# The War of the Worlds

- Novel
- Synopsis
- Radio drama

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells is one of the earliest examples of a science fiction novel that deals with conflict between Earth and an alien race. It tells the story of a Martian invasion that lays waste to southern England with no concern for human life. Yet the opening words portend the final denoument:

> 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 scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise 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.

In 1938, the Columbia Broadcasting System in the United States aired a radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds. Much of it was presented as a series of simulated news bulletins, and it ran without commercials. This led to sensationalist press reports about supposed panic among listeners who believed the invasion was real.