(Found) British Empire in space kind of funny and very old-school characters..

[B_Morrison]

...it's set back in the past, post World of the Worlds. The main character is military, has a blood-thirsty 4 armed (?) sidekick and they go to Mars using a captured Martian space-ship. I would have been able to dig it out myself, but my local library tossed the old borrowing data. I read it sometime 2012 - 2016.

 

[The Judge]

It wouldn't be one of the Space Captain Smith novels by our very own Toby Frost would it? That series is very much the British Empire in Space, and there's certainly one blood-thirsty alien sidekick, and I've vague memories of a captured ship, perhaps in the first novel. But the series isn't set in the past, though it feels like it is at times!

Does this ring a bell? Space Captain Smith: a little tease

 

[tinkerdan]

The closest I can see is a graphic novel -Scarlet Traces however here's a few mentions::
War of the Worlds gets a sequel 119 years on – but what about all the unofficial ones?

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

There was also a Russian sequel by Lazar Lagin called Major Wellandyou (as in I'm well, and you?) in which the British took the battle back to mars having made use of the death ray.

In Scarlet Traces I believe the Martians beef up their immune defences and return to Earth in the 1920's.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[anno]

Edgar Rice Burroughs?

 

[HareBrain]

Though I'm sure this isn't Space Captain Smith, I wonder if @Toby Frost recognises it from keeping abreast of developments in the "British Empire in Space" genre?

 

[Danny McG]

Thinking on this. There was one I read many, many moons ago that was post WOTW and set in Britain.

One thing I recall was the 'fattening pens' where captives were held until it was tube in the neck time to feed the Martians.

The camps were run by collaborators from the aristocracy and middle classes and most of the inmates were 'The lower orders' .
The working class were also hunted in the wilds, the Martians preferred the flavour, however they usually just partook of the camp captives

 

[Toby Frost]

I don't think it's mine, although there were thinly disguised Martians and the hero did have an alien sidekick, although he only had two arms...

My first thought was Scarlet Traces, but the four-armed aliens made me think of the creatures from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books. The only mash-up of Wells' and Burroughs' Mars (or Marses?) I can think of would be the second volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore.

 

[B_Morrison]

Aha, thanks for all effort..it was Toby Frost after all..BTW I noticed a similarity between two stories recently, both have a guy who uses a lot of Russian, trying to manage a conflict with the aid of computer called Mike or Michael...which gets hit by missiles.

 

[The Judge]

Yes!! My second ever success!!

 

[HareBrain]

Yes!! My second ever success!!

But four arms!! Suruk doesn't have four arms!

a blood-thirsty 4 armed (?) sidekick

OK, I should have paid more attention to the question mark.

What's strange, though, is that I can easily picture Suruk with four arms.

 

[The Judge]

Ha! You should have looked at the larger picture, not got bogged down in the small print! (Actually, I couldn't recall if Suruk had four arms or not, but it somehow didn't seem beyond the realm of possibility that he did.)

 

[Vladd67]

Four armed is forewarned

 

[Toby Frost]

Well, the green Martians (I think they were called Thargs, in Burroughs) did have rather Suruk-ish faces and probably a rather similar outlook on life. I wasn't thinking of them when I came up with Suruk (I might have been thinking about some other franchise, however...) but they'd probably fit under the same sub-set of things to be parodied!

Anyway, I'm very glad that you enjoyed it and strangely honoured to be the subject of one of these threads!

 

[HareBrain]

I might have been thinking about some other franchise, however...

I'm guessing one beginning with "P", though it didn't occur to me before.

 

[tinkerdan]

Green Martians are called Tharks and are around 15 feet tall, with tusks protruding from their mouths, green skin, and with double torso, each with its own set of arms.
So any fiction using Tharks or characters based on them would account for the four armed character.

 

[Danny McG]

BTW I noticed a similarity between two stories recently, both have a guy who uses a lot of Russian, trying to manage a conflict with the aid of computer called Mike or Michael...which gets hit by missiles

@B_Morrison Is this here a different question about another book?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

@B_Morrison Is this here a different question about another book?

If it is, it's obviously Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress -- but Danny knew that.

 

[B_Morrison]

If it is, it's obviously Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress -- but Danny knew that.

The gentleman wins a cigar....

Oddly enough in The Petrovitch Trilogy(Equations of Life;Theories of Flight;Degrees of Freedom) there is also a guy who talk Russian often, gets help from computer called Michael, which gets buried under rubble from a missile attack...obviously it's homage or pure coincidence or something like that...

 

[CassFrank]

Thinking on this. There was one I read many, many moons ago that was post WOTW and set in Britain.

One thing I recall was the 'fattening pens' where captives were held until it was tube in the neck time to feed the Martians.

The camps were run by collaborators from the aristocracy and middle classes and most of the inmates were 'The lower orders' .
The working class were also hunted in the wilds, the Martians preferred the flavour, however they usually just partook of the camp captives

Danny - Could this have ben George H Smith’s Second War of the Worlds?