attention is being given to this aspect of the matter.  At present the planet Mars is in conjunction, but with every return to opposition I, for one, anticipate a renewal of their adventure.  In any case, we should be prepared.  ..."

From the Gutenberg edition's last chapter. I think what Wells meant is that the Earth might belong to mankind rightfully, but that this wouldn't necessarily stop the Martians from taking it from us. -- Syzygy

Realism?
I think casualties from such events would far greater in scope. Today especially, when cars are prevalent methods of transport.In his times,any person actively doing somethi would be really injured falling down. Falling down = possible scull fracture.Imagine thousands of walkign people falling onto asphalt(uncontrolled fall).This isn't soemthing you waking up from and can shrug it off.

"Novel"? I don't think so
In this article The Poison Belt is referred to twice as a "novel" and once more as a "book" but it is simply too short to qualify as such. In my copy (the Berkley edition, the cover of which is reproduced in the article at this writing), the text runs a mere 82 pages, and the volume is filled out with Doyle's two Professor Challenger short stories (as indicated on that cover) and two essays, both of the latter apparently original to this edition. It must be either a novelette (7500 to 17,500 words) or a novella (17,500 to 40,000 words). The first full page of text has ten words in its first line, and thirty-eight lines. That multiplies to a total of 31,160 words, close enough to midway between the limits of a novella to not need to make any further calculations or allowances. If that first edition had nothing else in it, then it probably should be called a booklet or something. Somebody else can make that determination, but I am changing the two occurrences of "novel" to "novella."

One other thing: When I fixed two Wikilinks in the ref. cite that I had added a couple of days ago, I also removed "summer" from the relevant passage, as rereading the source reminded me that John Dickson Carr had written that it was originally scheduled to be "late in summer" but then the script had to be revised due to World War II events, and the performance/transmission date presumably postponed. He did not come right out and say this, and I did not put that into the article, merely removed the specificity. Forgot to mention that change in my edit summary. Sorry. --Ted Watson (talk) 20:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Ether/Aether
Doyle uses the spelling "ether" to refers to what we'd usually spell "aether". This is rather confusing, given that "ether" is a chemical compound (and definitely not what Doyle means). As far as I can tell, the modern meanings of aether and ether were known at the time, and Doyle used this wrongly.

WW1 and poison gas
Looking at this with hindsight, this seems to anticipate WW1 in terms of poison gas in war, mass deaths, and the need for humanity to gain a new perspective. Was Doyle particularly prescient, or is this merely coincidental? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.171.29 (talk) 04:16, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Reception?
Any reports on its reception by critics and the public? Valetude (talk) 21:43, 20 July 2019 (UTC)