The narrator is able to see the planet Mars, impossibly remote, but he does not see what he refers to as the "Things" that are being sent towards him. However, this receives little attention other than a short article at the back of a newspaper.Īn astronomer named Ogilvy invites the narrator to look at Mars through his telescope to see this for himself. The narrator notes that humanity must seem like pests to Martians, and they would be no more hesitant to exterminate us than humans would be to kill animals or Europeans to wage war against people such as the Tasmanians.įor several years before the invasion of Earth, astronomers had noticed peculiar lights on the surface of Mars, which the narrator asserts must have been the cannons that fired the canisters toward Earth. Therefore, he presumes, the Martians turned their attention to the rich bounty of Earth. He also points out that the polar ice caps of Mars are shrinking and its atmosphere is growing thin. This is because Mars is older and because the civilization that emerged from there is mind-bogglingly advanced in comparison to humanity. The narrator describes Mars and suggests that life must have emerged there before the earth was cool. The obliviousness of humanity to this menace cannot be sustained for long the unnamed narrator points out that these minds are to those of humans as human minds are to those of beasts. The novel begins with the ominous assertion that there is intelligent life watching humanity.
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