The War of the Worlds

Summary

Cylinders fall from the sky onto the English countryside and disgorge Martian invaders whose heat rays and towering fighting machines shatter human armies within days. Wells narrates the collapse through an ordinary man fleeing across a ruined Surrey, inverting the logic of empire by letting England experience invasion and conquest firsthand. The novel created the alien invasion story and its ending remains one of the most famous twists in science fiction.