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 NINE

As the black chemical cloud succeeded in hiding the entire surface of Mars from the Earth fleet’s view the men on board the spaceships began choking and suffocating as the strange fumes somehow slipped through microscopic pores on the hulls. 

Thomas Edison ordered the fleet to pull far enough away from the Red Planet that they would all be safe from the chemical smoke, which was limited to the Martian atmosphere. While the various commanders tried to plot a new attack strategy it was discovered that most of the food supplies on each of the Earth ships had been destroyed by leaks.

The fleet only had enough provisions left for 10 days, which was not even long enough for the return trip to Earth. The Terran forces now had no choice: they must somehow acquire food and water from the planet below or die. Continue reading →

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 EIGHT

The Earth fleet departed from the asteroid and resumed course for Mars. To pass the time the flagship’s linguists began working with the 15 feet tall Martian captive in an attempt at communication. Some progress was made, enhanced by the captive’s possession of a book, thus giving the linguists a look at the written language of the Red Planet.   

After 23 days the Earth fleet at last reached Mars. Edison commanded the Terran ships to observe and map the planet below so that an overall strategy could be outlined. Mars featured several continents, all criss-crossed with the canals people were convinced Mars possessed back then. Continue reading →

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 SEVEN

The newly-arrived Martian spacecraft set down on the asteroid where the Earth’s forces had won their initial skirmish with the beings of the Red Planet. From within the craft emerged another squadron of the 15 ft tall aliens with oversized heads. Edison had made all of the Earth ships refrain from firing on the Martians before they could land, hoping that this show of mercy might open the possibility of peace.

Edison was to be disappointed, as the Martians used their heat-ray guns to open fire on the Earthlings. The Terrans returned fire with their disintegrator guns and the battle was on. Continue reading →

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 SIX

As the Earth spaceships drew nearer to the asteroid upon which a variety of Martian spacecraft lay landed and crashed the Martians – 15 feet tall with oversized heads – opened fire with their heat ray weapons. The Earth ships returned fire with the disintegrator rays Edison had devised based on Martian technology.

Two Earth ships and their entire crew were destroyed, so at length Edison ordered the entire fleet to back away from the asteroid in hopes of exceeding the range of the heat rays. At last the fleet reached a point at which the heat rays simply subjected the vessels to intense heat but no melting or loss of life. A bit further and Earth’s forces had sufficient space to regroup and mount another strategy.   Continue reading →

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 FIVE

Next came a sort of cul-de-sac in the story as the entire Earth fleet of one hundred spaceships got trapped in the gravitational pull of a gigantic comet that was headed for a collision with the sun. The comet was full of unknown cosmic energies which were wreaking havoc on the operating systems of each of the space craft. Continue reading →

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 FOUR

Garrett Serviss (our narrator), Thomas Edison and Earth’s space fleet of 100 ships descended to the moon. The plan was to effect repairs to the ship damaged by its collision with a meteor and bury the men killed in the accident.  

The fleet landed at Cape Heraclides because the expedition discovered the ruins of an ancient watchtower there. The size of each stone in the ruins was equal to an entire house back on Earth. The long-dead race on the moon were apparently gigantic. In a solemn ceremony the dead astronauts were buried in the lunar soil with that enormous monument also marking their resting place.  Continue reading →

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 THREE

Edison and Serviss, with help from scientists like Lord Rayleigh, Sylvanus P Thompson and Doctor Moissan, oversaw the construction of the Earth’s space fleet. Within six months one hundred space ships were ready for action, all of them equipped with Edison’s disintegrator rays. Those rays could be fired from within the ships by going straight through the windows without damaging them. Their frequency could be adjusted so as not to harm glass but still disintegrate metal.  

In the style of Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt each of the spacecraft would carry not just military forces but archaeologists, artists and scientists of all disciplines. There was a certain level of anticipation regarding the discoveries that might be made in the course of conductng the war on Mars.  Continue reading →

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 →