HMS Thunder Child
Encyclopedia
HMS Thunder Child is the name of the fictional ironclad torpedo ram
of the Royal Navy
that is destroyed by Martian
fighting-machines in H. G. Wells
' The War of the Worlds
. It sacrificed itself to allow the refugee vessels to escape.
in 1866 by the Austrian flagship, Ferdinand Max. Despite the Italian warship being stationary at the time, the successful attack influenced naval thinking for the next few decades.
The result were specially-designed low profile, fast, armored vessels that could attack with a ram and/or torpedoes — in practice one or other of these weapons might be absent. They were intended for use in situations where it was possible to approach an enemy ship without being sunk, for example at night or in poor visibility, or where the enemy ship was stationary, disabled or lacked fire support from nearby ships.As late as 1896 the United States commissioned a ship whose only effective weapon was a ram, the harbour-defence ram USS Katahdin
.
But very few torpedo rams were built by the world's navies. The Royal Navy's only example was HMS Polyphemus
which entered service in 1882. Its primary armament was torpedoes, with four side-firing tubes and one forward-firing tube in the centre of the bow-mounted ram, like the eye of a Cyclops
— hence the ship's name, after Polyphemus
. The ram was fitted in case the then-novel underwater torpedo tubes failed to operate properly. After the ship successfully destroyed a harbour defence boom with her ram in 1885, the Royal Navy ordered two further ships of this class. However, neither ship was built, probably because the development of quick-firing traversing guns made these vessels vulnerable as they closed for attack.
, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping."
In Jeff Wayne
's musical adaptation
, the ship is described as an ironclad but not specifically a ram or a torpedo ram; the album cover illustration of Thunder Child clearly resembles a pre-dreadnought
battleship
such as the Canopus-class
vessel HMS Ocean
. The ship is also depicted in art in the Classics Illustrated
comic book
adaptation of the novel, also appearing as a typical pre-dreadnought battleship. The real torpedo ram HMS Polyphemus
was a smaller type of ship (2,600 tons versus 13,000 tons for HMS Ocean) but fast, heavily armoured for her size and capable of operating in shallow coastal waters; her hull was low in the water with a raft-like superstructure mounting six 1-inch Nordenfelt gun
s, again very much unlike an ironclad battleship.
s attempted to escape by sea from Tillingham Bay on the Essex
coast. Included in the rag-tag fleet of ships was a paddle wheel
steamer laden with the brother of the narrator of the novel, his two female companions and other refugees from London
.
In Wells' original novel the battle takes place off the mouth of the River Blackwater, Essex
.
Three Martian tripod fighting-machines then decided to approach the vessels from the sea. HMS Thunder Child — a torpedo ram
that had been patrolling about two miles away — raced to engage them but without firing. The novel states that since her guns remained quiet as she charged the tripods, she was probably not immediately seen as a threat, so she was not immediately destroyed by their Heat-Ray. In addition, the crowded and turbulent mass of refugee
shipping stretching from Foulness
to the Naze may have also influenced the captain's decision.
The Martians, whom the narrator suggests were unfamiliar with large warships, at first responded to Thunder Childs charge with only a gas attack, which was ineffective. After seeing the ship's continued advance, the Martians deployed their Heat-Ray, inflicting a great amount of damage upon Thunder Child. She was, however, able to ram one of the fighting-machines, destroying it.
In sinking condition but with steering and propulsion still functional, Thunder Child turned toward a second fighting-machine and began to use her guns. Although she appeared to score no significant hits and one of her misses sunk a nearby fishing smack, she was able to set a collision course with the second Martian tripod before its Heat-Ray found her. The resulting explosion of her boilers and ammunition magazines destroyed Thunder Child, but her flaming wreckage plowed into the second Martian machine and destroyed it.
ironclads to arrive. The fate of the third Martian fighting machine is not revealed by Wells, but the battle did enable the civilian shipping to escape.
