War of the Worlds
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
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Book 1: Chapter 1
The Eve of the War
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Book 1: Chapter 2
The Falling Star
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Book 1: Chapter 3
The Horsell Common
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Book 1: Chapter 4
The Cylinder Opens
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Book 1: Chapter 5
The Heat-Ray
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Book 1: Chapter 6
The Heat-Ray in the Chobham Road
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Book 1: Chapter 7
How I Reached Home
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Book 1: Chapter 8
Friday Night
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Book 1: Chapter 9
The Fighting Begins
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Book 1: Chapter 10
In the Storm
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Book 1: Chapter 11
At the Window
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Book 1: Chapter 12
What I Saw of the Destruction of Weybridge and Shepperton
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Book 1: Chapter 13
How I Fell In With the Curate
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Book 1: Chapter 14
In London
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Book 1: Chapter 15
What Had Happened In Surrey
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Book 1: Chapter 16
The Exodus From London
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Book 1: Chapter 17
The "Thunder Child"
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Book 2: Chapter 1
Under Foot
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Book 2: Chapter 2
What We Saw From the Ruined House
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Book 2: Chapter 3
The Days of Imprisonment
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Book 2: Chapter 4
The Death of the Curate
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Book 2: Chapter 5
The Stillness
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Book 2: Chapter 6
The Work of Fifteen Days
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Book 2: Chapter 7
The Man on Putney Hill
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Book 2: Chapter 8
Dead London
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Book 2: Chapter 9
Wreckage
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Book 2: Chapter 10
The Epilogue