Although we now know a Martian invasion to be an impossibility, the world has experienced many other enormous catastrophes in the years since Wells wrote this book. Choose one and compare it with Wells’s Martian invasion.

While the Martians are seemingly monstrous, irredeemable villains, the narrator also provides many reasons to identify with or even to pity them. Compose a thoughtful, multifaceted defense of the Martians.

If part of Wells’s goal in writing The War of the Worlds was to confront those who had benefited from colonialism with its evils, how successful is he in this endeavor? To what degree does the introduction of aliens benefit or undermine this goal?