<P> The plot has been related to invasion literature of the time . The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British imperialism, and generally Victorian superstitions, fears and prejudices . At the time of publication, it was classified as a scientific romance, like Wells' earlier novel The Time Machine . The War of the Worlds has been both popular (having never been out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films, radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors . It has even influenced the work of scientists, notably Robert H. Goddard, who, inspired by the book, invented both the liquid fuelled rocket and multistage rocket, which resulted in the Apollo 11 Moon landing 71 years later . </P> <P> Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us . </P> <P> The narrative opens by stating that as humans on Earth busied themselves with their own endeavours during the 1890s, aliens on Mars began plotting an invasion of Earth to replenish their limited resources . In 1899 the narrator is invited to an astronomical observatory at Ottershaw where explosions are seen on the surface of the planet Mars, creating much interest in the scientific community . Later, a "meteor" lands on Horsell Common, near the unnamed narrator's home in Woking, Surrey . He is among the first to discover that the object is an artificial cylinder that opens, disgorging Martians who are "big" and "greyish" with "oily brown skin", "the size, perhaps, of a bear", each with "two large dark - coloured eyes", and lipless "V - shaped mouths" which drip saliva and are surrounded by two "Gorgon groups of tentacles". The narrator finds them "at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous". They briefly emerge, have difficulty in coping with the Earth's atmosphere and gravity, and rapidly retreat into their cylinder . A human deputation (which includes the astronomer Ogilvy) approaches the cylinder with a white flag, but the Martians incinerate them and others nearby with a heat - ray before beginning to assemble their machinery . Military forces arrive that night to surround the common, including Maxim guns . The population of Woking and the surrounding villages are reassured by the presence of the British Army . A tense day begins, with much anticipation of military action by the narrator . </P> <P> After heavy firing from the common and damage to the town from the heat - ray which suddenly erupts in the late afternoon, the narrator takes his wife to safety in nearby Leatherhead, where his cousin lives, using a rented, two - wheeled horse cart; he then returns to Woking to return the cart when in the early morning hours, a violent thunderstorm erupts . On the road during the height of the storm, he has his first terrifying sight of a fast - moving Martian fighting - machine; in a panic he crashes the horse cart, barely escaping detection . He discovers the Martians have assembled towering three - legged "fighting - machines" (tripods), each armed with a heat - ray and a chemical weapon: the poisonous "black smoke". These tripods have wiped out the army units positioned around the cylinder and attacked and destroyed most of Woking . Sheltering in his house, the narrator sees a fleeing artilleryman moving through his garden, who later tells the narrator of his experiences and mentions that another cylinder has landed between Woking and Leatherhead, cutting off the narrator from his wife . The two try to escape via Byfleet just after dawn, but are separated at the Shepperton to Weybridge Ferry during a Martian afternoon attack on Shepperton . One of the Martian fighting - machines is brought down in the River Thames by artillery as the narrator and countless others try to cross the river into Middlesex, as the Martians retreat back to their original crater . This gives the authorities precious hours to form a defence - line covering London . After the Martians' temporary repulse, the narrator is able to float down the Thames in a boat toward London, stopping at Walton, where he first encounters the curate, his companion for the coming weeks . </P>

Where did martians land in war of the worlds