The War of the Worlds

By H. G. Wells

Mankind finds itself in a fight for its very survival when invaders from Mars land on Earth. Using their vastly superior technology the Martians make short order of all the great powers of Earth, laying waste to everything in their path. The novel follows an unnamed man as he flees for his life while trying to locate his wife in the shattered ruins of Earth. Powerful and insightful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilder Publications, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781633842380

H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells (1866-1946) is best remembered for his science fiction novels, which are considered classics of the genre, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). He was born in Bromley, Kent, and worked as a teacher, before studying biology under Thomas Huxley in London.

Book preview

The War of the Worlds

by H. G. Wells

But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be

inhabited? . . . Are we or they Lords of the

World? . . . And how are all things made for man?—

KEPLER (quoted in The Anatomy of Melancholy)

© 2014 Wilder Publications

ISBN: 978-1-63384-238-0

First Wilder Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Table of Contents

The Coming of the Martians

The Eve of the War

The Falling Star

On Horsell Common

The Cylinder Opens

The Heat-Ray

The Heat-Ray in the Chobham Road

How I Reached Home

Friday Night

The Fighting Begins

In the Storm

At the Window

What I Saw of the Destruction of Weybridge and Shepperton

How I Fell in with the Curate

In London

What Had Happened in Surrey

The Exodus from London

The Thunder Child

The Earth under the Martians

Under Foot

What We Saw from the Ruined House

The Days of Imprisonment

The Death of the Curate

The Stillness

The Work of Fifteen Days

The Man on Putney Hill

Dead London

Wreckage

The Epilogue

THE COMING OF THE MARTIANS

The Eve of the War

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. 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. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence.

Yet so vain is man, and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer, up to the very end of the nineteenth century, expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that it is not only more distant from time’s beginning but nearer its end.

The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbour. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of, they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope, our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and grey with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through its drifting cloud wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow, navy-crowded seas.

And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them.

And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?

The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing subtlety—their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of ours—and to have carried out their preparations with a well-nigh perfect unanimity. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have seen the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century. Men like Schiaparelli watched the red planet—it is odd, by-the-bye, that for countless centuries Mars has been the star of war—but failed to interpret the fluctuating appearances of the markings they mapped so well. All that time the Martians must have been getting ready.

During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar markings, as yet unexplained, were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions.

The storm burst upon us six years ago now. As Mars approached opposition, Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred towards midnight of the twelfth; and the spectroscope, to which he had at once resorted, indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an enormous velocity towards this earth. This jet of fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, as flaming gases rushed out of a gun.

A singularly appropriate phrase it proved. Yet the next day there was nothing of this in the papers except a little note in the Daily Telegraph, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of the eruption at all had I not met Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer, at Ottershaw. He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a scrutiny of the red planet.

In spite of all that has happened since, I still remember that vigil very distinctly: the black and silent observatory, the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the steady ticking of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in the roof—an oblong profundity with the stardust streaked across it. Ogilvy moved about, invisible but audible. Looking through the telescope, one saw a circle of deep blue and the little round planet swimming in the field. It seemed such a little thing, so bright and small and still, faintly marked with transverse stripes, and slightly flattened from the perfect round. But so little it was, so silvery warm—a pin’s-head of light! It was as if it quivered, but really this was the telescope vibrating with the activity of the clockwork that kept the planet in view.

As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller and to advance and recede, but that was simply that my eye was tired. Forty millions of miles it was from us—more than forty millions of miles of void. Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.

Near it in the field, I remember, were three faint points of light, three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know how that blackness looks on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope it seems far profounder. And invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly and steadily towards me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer every minute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were sending us, the Thing that was to bring so much struggle and calamity and death to the earth. I never dreamed of it then as I watched; no one on earth dreamed of that unerring missile.

That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant planet. I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge, the slightest projection of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight; and at that I told Ogilvy and he took my place. The night was warm and I was thirsty, and I went stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the darkness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while Ogilvy exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out towards us.

That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth from Mars, just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first one. I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness, with patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I wished I had a light to smoke by, little suspecting the meaning of the minute gleam I had seen and all that it would presently bring me. Ogilvy watched till one, and then gave it up; and we lit the lantern and walked over to his house. Down below in the darkness were Ottershaw and Chertsey and all their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace.

He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars, and scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were signalling us. His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a heavy shower upon the planet, or that a huge volcanic explosion was in progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets.

The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one, he said.

Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night after about midnight, and again the night after; and so for ten nights, a flame each night. Why the shots ceased after the tenth no one on earth has attempted to explain. It may be the gases of the firing caused the Martians inconvenience. Dense clouds of smoke or dust, visible through a powerful telescope on earth as little grey, fluctuating patches, spread through the clearness of the planet’s atmosphere and obscured its more familiar features.

Even the daily papers woke up to the disturbances at last, and popular notes appeared here, there, and everywhere concerning the volcanoes upon Mars. The seriocomic periodical Punch, I remember, made a happy use of it in the political cartoon. And, all unsuspected, those missiles the Martians had fired at us drew earthward, rushing now at a pace of many miles a second through the empty gulf of space, hour by hour and day by day, nearer and nearer. It seems to me now almost incredibly wonderful that, with that swift fate hanging over us, men could go about their petty concerns as they did. I remember how jubilant Markham was at securing a new photograph of the planet for the illustrated paper he edited in those days. People in these latter times scarcely realise the abundance and enterprise of our nineteenth-century papers. For my own part, I was much occupied in learning to ride the bicycle, and busy upon a series of papers discussing the probable developments of moral ideas as civilisation progressed.

One night (the first missile then could scarcely have been 10,000,000 miles away) I went for a walk with my wife. It was starlight and I explained the Signs of the Zodiac to her, and pointed out Mars, a bright dot of light creeping zenithward, towards which so many telescopes were pointed. It was a warm night. Coming home, a party of excursionists from Chertsey or Isleworth passed us singing and playing music. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the people went to bed. From the railway station in the distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance. My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the sky. It seemed so safe and tranquil.

The Falling Star

Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary falling star. Albin described it as leaving a greenish streak behind it that glowed for some seconds. Denning, our greatest authority on meteorites, stated that the height of its first appearance was about ninety or one hundred miles. It seemed to him that it fell to earth about one hundred miles east of him.

I was at home at that hour and writing in my study; and although my French windows face towards Ottershaw and the blind was up (for I loved in those days to look up at the night sky), I saw nothing of it. Yet this strangest of all things that ever came to earth from outer space must have fallen while I was sitting there, visible to me had I only looked up as it passed. Some of those who saw its flight say it travelled with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that. Many people in Berkshire, Surrey, and Middlesex must have seen the fall of it, and, at most, have thought that another meteorite had descended. No one seems to have troubled to look for the fallen mass that night.

But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the shooting star and who was persuaded that a meteorite lay somewhere on the common between Horsell, Ottershaw, and Woking, rose early with the idea of finding it. Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the sand pits. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the projectile, and the sand and gravel had been flung violently in every direction over the heath, forming heaps visible a mile and a half away. The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose against the dawn.

The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the scattered splinters of a fir tree it had shivered to fragments in its descent. The uncovered part had the appearance of a huge cylinder, caked over and its outline softened by a thick scaly dun-coloured incrustation. It had a diameter of about thirty yards. He approached the mass, surprised at the size and more so at the shape, since most meteorites are rounded more or less completely. It was, however, still so hot from its flight through the air as to forbid his near approach. A stirring noise within its cylinder he ascribed to the unequal cooling of its surface; for at that time it had not occurred to him that it might be hollow.

He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had made for itself, staring at its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at its unusual shape and colour, and dimly perceiving even then some evidence of design in its arrival. The early morning was wonderfully still, and the sun, just clearing the pine trees towards Weybridge, was already warm. He did not remember hearing any birds that morning, there was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were the faint movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone on the common.

Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the grey clinker, the ashy incrustation that covered the meteorite, was falling off the circular edge of the end.

Reviews for The War of the Worlds

[jonfaith · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There isn't much use for the Humilation game in my regard, there are always blind spots and blank areas. I read this one today over three hours, pausing to admire its technique. It is a prescient novel, much as critical opinion concurs, one I find so haunting in its reach.

[jigarpatel-6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Published in 1898, three years after his famed debut The Time Machine, Wells presents a first-person account of a Martian invasion. By today's standards, the narrative feels detached. But the characterisation and concept shine. You meet a brave woman, an overwhelmed curate, a weak soldier. These very human interactions are just as welcome as descriptions of aliens and a London falling to pieces. A strong and thoughtful ending. Recommended.

