We Are the Martians: The Legacy of Nigel Kneale
Published by Electric Dreamhouse, 2017. 479 pages.
Edited by Neil Snowdon

I am a huge fan of the Quatermass films that Hammer Films gave us back in the late ‘50s, and the 3^rd film, Quatermass and the Pit in the ‘60s. Eventually I was able to track down the original serial versions (or what was left of the first story) on an import DVD. The more I found out about its original creator, Nigel Kneale, the more I discover his other cinematic worlds that he had written, such as The Stone Tapes (1972), The Woman in Black (1989) and the Beasts series (1976). And the more I was impressed.

To say that Kneale was ahead of his time seems to be one of those comments thrown about certain Sci-Fi authors, writing about our future technology. But the difference with Kneale is that while he did do that to a degree, he also seemed to write about our future as human beings. Within those stories, he also could create some unbelievable terrors, without really showing much to the audiences. It made us think.

This book is a collection of essays that covers a wide range of subjects dealing with Kneale and his work. There is chapter by Tim Lucas that cover his lesser-known literary short stories, other ones on specific episodes of his TV shows or films that he created. Mark Chardbourn’s essay, The King of Hauntology sort of gives us a biography of Kneale, except that instead of a straight biography, it goes over different events going on around him at the time, giving possible influences that could have had on him, and his writings.

In the essay by John Llewellyn Probert, Phenomena Badly Observed and Wrongly Explained: Quatermass, The Pit, and Me, he writes “Many fans of film and literature become so because of a similar epiphanic moment, that point where you realize what you have just read or seen is not just words on a page or sprockets holes running through a projector, but something that has had the power to completely change the way you feel about art and life in general.” I think a lot of us devoted fans of both film and literature have had that effect from a variety of titles. In fact, in his essay, Probert points out the fact that in the character of Romey in Quatermass and the Pit, near the end when most people are being taken over by the influence of the Martians, running around mad in the streets, Romey remains calm because he doesn’t feel any of the outside influence. Even with Quatermass explains that even he is fighting the urge to follow the chaos, Romey doesn’t. It really made me think of how, even today, how some groups are swayed by different things, from sporting events to political rhetoric, getting them to act in certain ways as a whole, while some sit on the outside, shaking their heads because we don’t get it. Pretty scary when the original teleplay was first broadcast at the end of 1958, and it shows just how it still translates even today.

If you are a fan of Kneale and his work, I couldn’t recommend this enough. You will learn a lot about the man, and even maybe understand why he was the way he was, especially the later part of his life, when he was known to be a bit curmudgeon. But you can’t acknowledge the impact he had, not just on what he created, but the impact of his influence he had on future writers, directors, and more. There are plenty of examples within these pages.