On a summer night, at the end of the nineteenth century, a “meteor” lands on Horsell Common in London. An artificial cylinder is found the next day and upon approaching it, the unsuspecting humans are instantly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray, as terrifying Martians emerge and blaze a path of fiery destruction across Victorian England. Amid the boundless destruction that is caused, it looks as if the end of the world has come . . . .
The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest science-fiction that explores the possibilities of intelligent life from other planets and details a conflict between humankind and an extraterrestrial race . . . this novel vividly describes the mass hysteria such an invasion would stimulate and shows how unprepared our civilization is for the onslaught of forces from another world.
About the Author
Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) has been called the father of science fiction. His notable works include The War of the Worlds (1897), The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897), and The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896). He also wrote on topics related to history and social commentary. His novels—Kipps and The History of Mr. Polly—which describe lower-middle class life, led to the suggestion that he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens. He described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English society as a whole.
Wells died in London on August 13, 1946, after living through two World Wars. The War of the Worlds has been both popular (having never gone out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films, radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It has even influenced the work of scientists, notably Robert Hutchings Goddard.
- Weight : 170
- Breadth : 12.6
- Length : 19.6
- Height : 1.5