Edison's Conquest of Mars
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Edison's Conquest of Mars, by Garrett P. Serviss, is one of the many science fiction novels published in the nineteenth century. Although science fiction was not at the time thought of as a distinct literary genre, it was a very popular literary form, with almost every fiction magazine regularly publishing science fiction stories and novels. "Edison's Conquest of Mars" was published in 1898 as an unauthorized sequel to H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, but did not achieve the fame of its predecessor.
The book was endorsed by Thomas Edison, the hero of the book -- though not by Wells. The themes and messages of Serviss's book are diametrically opposed to Wells's original. In it, Edison travels to Mars, his inventions (including the disintegrator ray) allow an Earth spacefleet to destroy the Martians' ability to make war after several exciting battles. There are ship-to-ship battles, and battles between Earth ships and Martian ground forts. This was perhaps the first space opera, although the term did not yet exist; it was perhaps the most literal of the Edisonades.
Earth technology in the story includes spacesuits (called "air-tight suits").
Communication between spacemen in space needs a wire to be passed between them; spaceships communicate by flags or lights. Although the story was published in 1898 during the early real experiments in radio, it contains no concept of radio.
The book contains some notable "firsts" in science fiction: alien abductions, aliens building the Pyramids, space battles, oxygen pills and disintegrator guns.[citation needed]
[edit] Publication
Edison's Conquest of Mars was published first as a serial in the New York Journal from 12 January to 10 February 1898. It was published in book form in 1947.
- An abridged version appeared in 1954 in The Treasury of Science Fiction Classics.
- In 1969, Forrest J Ackerman published an edited version, called Invasion of Mars.
- In 2005, Apogee Books published an unedited unabridged version with the original newspaper illustrations (ISBN 0-9738203-0-6).
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
| The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells | |
|---|---|
| Battles | Battle of Weybridge/Shepperton • Fall of London • HMS Thunder Child |
| Martians | Black smoke • Embankment-machine • Flying-machine • Handling-machine • Heat-Ray • Red weed • Tripod |
| Radio | The War of the Worlds • Grover's Mill, New Jersey • The Night That Panicked America |
| Films | The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (Hines, 2005) • H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds (Latt, 2005) • War of the Worlds |
| Jeff Wayne | Musical Version • Highlights • Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds game |
| TV series | War of the Worlds (Mor-Tax • Mor-Taxans • list of episodes) |
| Sequels | Edison's Conquest of Mars • Killraven (Earth-691) • Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds • War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches • Rainbow Mars • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II • War of the Worlds: New Millennium • Scarlet Traces • The Martian War |
| Miscellaneous | Doctor Clayton Forrester • Comic • The Space Machine • Superman • Arcade game |
