The War of the Worlds
Publisher Description
The chilling novel account of a Martian invasion of London in the nineteenth century—a science fiction classic for all time.
The War of the Worlds inspired the international bestseller The Map of the Sky by Félix J. Palma. As a gift to our readers, we are including an excerpt of The Map of the Sky in this eBook edition.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The BBC miniseries adaptation of The War of the Worlds will send many people in search of H. G. Wells’ science fiction classic—and it should. Wells’ suspenseful story of a Martian invasion of England in the 1890s benefited from his background as a scientist. But it was the author’s vivid imagination that made the idea of an alien takeover of Earth—a scenario that quickly became a key staple of science fiction—seem so terrifyingly plausible. And Wells’ deep understanding of human nature ratchets up the tension: His story reflects the way we tend to treat the “other” and the way social norms dissolve in a crisis, with fear, panic, and dread fueling both our fight-or-flight instincts and our darkest impulses. Science has evolved a lot since 1898, but people not so much. That’s the biggest scare in this thrilling novel, and the reason it still gives us the willies today.
