Book 1: The Coming of the Martians

Book 1 - The Coming of the Martians:
In the mid-1890s, aliens on Mars plot an invasion of Earth because their world is becoming uninhabitable. In the early 20th century, in the summer, an object thought to be a meteor lands on Horsell Common, near the narrator's home. It turns out to be an artificial cylinder launched towards Earth months earlier, as Earth and Mars approached opposition. Several Martians emerge and struggle with Earth's gravity and atmosphere. The alien beings do not resemble humans and have an enormously enlarged head and brain, two large eyes, and a beak mouth, on an octopus-like body with long, whip-shaped tentacles for grasping and locomotion. When humans approach the cylinder waving a white flag, the Martians incinerate them using a heat ray. The crowd flees. That evening a large military force surrounds the cylinder.