The War of the Worlds (Summarized Edition)
Enriched edition. A Victorian alien invasion of Woking and London—Martian tripods, heat-ray and black smoke, red weed, and a colonialism allegory.By H. G. Wells
Length2h 55m
About this audiobook
First published in 1898 after serialization, The War of the Worlds imagines a Martian assault that devastates Surrey and London. Wells blends eyewitness reportage with the speculative rigor of the scientific romance, producing a cool, pseudo-documentary narrative. Tripods, heat-ray, and black smoke estrange the familiar, reversing imperial confidence and channeling fin-de-siecle anxieties about industrial acceleration, biological struggle, and the brittleness of urban systems. Wells, trained in biology under T. H. Huxley, approached fiction as hypothesis testing. His early hardships and immersion in metropolitan modernity sharpened his sense of technology's double edge. Alongside The Time Machine and The Invisible Man, this novel mobilizes evolutionary thinking and imperial critique: extraterrestrial predation refracts Britain's own expansionism and exposes how specialization renders civilizations exquisitely vulnerable. Scholars of empire, readers of speculative fiction, and students of media history will find it indispensable. As adventure, it exhilarates; as argument, it cautions. Read it for its lucid architecture, its prescient meditations on invasion and panic, and its enduring lesson in scientific humility.
Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the author's voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readable—distilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.
Audiobook details
GenreScience Fiction
Length2 hrs 55 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJan 12, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
2Introduction
3Synopsis
4Historical Context
5Author Biography
Show all chaptersShow less
6Book One. The Coming of the Martians
7Chapter One. The Eve Of The War
8Chapter Two. The Falling Star
9Chapter Three. On Horsell Common
10Chapter Four. The Cylinder Opens
11Chapter Five. The HeatRay
12Chapter Six. The HeatRay In The Chobham Road
13Chapter Seven. How I Reached Home
14Chapter Eight. Friday Night
15Chapter Nine. The Fighting Begins
16Chapter Ten. In The Storm
17Chapter Eleven. At The Window
18Chapter Twelve. What I Saw Of The Destruction
19Chapter Thirteen. How I Fell In With The Curate
20Chapter Fourteen. In London
21Chapter Fifteen. What Had Happened In Surrey
22Chapter Sixteen. The Exodus From London
23Chapter Seventeen. The “Thunder Child”
24Book Two. The Earth Under the Martians
25Chapter One. Under Foot
26Chapter Two. What We Saw From The Ruined House
27Chapter Three. The Days Of Imprisonment
28Chapter Four. The Death Of The Curate
29Chapter Five. The Stillness
30Chapter Six. The Work Of Fifteen Days
31Chapter Seven. The Man On Putney Hill
32Chapter Eight. Dead London
33Chapter Nine. Wreckage
34Chapter Ten. The Epilogue
35Analysis
36Reflection
Die ZeitmaschineH. G. Wells3h 45m4.0 (643.9K)$9 · $0.00
H. G. Wells: 120+ Sci-Fi Classics, Dystopian Novels & Time Travel TalesH. G. Wells420h 49m$1.99 · $0.00
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLDH. G. Wells13h 43m4.0 (4.4K)$1.99 · $0.00
The Country of the Blind & Other Horror Stories - 10 Titles in One EditionH. G. Wells7h 45m4.0 (18)$1.99 · $0.00
NEW WORLDS FOR OLDH. G. Wells10h 53m3.8 (704)$1.99 · $0.00
The Dream (Sci-Fi Classic)H. G. Wells10h 52m3.7 (1.4K)$1.99 · $0.00
THE LAND IRONCLADSH. G. Wells2h 34m3.6 (482)$1.99 · $0.00
THE GRISLY FOLKH. G. Wells2h 11m3.8 (49)$1.99 · $0.00
THE INVISIBLE MANH. G. Wells7h 10m3.8 (280.1K)$1.99 · $0.00
Tono-BungayH. G. Wells16h 38m3.7 (3.9K)$1.99 · $0.00
The Country of the Blind & Other Tales: 33 Titles in One EditionH. G. Wells18h 58m4.2 (2.2K)$1.99 · $0.00
When the Sleeper Wakes (A Dystopian Sci-Fi)H. G. Wells10h 15m3.6 (10.1K)$1.99 · $0.00
THE TIME MACHINE (A Sci-Fi Classic)H. G. Wells5h 6m4.0 (669.7K)$1.99 · $0.00
H. G. Wells: An Englishman Looks at the WorldH. G. Wells12h 35m3.7 (142)$1.99 · $0.00
Die Insel des Dr. Moreau (Science-Fiction-Klassiker)H. G. Wells, Felix Paul Greve5h 22m4.4 (11)$1 · $0.00
THE WHEELS OF CHANCEH. G. Wells7h 56m3.6 (1.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
SELECT CONVERSATIONS WITH AN UNCLE (The Original 1895 edition)H. G. Wells3h 20m3.4 (161)$1.99 · $0.00
THE WILD ASSES OF THE DEVILH. G. Wells2h 4m3.5 (10)$1.99 · $0.00
