Category Archives: Ancient Science Fiction

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of Garrett P Serviss’ odd sequel to Fighters From Mars, his blatant imitation of War of the Worlds.

PART TWO

The word from astronomers around the globe indicated that the Martians were making preparations for another attack on the Earth. Panic spread rapidly and a rash of suicides made the news.

Meanwhile America’s Thomas Edison was leading an international team of scientists including Kelvin and Roentgen. The scientists succeeded in reverse-engineering the space-ships of the Martians and proved that the people of Earth could replicate them and form a space fleet of their own. In addition Edison created a disintegrator ray based on concepts from Martian technology. 

In a daring test flight Edison and a select crew flew their first spaceship to the moon, landed and returned to the Earth before informing the world that there was hope that humanity could fight the Martians on equal terms this time. Within days most of the world’s leaders decided on holding a summit with President McKinley in Washington, DC to lay out a strategy for constructing a space fleet armed with Edison’s disintegrating weapons.    Continue reading →

A new serialized feature begins here at Balladeer’s Blog! Plenty of regular readers expressed interest in one of the works of “ancient” science fiction that I touched on awhile back – Edison’s Conquest of Mars by Garrett P Serviss.

That book was the sequel to Serviss’ earlier novel Fighters From Mars (also from 1898) which was, shall we say … reminiscent … of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Oh, hell, it was basically the same story but was set mostly in Boston, MA. 

Too late Edison learned the awful price to be paid for repeatedly asking if his bikini made him look fat.

Edison’s Conquest of Mars featured the people of Earth reverse- engineering the spacecraft of the defeated Martians. Humanity then constructed a fleet of its own and set off for Mars to kick the Martians’ butts for trying to conquer our planet. 

The lead scientist of the expedition was none other than Thomas Alva Edison himself, accompanied by plenty of other real-life scientists and world leaders. Yes, copyright and personal licensing laws back then weren’t quite what they are today so Garrett P Serviss got away with what amounted to a massive work of fan fiction … if fan fiction was about real-life scientists and political figures. (And no, I’m not counting slash fiction about Stephen Hawking, you perverts.)  Continue reading →