A Cup of Tea

Jo Walton, in a post on the blog io9 (yeah, I read them a lot, so don't be surprised to see more references here), mentions one of the key differences between reading SF and other literature, "If we’re talking about a drug that lets people live to be two hundred, we may well be talking about death and the finitude of life, but we also treat the reality and the limitations of that life extension realistically." There's little doubt that the Martians could represent British imperialism or the ugly nature of humanity, but we can't forget that Wells is trying to present a reasonable depiction of Britain during an alien invasion. To the artilleryman, the curate, and the narrator, these aliens represent, most of all, something that can incinerate them with a heat ray, or poison them with black gas.

Once you get past the broad symbolism, SF gives the reader the opportunity to ponder the ins and outs of a scenario otherwise far-removed from their lives. Fears of an end to British dominion are reified (abstract becomes concrete) as a Martian invasion. I think this is where my fascination with the cup of tea comes from. The most interesting part of WotW, to me, is watching how the Martians interact with the established patterns of daily life. I'll end with a passage from the book:

The most extraordinary thing to my mind of all the strange and wonderful things that happened upon that Friday, was the dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of the series of events that was to topple the social order headlong. (First paragraph, Book 1, Chapter 8).