War Of The Worlds' Unauthorized Sci-Fi Sequel Book Cast Thomas Edison As Its Hero

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H.G. Wells' sci-fi novel "The War of the Worlds" was first published in 1898, and it was clearly meant as a commentary on the horrors of British colonialism. A great 2018 essay in the pages of JSTOR notes that Wells' Martians are clearly a metaphor for the British occupation of Tasmania, while the humans, like the real-world Tasmanians, are dependent on guerrilla tactics to fight them off. "War of the Worlds" ends with the Martians dying of Earthborn pathogens, lacking the immunity to fight them off. There is a lot of destruction and despair. The colonizers are conquered, but the natives are left to rebuild. All we humans can do is learn from the fallen Martian tech and hope more Martians don't come. 

Wells' book is, of course, a seminal work of science fiction, and helped codify the genre. The story has been successfully adapted multiple times into other media, most famously by Orson Welles in 1938, who made one of the medium's most famous radio dramas. One might also be familiar with Byron Haskin's 1953 film version, a colorful horror movie of the highest order. Steven Spielberg famously made a "War of the Worlds" in 2005, commenting on post-9/11 panic, and the worst movie of 2025 was an Amazon-commercial-inflected rendition of Wells' work. And these are only a small smattering of the follow-ups, movies, TV shows, and radio dramas that have been derived from "The War of the Worlds" in the last 128 years. 

A "Worlds" spinoff you may not be cognizant of, however, is an unauthorized sequel novel, published almost immediately after Wells' original, which featured Thomas Edison as its hero. It was called "Edison's Conquest of Mars," and it featured the famed inventor (still alive at the time) traveling to Mars to counter-invade.

"Edison's Conquest of Mars" is not a direct sequel to "The War of the Worlds," per se, but rather to an American reprint of the novel. 

It's worth remembering that in the late 19th century, many British novels were published serially in magazines before being published in single editions. Although the whole book of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" was published in 1898, it actually ran in chapters in Pearson's Magazine for nine months, from April through December of 1897. It was originally called "Fighters from Mars." If one has ever wondered why Charles Dickens' novels are structured the way they are, know that they, too, were published serially. 

After the publication of the full novel, however, the book was once again serialized for a New York audience. The new breakdown, which was a different edit from the novel, appeared in the New York Evening Journal under the title "Fighters from Mars." A description of its publication history has been provided by the Library of Congress, and it seems that the story had been altered from the original to make the central Martians invade New York City instead of London (the Boston Post also did the same thing, reprinting Wells' story and transposing the action to Boston. The New York story was called "Fighters from Mars, or The War of the Worlds," which I supposed covered all the bases. According to the Library of Congress, Wells hated the alterations. 

But the American "Fighters from Mars" reprints were a hit, and those versions got the bonkers sequel "Edison's Conquest of Mars," written without Wells' input. It was, instead, penned by Garrett P. Serviss, a sci-fi author and astronomer.

It should be noted that the American cuts of "Fighters from Mars" were more salacious than H.G. Wells' original. A lot of the slower-moving scenes were shaved down, and the mayhem was played up. Then, as soon as the American editions of "Fighters from Mars," in both New York and Boston, were complete, they began printing chapters of "Edison's Conquest of Mars" as a direct follow-up. A description of the story can be found online. It's much more like "Star Wars" than "The War of the Worlds."

"Edison's Conquest of Mars" was a bonkers team-up story that involved many prominent world leaders of the day. It seems that Earth, after the events of "Fighters," was concerned that Mars would invade again and united against the common enemy. William McKinley, Kaiser Wilhelm, media star Queen Victoria, and Emperor Matsuhito all joined together as allies. Thomas Edison, studying derelict Martian technology, develops death rays and antigravity widgets and leads a fleet of fighter ships into space to fight the Martians. At first, Edison and his team discover an extinct race of giants on the moon before engaging in a midspace battle against the Martians around a golden asteroid they were mining. 

Eventually, the humans' fighting force makes its way to Mars, where they find a Deimos-based colony of human slaves, kidnapped in the early millennia, as well as evidence that the Martians built the Pyramids. Edison uses human forces to explode all the waterworks on Mars and flood the planet, killing most everyone. It seems that Americans have been making "juiced-up" sequels long before Hollywood's heyday. 

If one wants to read this bonkers thing, it is still available. This thing is wild.