- Published: 8 January 2007
- ISBN: 9781405679725
- Imprint: BBC DL
- Format: Audio Download
- Length: 2 hr 40 min
- Narrators: Martin Jarvis, Paul Daneman, Peter Sallis, Anthony Jackson
- RRP: $11.99
The War of the Worlds
Paul Daneman stars in a full-cast radio dramatisation of H.G. Well's seminal sci-fi classic.
'They came in cylinders as dreaded falling stars; they were the ultimate killing machines...' When a Martian spacecraft crash-lands near Woking, mankind is terrorised by aliens in tall, armoured capsules that stalk the countryside on three legs. The frightening machines wreak havoc on London and the Southern Counties with their heat-rays, and survivors are driven underground. Yet it all began in the calm of an observatory... While scanning the heavens, scientist John Nicholson sees a shower of meteorites heading towards Earth. But what he is witnessing is, in fact, the beginnings of an invasion. Soon, dense black smoke wipes out vast numbers of the population and Nicholson tells how he was plunged into a paralysing nightmare of stark terror and utter destruction. Martin Jarvis, Peter Sallis and Anthony Jackson also feature in this thrilling six-part, full-cast dramatisation of H.G. Well's classic novel - an immensely atmospheric recording based on one of the most influential stories ever told.
- Published: 8 January 2007
- ISBN: 9781405679725
- Imprint: BBC DL
- Format: Audio Download
- Length: 2 hr 40 min
- Narrators: Martin Jarvis, Paul Daneman, Peter Sallis, Anthony Jackson
- RRP: $11.99
Other books in the series
About the author
H. G. Wells, the third son of a small shopkeeper, was born in Bromley in 1866. After two years' apprenticeship in a draper's shop, he became a pupil-teacher at Midhurst Grammar School and won a scholarship to study under T. H. Huxley at the Normal School of Science, South Kensington. He taught biology before becoming a professional writer and journalist. He wrote more than a hundred books, including novels, essays, histories and programmes for world regeneration.
Wells, who rose from obscurity to world fame, had an emotionally and intellectually turbulent life. His prophetic imagination was first displayed in pioneering works of science fiction such as The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898). Later he became an apostle of socialism, science and progress, whose anticipations of a future world state include The Shape of Things to Come (1933). His controversial views on sexual equality and women's rights were expressed in the novels Ann Veronica (1909) and The New Machiavelli (1911). He was, in Bertrand Russell's words, 'an important liberator of thought and action'.
Wells drew on his own early struggles in many of his best novels, including Love and Mr Lewisham (1900), Kipps (1905), Tono-Bungay (1909) and The History of Mr Polly (1910). His educational works, some written in collaboration, include The Outline of History (1920) and The Science of Life (1930). His Experiment in Autobiography (2 vols., 1934) reviews his world. He died in London in 1946.