There are no nuptial caresses in this account of the Martian invasion of England.

There are no nuptial caresses in this account of the Martian invasion of England.

The narrator is held aside from his spouse for some associated with action, and these Martians are perhaps maybe perhaps not the kind that is caressing. Like Rosny’s aliens, they are “advanced” creatures, but they’re barely passive: these are the model for the rapacious octopoid aliens that abound in later science fiction, through the novellas of H. P. Lovecraft to contemporary films like “Independence time.” Wells’s Martians reproduce via some sort of parthenogenesis, “just as young lilybulbs bud off.” Their repulsive, bulbous bodies comprise mostly of minds. Sixteen “slender, very nearly whiplike tentacles” operate the advanced technology with that they mercilessly overcome the race that is human. The Martians’ machines are just like the shells of mollusks: without them, the aliens bodies that are susceptible and ineffectual. (more…)