The War of the World

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.