H. G. Wells changed Science Fiction forever when he gave readers the first invasion of Earth by an alien race. (Along with this idea, he also introduced the concept of the heat ray that would become the blaster. For more on that, go here.) The War of the Worlds first appeared in Pearson’s Magazine, April-December 1897. In America, the novel was serialized in Cosmopolitan from July-August 1897. With the falling of the cylinders, Earth was no longer safe from outside invaders. Better yet was what came out of those interplanetary vessels…the tripods.
The image of the three-legged walking machines stalking across the English countryside, destroying resistance with their deadly heat rays is a seminal moment in SF. After that, alien invasions and strange machinery were common material for telling stories. The SF Pulps, especially the first, Amazing Stories, were the vehicle to bring new and deadlier invasions to the readers of the 1920s and 1930s. Hugo Gernsback reprinted Wells’s novel first in May 1927. After 1927, new writers were inspired to create stalking machine for their own purposes.
The artist who painted that classic cover and much of the artwork that follows was Frank R. Paul. Paul was not great with human figures but his machines were genre-establishing. He was the first artist to draw a flying saucer (twenty years before there were such things.) His stalking machines look real, whether driven by aliens or humans. I have not included any images of what are clearly (or unclearly) robots. Giant robots do not have organic drivers and are another thing entirely.
Another group of stories that should be mentioned here are the Zoromes of Neil R. Jones. They are not robots, but brains placed inside robotic bodies. They are like a smaller version of the tripod machine/monsters. They are the great-grandfathers of such creatures as the Daleks of Doctor Who. Wells gave us this bunch of aliens too, though the scale was brought down first by Jones and then by others like Terry Nation. These are the miniature cousins to the stalking machines.
One of the first and best writers to innovate was Jack Williamson who used the stalking machine several times. The first was in “The Alien Intelligence” (Science Wonder Stories, July August 1929) , his third sale as a writer. In this serial he created the Krimlu, aliens who have created a base inside a remote valley in Australia. The hero defeats the machine by shooting the dome on top. For more on this story, go here.
Jack was back with another such creature in “The Moon Era” ( Wonder Stories, February 1932). This time the aliens are called the Eternal Ones since they can place their brains in new machines and live endlessly. Again Williamson has the legged machine, housing a vital brain. His hero has to work harder to destroy the enemy, smashing its dome with a pole. For more on this story, go here.
“The Spoor Doom” by Eando Binder (Wonder Stories, February 1934) is an anti-War tale set after the Great War of 1975. (I seemed to have missed that one.) The people of the future use tripod-cars to get about. In this conflict, the scientists create a fungus to destroy crops and end up starving the entire planet. The Binders give us a tripod-car battle at the end of the story reminiscent of tank warfare (something else Wells came up with). This story might be the last great Tripod story of the Pulps. (I am sure with more research I will prove that wrong.) Whether it is or not, we can see the idea of limbed vehicles fading. Rockets, treads and wheeled vehicles become the norm.
Later Covers
Conclusion
The idea of invading tripods became one of our elder ideas, retired out of quaintness. Why walk around on metal legs when you can fly on jets? George Pal thought this when he did his modern version of The War of the Worlds in 1953. I have to admit I’m not a fan of that film because it lacks tripods. The remake in 2005 was better, with a good look at how that technology operates. Better still is John Christopher’s Tripod series (1967-1988) which had a BBC TV show in 1984. Christopher re-imagines some very hoary old ideas into an exciting trilogy (which later got a prequel) for Young Adults though it can be enjoyed by anyone who likes alien invasions. Christopher goes one better than Wells in creating aliens who use tripod machines because their bodies are based in three: three eyes, three arms, etc. Who better to create a technology based on threes?
The legacy of Wells can be seen in other places as well. The Star Wars franchise has several walking machines (not tripodic) with the At-At or Imperial Walkers and the smaller All Terrain Scout Transport. These vehicles make no sense since they can be taken down with the same method horsemen use on the oliphants in The Lord of the Rings. Legs make these striders susceptible to being tripped. But no one cares because they are so cool to look at. I’m not sure if Wells had the same idea or not. In 1897, horses were still the main source of vehicle power. Stalking tripod machines were a huge jump forward technologically. This is central to Wells’s commentary on imperialism and tech.
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Tripods rock! Fact!