Book Summary The War of the Worlds begins as an ordinary day in Woking, England, but that night astronomers observe flashes of light and energy on the surface of Mars. This continues every twenty-four hours for ten days. Later, the first of the ten pods lands near the pine forest and the narrator is one of the first to see the cylindrical capsules. From these capsules will arise five Martian tripods, which will resist the greater Earth's gravity. These tripods send the narrator on the run across England, stopping only to take refuge at night, to find his wife in Leatherhead. On his journey he is helped by some survivors, the first of whom is the gunner. They leave together and travel a good distance, but are then separated by a Martian attack. The narrator escapes, but scalded by water heated to near boiling by the Martian's heat ray. While alone he discovers the Martian's new weapon of mass destruction, a capsule of toxic black smoke that flows across the ground in the guise of a liquid. The narrator then finds himself taking refuge with a man called the Curate. While they take refuge, a capsule lands on the house where they were hiding and part of the building collapses, trapping them inside. Here, while trapped together, the narrator realizes that he cannot stand the quasi-mental curate. All the while, all they know about the outside world is what they can see through a small crack in the wall overlooking the newly formed Martian trench. Days later the narrator discovers how the Martians feed when they capture the curate. Martians feed by extracting the blood of men and animals through a tube equipped with a syringe. Just after the noise of the Martian machinery stops and the narrator crawls out of... the middle of the paper, the story of the War of the Worlds comes alive centuries later. It is very fitting that the book is brought forward into real world events. As if the desire to know the unknown was driven by this story, which today inspires scientists and astronomers. Just as fear was carried forward through radio broadcast. This makes the story much bigger by developing its widespread influence. A true statement of how popular this story is is the fact that it is a British book, but at the same time an American classic. Works Cited Keller, Charles R., II. "Biography." IMDb. IMDb.com and Web. May 27, 2014. "The War of the Worlds: How Orson Welles Dragged the Nation into a Shared Illusion." The War of the Worlds: How Orson Welles Dragged the Nation into a Shared Illusion. Transparency and the Web. 26 May 2014. .