The War of the Worlds [Paperback]

For more than one hundred years H. G. Wells’ classic science fiction tale of the Martian invasion of Earth has enthralled readers with a combination of imagination and incisive commentary on the imbalance of power that continues to be relevant today.

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....

So beginsThe War of the Worlds, the science fiction classic that first proposed the possibility of intelligent life on other planets and has enthralled readers for generations. This compelling tale describes the Martian invasion of earth. When huge, tireless creatures land in England, complete chaos erupts. Using their fiery heat rays and crushing strength, the aliens just may succeed in silencing all opposition. Is life on earth doomed? Will mankind survive? A timeless view of a universe turned upside down,The War of the Worldsis an ingenious and imaginative look into the possibilities of the future and the secrets yet to be revealed.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY KARL KROEBER AND AN AFTERWORD BY ISAAC ASIMOV“The creations of Mr. Wells . . . belong unreservedly to an age and degree of scientific knowledge far removed from the present, though I will not say entirely beyond the limits of the possible.” —Jules VerneHerbert George Wells(1866–1946) left school at thirteen to become a draper’s apprentice (a life he detested); he later won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London, where he studied with the famous T. H. Huxley. He began to sell articles and short stories regularly in 1893. His immediately successful novelThe Time Machinerescued him from poverty. His other ‘‘scientific romances’’—The Island of Dr. Moreau(1896),The Invisible Man(1897),The War of the Worlds