As depicted in the book, Thunder Child is the only human artifact which can compete with the Martian fighting-machines on anything like equal terms, the battle clearly giving a morale boost to hard-pressed humanity.
is dedicated to the drama of this scene. Cover art
of the album depicts a in combat with tripods. The artwork of the ship appears to be based on an artist's impression of the Battle of Coronel
(1 November 1914), in which the two outdated British armoured cruisers
, Good Hope
and Monmouth
, were sunk with all hands off the coast of Chile
by a German fleet of five modern cruisers commanded by Vizeadmiral
Maximilian von Spee
.
The Royal Navy
has never called a ship HMS Thunder Child, the closest names used being Thunderbolt
and Thunderer
.
, both of which play out in the novel's depicted period, feature the ship. The Pendragon adaptation uses CGI
to portray the Thunder Child as a Royal Navy Canopus class pre-dreadnought battleship, and reverses the order of the ship's attack; it uses guns first, before ramming, in both cases successfully. The vessel eventually sinks from damage sustained in the battle.
A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber replaces Thunder Child in Orson Welles's famous radio adaptation
of The War of the Worlds After being critically damaged by a fighting machine's Heat-Ray, it crashes into the Martian tripod.
In other adaptations, Thunder Child has been substituted for appropriate technology of the period. In the 1953 film
the last-ditch defence is an atomic bomb
which, despite being man's most incredible weapon, is as useless as every other physical attack against the invaders. In Steven Spielberg
's 2005 version of War of the Worlds
, contemporary American military forces use tanks and helicopters to try to hold back the alien tripods, again without success. Earlier in the movie, civilian transport ships trying to escape from the Tripods are trapped and easily sunk, with no intervention by any military warship. The lack of a dramatic rescue by a self-sacrificing ironclad or a similar ship in this scene disappointed and angered some fans of the book and musical versions of the story.
, a sequel set a decade after the events of the story, the ship (spelt erroneously as Thunderchild) and its efforts are remembered. One of the supporting characters is a survivor of the ship's destruction, presumably the only one who did so. There is also a monument dedicated to the ship's fight against the Martians.
In Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds, the first mate of the Thunder Child is said to have been the husband of Violet Hunter, from The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
.
In the fictional universe of Star Trek
, a Federation Akira-class starship is named USS Thunderchild in honor of Wells' fictional ship, and fights against the Borg
in Star Trek: First Contact
. In the computer game, MechWarrior 4: Vengeance, the player faces a pair of destroyers during a mission, one of which is named the Thunderchild.
In the science fiction roleplaying game Traveller: the New Era
(TNE), a Reformation Coalition "clipper"-class starship was named RCS Thunderchild in honor of the War of the Worlds vessel. The ship's patch, presented in the TNE sourcebook Star Vikings, shows the influence of the Jeff Wayne
image of the ironclad, combined with a 19th century image of the Martian war machine. Details also appear in the TNE products Path of Tears and Reformation Coalition Equipment Guide.
A fiction book by Nick Pope
concerning UFOs is named Operation: Thunder Child.
In the Mindstar Trilogy of books by Peter F. Hamilton
, the central character, Greg Mandel
, operated under the military callsign "Thunderchild". It seems probable that this was chosen by the author as a deliberate reference to H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds.
Torpedo ram
A torpedo ram is a type of torpedo boat combining a ram with torpedo tubes. Incorporating design elements from the cruiser and the monitor, it was intended to provide small and inexpensive weapon systems for coastal defence and other littoral combat....
of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
that is destroyed by Martian
Martian (War of the Worlds)
The Martians, also known as the Invaders, are the fictional race of extraterrestrials from the H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds. They are the antagonists of the novel, and their efforts to exterminate the populace of Earth and claim the planet for themselves drive the plot and present...
fighting-machines in H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
' The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds is an 1898 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells.The War of the Worlds may also refer to:- Radio broadcasts :* The War of the Worlds , the 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles...
. It sacrificed itself to allow the refugee vessels to escape.
