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A ALIEN INVASIONS Alien invasion narratives have been a staple of science fiction in print, tele- vision, film, and video games. In fact, the alien invasion story may be seen as the base story for almost all science fiction. The plot itself is simple. Some- thing out there comes here and wants to destroy us. The variations are almost infinite, and many writers have used the alien invasion narrative as a meta- phor for real cultural fears—depictions of aliens invading Earth and/or infil- trating humanity representing fear of the communist menace during the Cold War, for example. Despite the proliferation of invading aliens of all kinds in print and on big and small screens, however, aliens have had a rather mixed record of success, as one of the standard elements of the alien invasion is not the feared alien apocalypse but rather the heroic defense of Earth. It appears that meteors and comets are more successful at wiping out humanity than aliens. Although such nineteenth-century writers as Mary Shelley, Edgar Alan Poe, and Mark Twain wrote what came to be called science fiction, the writer cred- ited with inventing the genre, and the first author to create a popular alien invasion novel, was H. G. Wells (1866–1946). Wells, a prolific author, wrote history, social satire, and social criticism, but he is most famous for his science fiction, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The War of the Worlds (1897), The First Men in the Moon (1901), and The Shape of Things to Come (1933). The War of the Worlds provides the model for almost all alien invasion nov- els. Martians, needing natural resources, invade Earth. With their superior ­ technology—mechanical fighting machines that are able to propel chemical weapons and heat rays—they soon meet and defeat Earth’s best fighting force, the British army with maxim guns, the latest weapons technology at the time. Chaos ensues, as the seemingly unstoppable Martian forces crush all opposi- tion. All of humanity’s resources, military power, prayer, civil organization, and science, are unable to understand or stop the threatening unknown. Finally, when all seems lost, as the Martians emerge from their machines, they are destroyed by Earth’s bacteria, for which they have no immunity. Nature itself provides the solution, humbling humanity in the process.