War of the Worlds

H. G. Wells's immortal novel The War of the Worlds describes an invasion from Mars through the fictional dispatches of a London newspaper reporter. Besides the struggle in England, the reporter mentions similar battles taking place all over the planet. Yet we have been able to see only one segment of the global catastrophe - until now. In Providence, Rhode Island, an eight-year-old H. P. Lovecraft bravely seeks communion with an alien intelligence - and a return to his long-lost home. In Russia, a letter by Count Leo Tolstoy describes the coming of the ultimate revolution. In a dark woods outside of Zurich, a heroic Albert Einstein finds himself trapped inside a Martian craft, where survival itself is relative. In Amherst, Massachussetts, Emily Dickinson leaves poetic evidence that she encountered the Martians eleven years after her death. In Paris, a young artist named Pablo Picasso is inspired by the Martian carnage to create his most shocking and disturbing masterpiece. From Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba to the Dowager Empress in China, we see our fellow humans encounter the Martian menace through the eyes of such luminaries as Henry James, Jack London, Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, Rudyard Kipling, and others. War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches features nineteen stories by the brightest stars in the science fiction firmament, including Gregory Benford, David Brin, George Alec Effinger, Barbara Hambly, Mike Resnick, Robert Silverberg, Walter Jon Williams, Connie Willis, Dave Wolverton, and many others. Together they have created one of the most startlingly original and entertaining SF anthology concepts in years, perfectly preserving the spirit of H. G. Wells's classic. Here is the Martian invasion that might have been, from the Earthlings best prepared to tell the tale.


Genre: Science Fiction