Historical basis
Torpedo rams were constructed in the 1870s and 1880s after the ramming and sinking of the Re d'Italia at the Battle of LissaBattle of Lissa (1866)
The Battle of Lissa took place on 20 July 1866 in the Adriatic Sea near the Dalmatian island of Lissa and was a decisive victory for an outnumbered Austrian Empire force over a superior Italian force...
in 1866 by the Austrian flagship, Ferdinand Max. Despite the Italian warship being stationary at the time, the successful attack influenced naval thinking for the next few decades.
The result were specially-designed low profile, fast, armored vessels that could attack with a ram and/or torpedoes — in practice one or other of these weapons might be absent. They were intended for use in situations where it was possible to approach an enemy ship without being sunk, for example at night or in poor visibility, or where the enemy ship was stationary, disabled or lacked fire support from nearby ships.As late as 1896 the United States commissioned a ship whose only effective weapon was a ram, the harbour-defence ram USS Katahdin
USS Katahdin (1893)
USS Katahdin, an ironclad harbor-defense ram of innovative design, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for Mount Katahdin, a mountain peak in Maine....
.
But very few torpedo rams were built by the world's navies. The Royal Navy's only example was HMS Polyphemus
HMS Polyphemus (1881)
The third HMS Polyphemus was a Royal Navy torpedo ram, serving from 1881 until 1903. A shallow-draft, fast, low-profile vessel, she was designed to penetrate enemy harbours at speed and sink anchored ships. Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby primarily as a protected torpedo boat, the ram was provided...
which entered service in 1882. Its primary armament was torpedoes, with four side-firing tubes and one forward-firing tube in the centre of the bow-mounted ram, like the eye of a Cyclops
Cyclops
A cyclops , in Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, was a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead...
— hence the ship's name, after Polyphemus
Polyphemus
Polyphemus is the gigantic one-eyed son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes. His name means "much spoken of" or "famous". Polyphemus plays a pivotal role in Homer's Odyssey.-In Homer's Odyssey:...
. The ram was fitted in case the then-novel underwater torpedo tubes failed to operate properly. After the ship successfully destroyed a harbour defence boom with her ram in 1885, the Royal Navy ordered two further ships of this class. However, neither ship was built, probably because the development of quick-firing traversing guns made these vessels vulnerable as they closed for attack.
Fictional description
In the novel, Wells gives only a rough description of the ship, describing her thus: “About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water, almost, to my brother's perception, like a water-logged ship. This was the ram Thunder Child.” A few paragraphs later, it is said that "It was the torpedo ramTorpedo ram
A torpedo ram is a type of torpedo boat combining a ram with torpedo tubes. Incorporating design elements from the cruiser and the monitor, it was intended to provide small and inexpensive weapon systems for coastal defence and other littoral combat....
, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping."
In Jeff Wayne
Jeff Wayne
Jeffry "Jeff" Wayne, born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, is a musician best known for Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, his musical version of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds...
's musical adaptation
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds is a 1978 concept album by Jeff Wayne, retelling the story of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Its format is progressive rock and string orchestra, using narration and leitmotifs to carry the story via rhyming melodic lyrics that express...
, the ship is described as an ironclad but not specifically a ram or a torpedo ram; the album cover illustration of Thunder Child clearly resembles a pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea-going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad warships of the 1870s and 1880s...
battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
such as the Canopus-class
Canopus class battleship
The Canopus class was a group of six pre-dreadnought battleships of the Royal Navy which were designed by Sir William White for use in the Far East and entered service between 1899 and 1902. The lead ship was which was followed by , , , and...
vessel HMS Ocean
HMS Ocean (1898)
The fourth HMS Ocean was a Canopus-class battleship of the British Royal Navy.-Technical Description:HMS Ocean was laid down at Devonport Dockyard on 15 December 1897, launched on 5 July 1898, and completed in February 1900...
