Speculative

The War of the Worlds

by H. G. Wells

Martians land in England with weapons no army of the era can answer, and the whole apparatus of empire discovers, briefly and instructively, what it feels like to be on the losing end of one. Wells wrote it as a pointed rebuke to a country very sure of its own permanence. The ending humbles the invaders rather than the defenders, and I suspect that was deliberate too.

The librarian

Read it in the Library After Dark Or read it as plain text

Reading time

About 4 hr 5 min

Where to find it

The Set Texts Room; The Reading Room of Helium, on Mars

Edition

Project Gutenberg, eBook #36. In the public domain in the United States.