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The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was written between 1895 and 1897, and serialised in Pearson's Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan magazine in the US in 1897. The full novel was first published in hardcover in 1898 by William Heinemann. The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between humankind and an extraterrestrial race. The novel is the first-person narrative of an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and his younger brother in London as southern England is invaded by Martians. It is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon. The plot is similar to other works of invasion literature from the same period, and has been variously interpreted as a commentary on the theory of evolution, imperialism, and Victorian era fears, superstitions and prejudices. Wells later noted that inspiration for the plot was the catastrophic effect of European colonisation on the Aboriginal Tasmanians. Some historians have argued that Wells wrote the book to encourage his readership to question the morality of imperialism. At the time of publication, it was classified as a scientific romance, like Wells's earlier novel, The Time Machine. The War of the Worlds has been both popular (having never been out of print) and influential, spawning numerous feature films, radio dramas, a record album, comic book adaptations, television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It was memorably dramatised in a 1938 radio programme, directed by and starring Orson Welles, that reportedly caused panic among listeners who did not know that the events were fictional. The novel even influenced the work of scientists. Robert H. Goddard was inspired by the book, and helped develop both the liquid-fuelled rocket and multistage rocket, which resulted in the Apollo 11 Moon landing 71 years later. Plot Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. The coming of the Martians The novel opens in the mid-1890s, with aliens on Mars plotting an invasion of Earth because their resources were dwindling. The main narrative ("The Great Disillusionment") takes place in the early 20th century, in the summer, when an object thought to be a meteor lands on Horsell Common, near the narrator's home. It turns out to be an artificial cylinder that was launched towards Earth several months earlier as Earth and Mars approached opposition. Martians emerge briefly, but have difficulty coping with Earth's atmosphere and gravity. When humans approach the cylinder with a white flag, the Martians incinerate them using a heat ray. Military forces arrive that night. The next day, the narrator takes his wife to safety in Leatherhead by means of a dog-cart rented from the local pub landlord, but returns home by himself immediately after in order to return the vehicle. That night, he sees a three-legged Martian "fighting-machine" (tripod), armed with a heat-ray and a chemical weapon: the poisonous "black smoke". Tripods have wiped out the army around the cylinder and destroyed most of Woking. The narrator approaches his own house and finds the landlord dead in the front garden, killed by a Martian attack. While keeping watch from an upper floor window, he offers shelter to an artilleryman who has fled after his company was wiped out attacking the cylinder. The narrator and the artilleryman try to escape back towards Leatherhead, but are separated during a Martian attack between Shepperton and Weybridge. As refugees try to cross the River Wey, the army destroys a tripod with artillery fire, and the Martians retreat. The narrator travels to Walton, where he meets a curate. The Martians attack again and people begin to flee London, including the narrator's brother, who travels with a Mrs Elphinstone and her sister-in-law to keep them safe. They reach the coast and buy passage to Continental Europe. Tripods attack, but a torpedo ram, HMS Thunder Child, destroys two of them before being destroyed itself (a third is either destroyed in the detonation of the ship ammunition stores, or flees unseen in the resultant smoke), and the evacuation fleet escapes. Soon, all organised resistance collapses, and Martians roam the shattered landscape unhindered. The Earth under the Martians At the beginning of Book Two, the narrator and the curate witness a Martian machine seizing people and tossing them into a carrier. The narrator realises that the Martian invaders may have plans for their victims. When a fifth Martian cylinder lands, both men are trapped beneath the ruins of a house. The narrator describes Martian anatomy and how they use living creatures' blood to nourish themselves. The two men's relationship deteriorates, and eventually, the narrator knocks the curate unconscious. A Martian removes the curate's body, but the narrator escapes detection. The Martians abandon the cylinder's crater, and the narrator emerges from the collapsed house and heads for West London. En route, he finds Martian red weed everywhere, prickly vegetation spreading wherever there is abundant water, but slowly dying. On Putney Heath, he encounters the artilleryman again. After abandoning him, he begins to go mad from his trauma, finally attempting suicide by approaching a stationary fighting machine on Primrose Hill. To his surprise, he discovers that all the Martians have been killed by an onslaught of earthly pathogens, to which they had no immunity. The narrator suffers a nervous breakdown and is nursed back to health by a kind family. Eventually, he returns to Woking, and discovers that his wife has survived. In the last chapter, he reflects on the Martian invasion, its impact on humanity's view of itself and the future, and the effect it has had on his mind. Background Style The War of the Worlds presents itself as a factual account of the Martian invasion. It is considered one of the first works to theorise the existence of a race intelligent enough to invade Earth. The narrator is a middle-class writer of philosophical papers, reminiscent of Doctor Kemp in The Invisible Man, with characteristics similar to author Wells at the time of writing. The reader learns little about the background of the narrator or indeed of anyone else in the novel; characterisation is unimportant. In fact, few of the principal characters are named, aside from the astronomer Ogilvy and Miss and Mrs Elphinstone. Scientific setting Wells was trained as a science teacher during the latter half of the 1880s. One of his teachers was Thomas Henry Huxley, a major advocate of Darwinism. Wells later taught science, and his first book was a biology textbook. Much of his work is notable for making contemporary ideas of science and technology easily understandable. The scientific fascinati.... Discover the Glenn Yeffeth Editor Drew Goddard David popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Glenn Yeffeth Editor Drew Goddard David books.