H. G.

Wells
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 13 August 1946) was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books. Together with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback, Wells has been referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction". Wells was an outspoken socialist and sympathetic to pacifist views, although he supported the First World War once it was under way, and his later works became increasingly political and didactic. His middle-period novels (19001920) were less science-fictional; they covered H. G. (Herbert lower-middle class life (The History of Mr Polly) and the "New Woman" and the George) Wells Suffragettes (Ann Veronica).

Works
The Time Machine(1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau(1896), The Invisible Man(1897), The War of the Worlds(1898), The First Men in the Moon(1901), The Shape of Things to Come(1933)
Wells pictured some time before 1916 Born Herbert George Wells 21 September 1866 Bromley, Kent, England, United Kingdom 13 August 1946 (aged 79) London, England, United Kingdom Novelist, teacher, historian, journalist British Science fiction (notably social science fiction) The Time Machine(1895), The Invisible Man(1897), The Island of Doctor Moreau(1896),The War of the Worlds(1898), The First Men in the Moon(1901), The Shape of Things to Come(1933)

Died

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Nationality Genres

Notable work(s)

The War of the Worlds

Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish,

intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.
The narrator (who is never named) is at an observatory in Ottershaw when explosions are seen on Mars, causing interest among the scientific community. Later a "meteor" lands on Horsell Common, southwest of London, near the narrator's home in Woking, Surrey. He is among the first to discover that the object is a space-going artificial cylinder. When the cylinder opens, the Martians (bulky, octopus-like creatures the size of a bear) briefly emerge, show difficulty in coping with the Earth's atmosphere, and rapidly retreat into the cylinder, although a man who falls into the pit is apparently pulled in. A human deputation (which includes the astronomer Ogilvy) moves towards the cylinder with a white flag, but the Martians incinerate them with a heat-ray weapon, before beginning to assemble alien machinery. After the attack, the narrator takes his wife to Leatherhead to stay with relatives until the threat is eliminated. The army has meanwhile set up guns, although the firing stops later. Upon returning home, he discovers the Martians have assembled towering threelegged "fighting-machines" (Tripods), each armed with a heat-ray and achemical weapon: the so-called "black smoke". These Tripods easily defeat army units positioned around the crater and proceed to attack surrounding communities. Fleeing the scene, the narrator meets a retreating artilleryman, who tells him that another cylinder has landed between Woking and Leatherhead, cutting the narrator off from his wife. The two men try to escape together via Byfleet, but are separated at the Shepperton to Weybridge Ferry during a Martian attack on Shepperton. One of the Martian fighting machines is brought down in the River Thames by British artillery, causing its hot heat-ray equipment to almost boil the water as the narrator and countless others try to cross the river into Middlesex, while the Martians escape. More cylinders land across southern England, and a panicked flight out of London begins, including the narrator's brother who flees to the Essex coast after Black Smoke is used to devastate London. The torpedo ram HMS Thunder Childdestroys two tripods before being sunk by the Martians, though this allows the ship carrying the narrator's brother and his two female travelling companions to escape to continental Europe. Shortly after, all organized resistance has ceased, and the Tripods roam the shattered landscape unhindered. Red weed, a fast growing Martian form of vegetation, spreads over the landscape, aggressively overcoming the Earth's ecology, in much the same way as the Martians have overcome human civilization. The narrator takes refuge in a ruined building in Sheen shortly before a Martian cylinder lands nearby, trapping him with a mentally unstable curate he had originally met near Shepperton. The curate has been traumatized by the invasion and believes the Martians to be satanic creatures heralding the advent ofArmageddon. For the next several days, the narrator desperately tries to calm the clergyman, and avoid attracting attention from the patrolling Tripods, while witnessing the Martians' daily routine, which includes feeding on humans by direct blood transfusion and using a handling machine, which acts like a living creature. The curate's evangelical outbursts finally lead the Martians to their hiding place despite the narrator resorting to violence in order to silence him, and knocking him out. While the narrator escapes detection by hiding in the coal-cellar, the clergyman's unconscious body is dragged away. The Martians eventually depart from the scene. The Narrator leaves the destroyed building and heads towards Central London. En route, he once again encounters the artilleryman who entertains grandiose plans to rebuild civilization underground, but the artilleryman's quixotic nature is shown by the slow progress of an unimpressive trench he has been digging. The narrator heads into a deserted London and finally decides to give up his life by rushing towards the Martians, only to discover they, along with the Red Weed, have succumbed to terrestrial pathogenic bacteria, to which they have no immunity. He sees birds feeding of a Martian's rotting remains. He finds a dying martian calling 'Ulla-ulla-ulla' at the peak of Primrose Hill, near Regent's Park in North London, and realizes the invading force is no longer a threat. At the conclusion, society begins to return to normal and the narrator returns to his home to find himself unexpectedly reunited with his wife, who had thought him dead and vice versa.