[stahl2ricco · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

“the Martians are coming!”And they have Heat-Rays and Black Smoke to kick some English tushies! And they do!But as exciting as this all sounds, this book is rather boring. It's mostly about running and hiding and being frightened out of one's mind. No "war" to speak of. But lots of histrionics. Lots. I really wish I could have smacked the narrator's face. Lots. Also, the localities are very casually mentioned, and as I'm not familiar with those places, it made no impact on me whatsoever. In fact, the listing of places became a big part of my boredom. Where is he running? Then where? Ah, who gives a damn. In fact, I rooted for the Martians! Dang.

[mhanover10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this as an audiobook. I saw the Tom Cruise movie and so I was comparing this to the movie. I don't think I would have wanted aliens invading Earth back in the time when there was horse and buggy and no cell phones and the weaponry wasn't as sophisticated as it is now. very entertaining for a long car ride.

[wordsampersand · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I liked this quite a bit. Familiar with the story, of course, thanks to various other dramatizations, so it was nice to finally read this. The second half is quite eerie.

[adilinaria · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this one a lot more than The Time Machine by Mr. Wells. I'll always remember this one, rather unfortunately, for events having nothing to do with it. I finished 5 or 10 minutes before some explosions at the plant I work on and wound up locked in the building for about 6 hours. Kind of funny now in retrospect.But otherwise I enjoyed it. I liked the fast pace and the surprising ending. He had kind of alluded to it throughout the book but the sudden feeling was well done. I also really liked the ending with his family, I didn't expect that. For the length it was really good. Definitely recommend if you're going to be reading some SF classics.

[sometimeunderwater · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Obviously a classic, but the novel has been bettered by future adaptations (radio, film, etc.). The book has some dull moments, and the ending (which some adaptations have made into an amazing twist) is squandered in the book. Having your protagonist wonder "perhaps X will save humanity" makes it much less interesting when, yes, in the end, X saves humanity.

[doktor_stein · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Der ungekrönte König des Genres, das wohl berühmteste Hörspiel aller Zeiten. Unerreicht - unerreichbar - brilliant und folgenreich.

[tess_schoolmarm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

1950's martians invade earth. I suppose for the 1950's this was a great sci-fi book. The writing is lovely and descriptive, even though the plot advances slowly. I feel that many of the sub-plots are never developed. I read the free Kindle-version from Amazon and at about the 70% mark pages were out of order, repeated, etc, for about 7-10 pages.

[sedelia_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a science fiction fan, I have always been interested in reading The War of the Worlds, since it's the first of its kind. The modern movie with Tom Cruise put me off a little bit, even though I know it was vastly different than the novel. However, I finally got around to reading it and thought it was pretty good.Told mostly in first-person narrative, the novel starts off with cylinders landing on Earth. The Martians look like sickly, ungainly creatures barely able to survive on Earth, but then prove otherwise, using their heat rays and gigantic killing machines to wreak havoc on England.If you're looking for story with a lot of character development, look elsewhere. This is a novel solely focused on its plot. The narrator is basically the same person from beginning to end, just a little bit more jaded from war near the end. However, the plot is fantastic and moves along at a brisk pace. Wells does an excellent job in painting a picture of terror and war. I really enjoyed the suspense and thriller aspects of the novels. Also, it's simply interesting to see how this novel has influenced modern interpretations of science fiction and alien invasions.There are a lot of moments in this story that seemed convenient or forced; of course the main character would be trapped in a room with a peep hole so that he can observe the Martians and describe them; of course had a brother in London who lived to be able to relate those events, etc. This slightly bothered me, but it did further the story and provide a better picture of what was going on. Though I wish Wells would have used some other methods of conveying this information, I can see the dilemma of wanting to provide a seemingly-real firsthand account while also being able to provide all the details.Also, the narrator bothered me. He always seemed to know best and know more than everyone else, and I didn't really see justification for those thoughts. But, that's more of a personal issue.I do think this is best enjoyed when you have some knowledge of the historical context in which its written. It is imbued with the scientific thoughts of its time, as well as political and social ideas. (Namely, the idea of colonialism.) Understanding all of that makes The War of the Worlds a much better and more interesting story.Overall, I liked this novel. It's interesting to see how our ideas of aliens and alien invasion stories have developed, and it's simply an entertaining, dramatic story -- there were times where I held my breath in anticipation for what would happen next. I would recommend this for fans of science fiction and classics lovers.

[maydacat_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This classic tale of men from Mars may not be as bone-chilling as the Orson Welles broadcast, but there still is plenty of suspense. More detailed than the movies, this gripping tale of survival that ends almost at the point of giving up is one that shouldn’t be missed. How much can a man take? How long before he thinks it’s better to just give up and die? These are questions that this story raises. Thought-provoking as well as entertaining.