Sci-Fi Boxed Set: 160+ Space Adventures, Lost Worlds, Dystopian Novels & Apocalyptic TalesH. G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, Edwin A. Abbott, Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson, George MacDonald, Henry Rider Haggard, William Hope Hodgson, Edward Bellamy, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Francis Bacon, C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne, Margaret Cavendish, Jonathan Swift, William Morris, Samuel Butler, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, James Fenimore Cooper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ayn Rand, Owen Gregory, Hugh Benson, Fred M. White, Ignatius Donnelly, Ernest Bramah, Milo Hastings, Arthur Dudley Vinton, Robert Cromie, E. M. Forster, Anthony Trollope, Richard Stockham, Irving E. Cox, Cleveland Moffett, Richard Jefferies, Percy Greg, David Lindsay, Edward Everett Hale, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Abraham Merritt, Edgar Wallace, H. Beam Piper, Garrett P. Serviss, Gertrude Barrows Bennett, Philip K. Dick, E. E. Smith, Murray Leinster, Fritz Leiber, Andre Norton, Lester Del Rey, August Derleth, Frederik Pohl, Kurt Vonnegut, William Dean Howells, Philip Francis Nowlan, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, George Griffith, Edwin Lester Arnold, John Jacob Astor, Gustavus W. Pope968h 49m$1.99 · $0.00
The Time Machine (Unabridged)H. G. Wells5h 2m4.0 (649.4K)$1.99 · $0.00
Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Toshikazu Kawaguchi Book SetToshikazu Kawaguchi18h 55m4.5 (1.4K)$40 · $0.00
PRIMAL 2055 - EscapeJack Silkstone6h 47m4.4 (232)Free
The Galaxy, and the Ground WithinBecky Chambers9h 56m4.5 (55.2K)$29 · $0.00
TimelessR. A. Salvatore12h 30m4.5 (8K)$33 · $0.00
Thud!Terry Pratchett12h 29m4.4 (108.4K)$8 · $0.00
Anne of Green GablesLucy Maud Montgomery10h 54m4.4 (1.3M)$12 · $0.00
Science Fiction & Fantasy CollectionH. P. Lovecraft16h 32m4.5 (2.7K)$2 · $0.00
The Twilight Zone Companion, Second EditionMarc Scott Zicree16h 46m4.5 (1.8K)$28 · $0.00
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (Annotated)H. Beam Piper8h 23m4.5 (1.6K)$2 · $0.00
Philip K. Dick: SF Boxed SetPhilip K. Dick29h 38m4.5 (608)$1 · $0.00
Magician's EndRaymond E. Feist17h 5m4.4 (21.7K)$40 · $0.00
Good OmensNeil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett12h 14m4.4 (1M)$29 · $0.00
The Emperor's FistJay Allan8h 37m4.5 (272)$26 · $0.00
The DispossessedUrsula K. Le Guin13h 26m4.4 (189.3K)$33 · $0.00
1984George Orwell11h 31m4.3 (6.2M)$1.20 · $0.00
Lost ValleyWalt Browning7h 47m4.3 (5.4K)$20 · $0.00
AgincourtBernard Cornwell16h 18m4.3 (41.4K)$40 · $0.00
Frankenstein (The Uncensored 1818 Edition) (Annotated)Mary Shelley9h 25m4.3 (1.7M)$3 · $0.00
The World Wasn't Ready for YouJustin C. Key11h 34m4.4 (812)$5 · $0.00
Godzilla vs. KongGreg Keyes10h 32m4.3 (1.4K)$20 · $0.00
You may also like
The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells6h 16m3.8 (394.2K)Free
The War of The Worlds (A Sci-Fi Classic)H. G. Wells8h 15m4.5 (11.2K)$1.99 · $0.00
The War of The Worlds (Science Fiction Classic)H. G. Wells6h 47m4.0 (383.2K)$1.99 · $0.00
The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells6h 22m3.9 (416.6K)$23
The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells6h 35m4.0 (423.2K)$2.30 · $0.00
The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells6h 35m4.0 (423.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells6h 43m4.0 (404K)$17
Biography of ResistanceMuhammad H. Zaman8h 3m4.1 (1.1K)$26 · $0.00
The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells6h 35m4.0 (412.7K)$21 · $0.00
ChokepointJonathan Maberry45m4.0 (596)$4 · $0.00
The War of the WorldsHerbert George Wells6h 25m4.0 (420.4K)$6 · $0.00
Extinction EdgeNicholas Sansbury Smith8h 2m4.3 (5.9K)$20
End TimeDaniel Greene11h 16m3.9 (1.5K)$20
The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells6h 50m3.9 (411.9K)$5 · $0.00
The War of the Worlds DramatizedH. G. Wells1h 1m4.3 (3K)$10
Strain of ResistanceMichelle Bryan6h 14m4.1 (543)$20
The War of the WorldsH. G.6h 34m4.0 (415.6K)$3.50 · $0.00
The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells6h 41m4.0 (454.8K)$0.60 · $0.00
The Professor Challenger CollectionArthur Conan Doyle11h 37m4.2 (2.3K)$7 · $0.00
The Time Machine + The Invisible Man + The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells16h 30m4.1 (4.4K)$2 · $0.00