H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, first appearing in print in 1897, is a seminal work of science fiction and rightfully considered one of the best works of literature in the genre. Wells himself never produced a sequel to the book, but an unauthorized continuation of sorts came out the following year, and that had Thomas Edison stepping up to save the day and conquer Mars!
The War of the Worlds was first serialized by the British periodical Pearson’s Magazine in 1897 and received much praise from critics and readers, rightfully so. When the story came to the attention of American publishers Wells had not yet worked out a book deal in the States and copyright laws–especially across countries–were much more lax back then. So the editors of The Boston Evening Post decided to publish their own version of the story. First appearing in January 1898, this was titled Fighters from Mars: The War of the Worlds in and near Boston and moved the action of Wells’ story across the Atlantic while also taking a fair number of liberties with the plot. The author of this version is unknown and almost certainly did not consult with Wells on his adaptation, but the serialized story proved quite popular with American readers prompting the magazine to immediately commission a sequel which would begin its serialization later the same year and would bear the title Edison’s Conquest of Mars.
Written by astronomer Garrett P. Serviss (who would follow this up with more early sci fi tales), the story had Thomas Edison (who endorsed the book) in the hero role as he rounds up a team of scientists to take the fight back to the Martians. It was actually not uncommon at that time to see stories centered around the exploits of a brilliant inventor and this sub-genre has since been dubbed with the moniker Edisonade. In Conquest of Mars, the American hero puts his brilliant mind to work against the Martians and comes up with some rather innovative ideas for the time. The book has Edison and his crew using the Moon as a staging point for their trip to Mars and also introduces spacesuits (called “air-tight suits”), oxygen pills, and the mining of asteroids. The book also gave very early examples of genre tropes like battles in space, alien abduction, and a connection between aliens and the pyramids, as well as humans banding together against a dangerous threat.
Edison’s Conquest of Mars would prove quite popular when it originally appeared, but it would not stand the test of time because of its juvenile bent and Wells’ classic would eventually overshadow it in the years that would follow. Still, Serviss’ sequel did deliver several landmarks for science fiction literature and did give us an early example of a good ol’ alien butt-kicking story! For those who are curious, you can get the free eBook version (in various formats) over at Project Gutenberg at this link or the free audiobook version from Librivox at this link. You can also read a pretty informative review of the book over at the War of the Worlds website at this link.
