The War of the Worlds

On a summer night, at the end of the nineteenth century, a " meteor" lands on Horsell Common in London. An artificial cylinder is found the next day and upon approaching it, the unsuspecting humans are instantly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray, as terrifying Martians emerge and blaze a path of fiery destruction across Victorian England. Amid the boundless destruction that is caused, it looks as if the end of the world has come . . . . The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest science-fiction that explores the possibilities of intelligent life from other planets and details a conflict between humankind and an extraterrestrial race . . . this novel vividly describes the mass hysteria such an invasion would stimulate and shows how unprepared our civilization is for the onslaught of forces from another world. "