[atdcross · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Excellent story. Kind of outdated its writing style but enjoyable read.

[heggiep · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Maybe it's just these Trumpian times but this novel struck a chord with me. Really enjoyed it.

[longhorndaniel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The fact that this was written in 1890's is simply astonishing!! Have seen both versions of movie of course and while they were good; I like the original story better (with the exception of the whole London being the best city in the world thang); all sci fi fans should read this

[troyka-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

its a classic story, interesting to read it after the album, and the film and film.... it was hard work in places, but i enjoyed it.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this much more than Well's The Time Machine! Interesting that this too has a first person narration in which the narrator is never named.

[shelley.s · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The War of the Worlds 3/5All you classic fans with probably trial me as a witch after this review haha however, I liked this book, i didn't enjoy it as much as The Time Machine or Island of Dr Moreau though. I think i had high expectations because i've seen 'the film' and it was a surprise to find out the book was nothing like the film at all so was expecting a much more in depth story. It was good but i did prefer the story in the film sadly. The idea is very original and the story as a whole is good, it just wasn't as gripping for me as the time machineor the island of Dr Moreau

[justabookreader · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When an unidentified object lands just south of London, residents are left dumbfounded. Could it really be aliens from Mars? When actual aliens emerge from the pods, all of London is left running for its collective life as the aliens begin a methodical destruction of the planet. We follow the narrator as he makes his way back to his wife, suffering under the trampling of the Martians and witnessing horrors he never imagined possible. The War of the Worlds is written as if it were a factual account of the narrator’s experiences. I liked that. It takes what could be a basic story and makes it feel very visceral. It did annoy me that I knew absolutely nothing about the narrator beside the fact that he was a scientist and was married. He does recount one part of the story as a second hand account from his brother but that’s all you get to know about him. I found that frustrating.I did find this story much more interesting than The Time Machine and I think that had to do with the fact that there was a lot more action. In parts of The Time Machine, it felt as if little was happening but in The War of the Worlds, it was all action all the time. I do wish, and this goes for both books, that Wells had taken a few minutes to name his narrators; a pet peeve of mine. The intense dislike I had for The Time Machine didn’t appear when reading The War of the Worlds, in fact, I liked it better but if I had put this book down at any point, the possibly that I wouldn’t have picked it back up was there.

[ursula_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Everyone knows this is about the Martians invading. Most people probably know even more of the plot from having seen various film adaptations. I haven't seen any of them, but even so I had a good idea of what the aliens looked like before I even opened the book (and not just because the cover of my edition has illustrations of them done by Edward Gorey). So I'll just go over the outline - Martians land on earth, Martians kill everything in sight with some combination of heat ray, poison gas, and feeding habits, humans are resigned to total domination, the end of the book offers some uncertain reprieve.With that over, let's talk about the themes explored in the book. Much like The Time Machine, Wells has opinions on man's fate that aren't all that positive. Hubris is obviously one of man's biggest failings, in Wells' view, both for thinking that we are alone in the universe, and for thinking that getting rid of extraterrestrial invaders will be an easy task. Parallels are also drawn between man's dominion over the animals and finding the shoe on the other foot as Martians gain dominance on earth. Ultimately, the book seems to say that problems exist for which humans aren't going to have the answers, and we'd better hope that the planet itself can rescue us.Recommended for: fans of future tech and/or Martians, microbiologists, anyone who's ever wondered if, in the event of an invasion, the English would offer tea to the interlopers.Quote: "At the time there was a strong feeling in the streets that the authorities were to blame for their incapacity to dispose of the invaders without all this inconvenience."

[ombwarrior47 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved this book. Bit slow and lengthy at times but a great plot and great theme to it. Hardcore sci fi right here. :)

[steadfastreader · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I teetered on three or four stars and ended up giving it four because of the fabulous Orson Welles radio broadcast that it inspired.

This book is pretty much exactly what you expect. Definitely a classic and probably defined the field of science fiction.

Worth the read.

[br14jasm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells may have inspired the movie but they are two completely different thing. The book takes place in 1800s England where something horrific happens. The Martians home planet of Mars is dying. So they pack up and go to the closest habitable planet... Earth. The un-named narrator probably has the worst luck and your just around for the wild ride that would suck to be in.In the time period that the story takes place in people never even had the idea of extraterrestrial life until it sat on their front steps. Wells did an excellent job of showing the death and fear that had a very strong presence through the whole ordeal. Since it takes place in the 1800s the narrator talks like he is from the 1800s so some of it can be hard to follow.The only things that I would criticize is the way that Wells would almost seem to choose a word and then use it a ridiculous amount of times. Such as in the beginning he use the word scarcely a lot and some variation go the word fancy. And the other thing is the repetition of events. The same thing would happen over and over just different places with different circumstances. Otherwise the book was better than other books that I have read.