. The ship is also depicted in art in the Classics Illustrated
Classics Illustrated
Classics Illustrated is a comic book series featuring adaptations of literary classics such as Moby Dick, Hamlet, and The Iliad. Created by Albert Kanter, the series began publication in 1941 and finished its first run in 1971, producing 169 issues. Following the series' demise, various companies...
comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
adaptation of the novel, also appearing as a typical pre-dreadnought battleship. The real torpedo ram HMS Polyphemus
HMS Polyphemus (1881)
The third HMS Polyphemus was a Royal Navy torpedo ram, serving from 1881 until 1903. A shallow-draft, fast, low-profile vessel, she was designed to penetrate enemy harbours at speed and sink anchored ships. Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby primarily as a protected torpedo boat, the ram was provided...
was a smaller type of ship (2,600 tons versus 13,000 tons for HMS Ocean) but fast, heavily armoured for her size and capable of operating in shallow coastal waters; her hull was low in the water with a raft-like superstructure mounting six 1-inch Nordenfelt gun
1-inch Nordenfelt gun
The 1-inch Nordenfelt gun was an early rapid-firing light gun intended to defend larger warships against the new small fast-moving torpedo boats in the late 1870s to the early 1880s.-Description:...
s, again very much unlike an ironclad battleship.
Battle
On a Wednesday evening, immediately after the Martians conquered London and the surrounding areas, a large number of refugeeRefugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
s attempted to escape by sea from Tillingham Bay on the Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
coast. Included in the rag-tag fleet of ships was a paddle wheel
Paddle wheel
A paddle wheel is a waterwheel in which a number of scoops are set around the periphery of the wheel. It has several usages.* Very low lift water pumping, such as flooding paddy fields at no more than about height above the water source....
steamer laden with the brother of the narrator of the novel, his two female companions and other refugees from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
In Wells' original novel the battle takes place off the mouth of the River Blackwater, Essex
River Blackwater, Essex
The River Blackwater is a river in England. It rises in the northwest of Essex as the River Pant and flows to Bocking, near Braintree, from where its name changes to the Blackwater. Its course takes it near Stisted, and then via Bradwell Juxta Coggeshall and Coggeshall and near Witham where it is...
.
Three Martian tripod fighting-machines then decided to approach the vessels from the sea. HMS Thunder Child — a torpedo ram
Torpedo ram
A torpedo ram is a type of torpedo boat combining a ram with torpedo tubes. Incorporating design elements from the cruiser and the monitor, it was intended to provide small and inexpensive weapon systems for coastal defence and other littoral combat....
that had been patrolling about two miles away — raced to engage them but without firing. The novel states that since her guns remained quiet as she charged the tripods, she was probably not immediately seen as a threat, so she was not immediately destroyed by their Heat-Ray. In addition, the crowded and turbulent mass of refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
shipping stretching from Foulness
Foulness
Foulness is an island on the east coast of Essex in England, which is separated from the mainland by narrow creeks. The large island had a usually resident population of 212 people in the 2001 census, who live in the settlements of Churchend and Courtsend, at the north end of Foulness. The island...
to the Naze may have also influenced the captain's decision.
The Martians, whom the narrator suggests were unfamiliar with large warships, at first responded to Thunder Childs charge with only a gas attack, which was ineffective. After seeing the ship's continued advance, the Martians deployed their Heat-Ray, inflicting a great amount of damage upon Thunder Child. She was, however, able to ram one of the fighting-machines, destroying it.
In sinking condition but with steering and propulsion still functional, Thunder Child turned toward a second fighting-machine and began to use her guns. Although she appeared to score no significant hits and one of her misses sunk a nearby fishing smack, she was able to set a collision course with the second Martian tripod before its Heat-Ray found her. The resulting explosion of her boilers and ammunition magazines destroyed Thunder Child, but her flaming wreckage plowed into the second Martian machine and destroyed it.
