The War of the Worlds
No one was prepared for the Martians. When the first cylinder crashes onto the Surrey countryside and its inhabitants emerge, humanity learns it is not the center of the universe. An unnamed narrator and his younger brother battle through the chaos consuming London, driven by a single imperative: reach the narrator's wife before it's too late. The Martians, with their heat-rays and mechanical tripods, are unstoppable. The military collapses. Cities burn. Survivors flee in terror. But this is not merely an adventure tale of alien invasion. In the Martians, Wells holds up a dark mirror to empire itself: the horror of being conquered, the fragility of civilization, the humbling truth that progress offers no immunity against the truly unknown. Written in 1897, it invented the alien invasion story and has terrified readers for over a century. It endures because its terror is not merely science fiction: it is the ancient fear that something beyond comprehension will arrive and render us powerless.
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“Mejoramos gradualmente nuestras plantas y animales favoritos”
— H. G. Wells
“Then I look about me at my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright; others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,”
— H. G. Wells
“I’m an Invisible Man. It’s no foolishness, and no magic. I really am an Invisible Man. And I want your help. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you behave like a frantic rustic, I must. Don’t you remember me, Kemp? Griffin, of University College?” “Let me get up,” said Kemp. “I’ll stop where I am. And let me sit quiet for a minute.” He sat up and felt his neck. “I am Griffin, of University College, and I have made myself invisible. I am just an ordinary man”
— H. G. Wells
“Sin embargo, era una de esas criaturas débiles, una de esas almas carentes de orgullo, timoratas, anémicas, odiosas, movida por sospechosas maquinaciones, que no se enfrentan ni a Dios ni al hombre, que no se enfrentan siquiera a sí mismas.””
— H. G. Wells
“Pero atravesando el abismo del espacio, mentes que son respecto a nuestras mentes como las nuestras respecto a las de las bestias perecederas, intelectos vastos, fríos e implacables, contemplaban este planeta con ojos envidiosos, y tramaban lenta y decididamente sus planes contra nosotros.””
— H. G. Wells
“El don anglosajón para el gobierno parlamentario parecía imponerse; se habló mucho, aunque no se llevó a cabo ninguna acción decisiva.””
— H. G. Wells
“La máquina del tiempo había desaparecido. Salvo por las agitadas nubes de polvo, el extremo más alejado del laboratorio estaba vacío.””
— H. G. Wells
“Y como el ganado, no conocían enemigos y no se preparaban para nada. Y su fin era el mismo.””
— H. G. Wells
“He expected dire punishments, but these blind people were capable of toleration. They regarded his rebellion as but one more proof of his general idiocy and inferiority; and after they had whipped him they appointed him to do the simplest and heaviest work they had for anyone to do, and he, seeing no other way of living, did submissively what he was told.””
— H. G. Wells
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Wells, H. G.. The War of the Worlds. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-war-of-the-worlds-f9d383b0-7a9f-4312-9d25-1e0a2629fcfe.Wells, H. G. (n.d.). The War of the Worlds. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-war-of-the-worlds-f9d383b0-7a9f-4312-9d25-1e0a2629fcfeWells, H. G.. The War of the Worlds. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-war-of-the-worlds-f9d383b0-7a9f-4312-9d25-1e0a2629fcfe.