[jennyelizabeth-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As my first foray into the world of Sci Fi, I really enjoyed the vivid descriptions of everything, the emotional battles, the difficult people encountered and the scientific rationing of how to deal with and vanquish the Martians.

I even really enjoyed the Science vs Faith interplay, and relish the crushing defeat of the Martians at the hands of... well, I won't say for spoiler's sake.

H.G. Wells... I shall read more of you soon.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Got it in a book sale one summer when I was quite young -- nine or so, I think -- and scared myself silly with it. Never quite got up the courage to revisit, since then. I remember liking it a lot, but I also remember the nightmares about alien invasions.

[nmele_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reading another H.G. Wells novel I first read decades ago was like reading it for the first time. All the film versions, the Orson Welles radio theater, and the derivatives, do not detract from Wells's story. He manages the trick of describing an alien invasion, an event of worldwide importance, from the point of view of an anonymous observer who happens to witness the first landing. The science is out-dated--no radios or computers, for example, but the story left me with a sense Wells himself must have had of the fragility and promise of human life.

[duck2ducks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Most interesting thing about this book is the style: It doesn't read very much as a normal novel would - the famous ending is not one of exciting climax, but just eventual resolution - yet this rather works in its favor, as one gets the sense of the reportage of an actual war. It does get a little dry at times, but in other cases - such as the main character being trapped in a ruined house for two weeks, starving, with the Martians stationed right outside - it effectively conveys a real sense of suspense and dread.

[jwood652 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This classic by H. G. Wells offers a unique description of a Martian invasion with some interesting twists. It is a fun read.

[andreablythe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This classic tale of aliens landing on Earth for the purpose of destruction and colonization is an entertaining adventure yarn, which sets the stage for many future apocalyptic/horror stories. The main character records events after they happened and describes the landing of the Martians and their octopus-like bodies and tripod machines of destruction. There is escape, thousands of desperate and fleeing survivors swarming the roads, with scavenging and chaotic behavior. There are the empty ravaged landscapes, full of corpses and empty destroyed buildings and a sense of lonely desolation in the heart of a man who believe he may be the only survivor. In a sense, it's very similar to apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic tales that are told today with the exception of horse-drawn carriages and trains instead of automobiles and cell phones as the backdrop. It's a quick read and very entertaining, and it's easy to see why it became a classic. Now, I'm interested in finding a radio show version to listen to, especially due to all the mass panic stories from when the show was first aired. :)

[jseger9000 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A landmark of literature that still holds up. It is an extremely impressive bit of prognostication.Book one especially, reads like a newspaper report of the Martian invasion. Sixteen years before the beginning of the first world war, Wells describes gas attacks, mechanized warfare and the Blitzkrieg. He also describes a bit of Martian evolution, draws parallels between the invaders and the impact of the British empire on the inhabitants of the lands they conquered.The invasion is described in minute detail. I can imagine how gleeful Wells must have been as he described the destruction of locations he already knew in such detail. And I can only imagine the terror readers at the time felt reading about the effortless conquering of what was the capitol of the mightiest power on Earth. The Martians aren't interested in communication or negotiation. They show up and knock the defenses aside without concern.However, for me there just wasn't enough connection to our unnamed narrator. The ideas in the story were spectacularly impressive. But I wish there was more... humanness. The narrator is trying to get back to his wife, but even he admits he isn't trying particularly hard.In the second book, the narrator spends some time locked up in a collapsed house with an increasingly unbalanced individual. This is directly beside a Martian landing site.This section of the book, while still detailing the Martian invasion adds some suspense and real connection with the narrator. I wish some of that feeling were sprinkled through the rest of the book.My complaint was, for me, a serious one. It impacted me as I read through the book. Nonetheless, the book should be ready by all. It's impact on literature is massive.

[carebear36 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow! I was not expecting this to be as phenomenal as it was. I admit I saw the horrible Tom Cruise movie first and thought the book would be just as bad. I don't mind admitting that I was horribly wrong. This is by far my favorite Wells story so far. It is absolutely amazing. The plot might get a little slow at times, but Wells' dive into the human mind makes it well worth the read.