Aftermath
The attack by Thunder Child occupied the Martians long enough for three other Royal NavyRoyal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
ironclads to arrive. The fate of the third Martian fighting machine is not revealed by Wells, but the battle did enable the civilian shipping to escape.
As depicted in the book, Thunder Child is the only human artifact which can compete with the Martian fighting-machines on anything like equal terms, the battle clearly giving a morale boost to hard-pressed humanity.
Interpretations
A song entitled "Thunder Child" in Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the WorldsJeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds is a 1978 concept album by Jeff Wayne, retelling the story of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Its format is progressive rock and string orchestra, using narration and leitmotifs to carry the story via rhyming melodic lyrics that express...
is dedicated to the drama of this scene. Cover art
Cover art
Cover art is the illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book , magazine, comic book, video game , DVD, CD, videotape, or music album. The art has a primarily commercial function, i.e...
of the album depicts a in combat with tripods. The artwork of the ship appears to be based on an artist's impression of the Battle of Coronel
Battle of Coronel
The First World War naval Battle of Coronel took place on 1 November 1914 off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. German Kaiserliche Marine forces led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee met and defeated a Royal Navy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher...
(1 November 1914), in which the two outdated British armoured cruisers
Armored cruiser
The armored cruiser was a type of warship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Like other types of cruiser, the armored cruiser was a long-range, independent warship, capable of defeating any ship apart from a battleship, and fast enough to outrun any battleships it encountered.The first...
, Good Hope
HMS Good Hope (1901)
HMS Good Hope was a 14,100-ton Drake-class armoured cruiser of the British Royal Navy; she was originally planned to be named Africa, but was renamed before she was launched...
and Monmouth
HMS Monmouth (1901)
The sixth HMS Monmouth of the British Royal Navy was the lead ship of a class of armoured cruisers of 9,800 tons displacement. She was sunk at the Battle of Coronel in 1914....
, were sunk with all hands off the coast of Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
by a German fleet of five modern cruisers commanded by Vizeadmiral
Vice Admiral
Vice admiral is a senior naval rank of a three-star flag officer, which is equivalent to lieutenant general in the other uniformed services. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral...
Maximilian von Spee
Maximilian von Spee
Vice Admiral Maximilian Reichsgraf von Spee was a German admiral. Although he was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, the counts von Spee belonged to the prominent families of the Rhenish nobility. He joined the Kaiserliche Marine in 1878. In 1887–88 he commanded the Kamerun ports, in German West...
.
The Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
has never called a ship HMS Thunder Child, the closest names used being Thunderbolt
HMS Thunderbolt
Four vessels of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Thunderbolt: was originally a French ship, but was captured in 1696 and commissioned into the Royal Navy. It was converted to a hulk in 1699 and broken up in 1731. was a wooden paddle sloop launched in 1842 and wrecked off South Africa in 1847...
and Thunderer
HMS Thunderer
Eight ships and one shore establishment of the Royal Navy have been called HMS Thunderer: was a 74-gun third-rate launched in 1760. She was wrecked in 1780 was a 14-gun ketch launched in 1776. She sank on Lake Champlain in 1777...
.
Adaptations
Of the various adaptations and updates only the Jeff Wayne musical and the 2005 Pendragon film adaptationH.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (2005 film)
H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds is one of three film adaptations of H. G. Wells' classic novel released in 2005, about a Martian invasion of Earth...
, both of which play out in the novel's depicted period, feature the ship. The Pendragon adaptation uses CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
to portray the Thunder Child as a Royal Navy Canopus class pre-dreadnought battleship, and reverses the order of the ship's attack; it uses guns first, before ramming, in both cases successfully. The vessel eventually sinks from damage sustained in the battle.
A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber replaces Thunder Child in Orson Welles's famous radio adaptation
The War of the Worlds (radio)
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode of the series on October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker...
of The War of the Worlds After being critically damaged by a fighting machine's Heat-Ray, it crashes into the Martian tripod.
