The War of the Worlds

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Book Summary
War of the Worlds starts with off as a normal day in Woking, England, but that night astronomers observe flares of light and energy on the surface of Mars. This continues every twenty four hours for ten days. Later on, the first of ten pods land nearby in the pine forest and the narrator is one of the first to see the cylindrical capsules. Out of these capsules five Martian tripods will arise, straining against the greater gravity of earth. These tripods send the narrator on the run across England only stopping to take refuge at night, to find his wife in Leatherhead. Upon his journey he is aided by a few survivors, the first of whom is the artilleryman. They set off together and travel a good distance, but are later separated by a Martian attack. The narrator escapes, but scalded by the water heated to near boiling by the Martian’s heat ray. While by himself he discovers the Martian’s new weapon of mass destruction, a capsule of toxic black smoke that runs across the ground with the likeness of a liquid. The narrator later finds himself taking refuge with a man called the Curate. While taking refuge a capsule lands on the house they were hiding in and part of the building collapses trapping them inside. Here, while trapped together, the narrator realizes he can’t stand the nearly mental Curate. While the whole time, all they know of the outside world is what they can see through a small crack in the wall that overlooks the newly formed Martian pit. Days later the narrator discovers how the Martians feed when they capture the Curate. The Martians feed by extracting the blood of humans and animals through a tube tipped with a syringe. Soon after the noise of Martian machinery stops and the narrator crawls out of the ...

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...s, the story of The War of the Worlds lives on centuries later. It is very suiting that the book is carried on into real world events. Like the desire to know the unknown was driven by this story, inspiring scientists and astronomers today. As well as fear was carried on through the radio broadcast. This makes the story that much greater developing it’s widespread influence. A true statement of how popular this story is the fact that it’s a British book, yet an American classic.

Works Cited

Keller, Charles R., II. "Biography." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 27 May 2014. .

"War of the Worlds: How Orson Welles Drew the Nation into a Shared IIlusion."War of the Worlds: How Orson Welles Drew the Nation into a Shared IIlusion. Transparency, n.d. Web. 26 May 2014. .

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