The War of the Worlds

Victorian England is thrown into chaos when Martian machines descend without warning, turning ordinary towns and countryside into a battlefield no one is prepared for. H.G. Wells's account of invasion and survival strips away any illusion that humanity sits safely at the top of the natural order, questioning what technology can and cannot protect us from. Widely regarded as one of the earliest works of true science fiction, it set the template for the alien-invasion stories that followed.