In other adaptations, Thunder Child has been substituted for appropriate technology of the period. In the 1953 film
The War of the Worlds (1953 film)
The War of the Worlds is a 1953 science fiction film starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. It was the first on-screen loose adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic novel of the same name...
the last-ditch defence is an atomic bomb
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
which, despite being man's most incredible weapon, is as useless as every other physical attack against the invaders. In Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's 2005 version of War of the Worlds
War of the Worlds (2005 film)
War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction film adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel of the same name, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It is one of three film adaptations of War of the Worlds released that year, alongside The Asylum's version and...
, contemporary American military forces use tanks and helicopters to try to hold back the alien tripods, again without success. Earlier in the movie, civilian transport ships trying to escape from the Tripods are trapped and easily sunk, with no intervention by any military warship. The lack of a dramatic rescue by a self-sacrificing ironclad or a similar ship in this scene disappointed and angered some fans of the book and musical versions of the story.
Further uses
In the comic book Scarlet TracesScarlet Traces
Scarlet Traces is a comic story of the Steampunk genre, written by Ian Edginton and illustrated by D'Israeli. It was original published online before being serialised in 2002. A sequel, Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, followed in 2006....
, a sequel set a decade after the events of the story, the ship (spelt erroneously as Thunderchild) and its efforts are remembered. One of the supporting characters is a survivor of the ship's destruction, presumably the only one who did so. There is also a monument dedicated to the ship's fight against the Martians.
In Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds, the first mate of the Thunder Child is said to have been the husband of Violet Hunter, from The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
"The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the last of the twelve collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...
.
In the fictional universe of Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
, a Federation Akira-class starship is named USS Thunderchild in honor of Wells' fictional ship, and fights against the Borg
Borg (Star Trek)
The Borg are a fictional pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms depicted in the Star Trek universe associated with Star Trek.Whereas cybernetics are used by other races in the science fiction world to repair bodily damage and birth defects, the Borg use enforced cybernetic enhancement as a means of...
in Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact is the eighth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise, released in November 1996, by Paramount Pictures. First Contact is the first film in the franchise to feature no cast members from the original Star Trek television series of the 1960s...
. In the computer game, MechWarrior 4: Vengeance, the player faces a pair of destroyers during a mission, one of which is named the Thunderchild.
In the science fiction roleplaying game Traveller: the New Era
Traveller (role-playing game)
Traveller is a series of related science fiction role-playing games, the first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop and subsequent editions by various companies remaining in print to this day. The game was inspired from such classic science fiction stories as the Dumarest saga series by...
(TNE), a Reformation Coalition "clipper"-class starship was named RCS Thunderchild in honor of the War of the Worlds vessel. The ship's patch, presented in the TNE sourcebook Star Vikings, shows the influence of the Jeff Wayne
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds is a 1978 concept album by Jeff Wayne, retelling the story of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Its format is progressive rock and string orchestra, using narration and leitmotifs to carry the story via rhyming melodic lyrics that express...
image of the ironclad, combined with a 19th century image of the Martian war machine. Details also appear in the TNE products Path of Tears and Reformation Coalition Equipment Guide.
A fiction book by Nick Pope
Nick Pope
Nick Pope worked for 21 years at the British Government's Ministry of Defence from 1985 to 2006. He is best-known for a job that he did from 1991 to 1994, where his duties included investigating reports of UFO sightings, to see if they had any defence significance...
concerning UFOs is named Operation: Thunder Child.
In the Mindstar Trilogy of books by Peter F. Hamilton
Peter F. Hamilton
Peter F. Hamilton is a British author. He is best known for writing space opera. As of the publication of his tenth novel in 2004, his works had sold over two million copies worldwide.- Biography :...
, the central character, Greg Mandel
Greg Mandel
Greg Mandel is a fictional private detective who featured in three novels and a novella by the English science fiction writer Peter F. Hamilton....
, operated under the military callsign "Thunderchild". It seems probable that this was chosen by the author as a deliberate reference to H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds.