The War of the Worlds [Paperback]

H.G. Wells's science fiction classic, the first novel to explore the possibilities of intelligent life from other planets, it still startling and vivid nearly after a century after its appearance, and a half-century after Orson Wells's infamous 1938 radio adaptation. The daring portrayal of aliens landing on English soil, with its themes of interplanetary imperialism, technological holocaust and chaos, is central to the career of H.G. Wells, who died at the dawn of the atomic age. The survival of mankind in the face of "vast and cool and unsympathetic" scientific powers spinning out of control was a crucial theme throughout his work. Visionary, shocking and chilling,The War Of The Worldshas lost none of its impact since its first publication in 1898.“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 VerneArthur C. Clarkehas long been considered the greatest science fiction writer of all time. Books by Clarke—both fiction and nonfiction—have sold more than a hundred million copies worldwide. He died in 2008.Book One:
The Coming of the Martians

Chapter 1
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 scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize 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 thlC#