Key themes
- Colonialism inverted — what it feels like to be the colonised
- The absolute indifference of superior power
- Human civilisation as fragile, temporary and provincially self-important
About this book
Martians invade Victorian England; the original alien-invasion story and still a tense read.
Published in 1898, The War of the Worlds was serialised in Pearson's Magazine before book publication. Wells said he was inspired by wondering what it would feel like if Earth were colonised the way Britain colonised Tasmania.
Discussion questions
- Wells explicitly describes the Martian invasion as comparable to European colonialism. What is he saying to his late-Victorian English readers about their own empire — and does this critique feel embedded in the novel or tacked on?
- The narrator's voice is calm, almost scientific, even during events of total horror. How does this tone serve the novel — and what would a more emotionally expressive narrator lose?
- The novel ends not with human heroism but with bacterial infection. What is Wells saying about humanity's place in the natural order — is this comforting or diminishing?
- The War of the Worlds has been adapted many times — most famously as Orson Welles's 1938 radio broadcast. What does each era's adaptation say about what the invasion represents in that particular moment?
- Wells wrote in 1898 about technology that didn't yet exist. How does this scientific imagination hold up — and what does the novel correctly anticipate about the nature of advanced technological warfare?
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