Books with title Edison’s Conquest of Mars

Edison's Conquest of Mars is an 1898 science fiction novel by American astronomer and writer Garrett P. Serviss. The novel depicts Edison leading a group of scientists to develop ships and weapons, including a disintegration ray, for the defence of Earth. Edison and company fight the aliens in space and on Mars, eventually causing a flood that defeats the enemy and forces an end to hostilities.

It is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the disastrous invasion of the earth by the Martians should go without record, and circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, I deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down the story in a connected form. The Martians had nearly all perished, not through our puny efforts, but in consequence of disease, and the few survivors fled in one of their projectile cars, inflicting their cruelest blow in the act of departure. Their Mysterious Explosive. They possessed a mysterious explosive, of unimaginable puissance, with whose aid they set their car in motion for Mars from a point in Bergen County, N. J., just back of the Palisades. The force of the explosion may be imagined when it is recollected that they had to give the car a velocity of more than seven miles per second in order to overcome the attraction of the earth and the resistance of the atmosphere. The shock destroyed all of New York that had not already fallen a prey, and all the buildings yet standing in the surrounding towns and cities fell in one far-circling ruin. The Palisades tumbled in vast sheets, starting a tidal wave in the Hudson that drowned the opposite shore.

The book is set following the abortive Martian attack depicted in Fighters from Mars, much more devastating and global than in H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, though in both works the onslaught is thwarted when the aliens die from bacterial illness. Determining that the Martians will inevitably return, Earth's leaders, including U.S. President William McKinley, Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Emperor Mutsuhito, unite the world against the common threat and plan an attack on Mars. American inventor Thomas Edison leads a group of scientists studying derelict Martian equipment; they are able to develop an anti-gravity device powered by electric repulsion as well as a disintegration ray. Using this new technology, the allies construct an armada of space ships for the attack. Edison takes some ships to the moon on a test run; using the first known fictional depiction of space suits, the explorers uncover evidence of an extinct civilization of giants. The armada heads on, discovering a solid gold asteroid being mined by the Martians. The humans fight two space battles against the Martians, suffering heavy casualties but ultimately winning thanks to the superiority of Edison's ray gun compared to the Martians' electric weapons. The humans take a captive, from whom they learn the Martian language.

It is impossible that the stupendous events which followed the disastrous invasion of the earth by the Martians should go without record, and circumstances having placed the facts at my disposal, I deem it a duty, both to posterity and to those who were witnesses of and participants in the avenging counterstroke that the earth dealt back at its ruthless enemy in the heavens, to write down the story in a connected form.

The ancient astronaut theory has a long and winding history based, in large measure, on the fertile interaction of speculative fiction and speculative history. Its roots can be traced to Victorian era pseudoscience, including Theosophy, speculation about the existence of Atlantis, and mystical investigations of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Science fiction played its role, too. Sometimes too well. Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898) drew on all of these themes to deliver one of earliest science fiction stories to present extraterrestrial beings as ancient astronauts. In the novel, Martians came down to the earth in prehistory, built the pyramids and the Sphinx, and abducted humans to use as slave labor-all claims suggested in the work of twentieth century ancient astronaut theorists. Serviss' novel may not have inspired the ancient astronaut genre, but it is a fascinating example of how the ideas available in popular culture repeatedly combined to produce the same idea time and again.

Originally published in the late 1800s, this is one of the rarest and most important cornerstones of the science fiction genre. Turning the original Wells tale on its head, this novel weaves a distinct and astonishing story of humans invading Mars, marking the invention of the space techno-thriller. Presenting a cornucopia of technical ingenuity, this edition marks a variety of firsts in the genre: the first space battle ever to appear in print, the original fictional example of alien abduction, the introduction of the theory that the pyramids were constructed by extraterrestrials, and the first truly functional spacesuits.

This volume features two novels by Garret Serviss, one of the most popular early science fiction writers. Serviss was an American astronomer, popularizer of astronomy, and early science fiction writer, who also wrote several non fiction books on astronomy. His novels were widely read, most published serially in magazines. The first novel in this volume, Edison's Conquest of Mars, is his most popular novel. This early space opera was written as a sequel to Fighters from Mars, an unauthorized and heavily altered version of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, and was among the first novel to use several themes and motifs that later became signature of the genre. The main character is Thomas Alva Edison. A COLUMBUS OF SPACE is about a trip to Venus (written before Edgar Rice Burroughs and Otis Adebert Kline Venus series), on a craft that can travel a tremendous speed, powered by the "power of the atom". In Venus, the travelers find different societies depending on if you live on the sun side or the no-sun side of the planet ... It is written in Jules Verne's style, and as an homage to Verne.