The War of the Worlds (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels) - Softcover

H. G. Wells

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486295060 ISBN 13: 9780486295060

Publisher: Dover Publications, 1997

Synopsis

One of the most famous science-fiction stories ever written, The War of the Worlds helped launch the entire genre by exploiting the concept of interplanetary travel.
First published in 1898, the novel terrified readers of the Victorian era with its account of an invasion of hostile creatures from Mars who moved across the English landscape in bizarre metal transports, using deadly heat rays to destroy buildings and annihilate all life in their path. Its power to stir the imagination was made abundantly clear when Orson Welles adapted the story for a radio drama on Halloween night in 1938 and created a national panic.
Despite readers' increasing sophistication about space travel and interplanetary invaders, The War of the Worlds remains a riveting reading experience. Its narrative energy, intensity, and striking originality remain undiminished, ready to thrill a new generation of readers with old-fashioned storytelling power.

About this title

Review:

This is the granddaddy of all alien invasion stories, first published by H.G. Wells in 1898. The novel begins ominously, as the lone voice of a narrator tells readers that "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..."

Things then progress from a series of seemingly mundane reports about odd atmospheric disturbances taking place on Mars to the arrival of Martians just outside of London. At first the Martians seem laughable, hardly able to move in Earth's comparatively heavy gravity even enough to raise themselves out of the pit created when their spaceship landed. But soon the Martians reveal their true nature as death machines 100-feet tall rise up from the pit and begin laying waste to the surrounding land. Wells quickly moves the story from the countryside to the evacuation of London itself and the loss of all hope as England's military suffers defeat after defeat. With horror his narrator describes how the Martians suck the blood from living humans for sustenance, and how it's clear that man is not being conquered so much a corralled. --Craig E. Engler

From the Publisher:

This book is a standard print version using a minimum of 10 point type in a 6 by 9 inch size and perfect bound - a paperback. As with all Quiet Vision print books, it use a high grade, acid free paper for long life.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0486295060
• ISBN 13: 9780486295060
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160