Edison's conquest of Mars

Bad aliens from Mars with giant walking machines attack Earth and cause big trouble, but brave people fight back and win. Then super-smart inventor Mr. Thomas Edison builds 100 shiny silver spaceships with super-powerful zap guns that make stuff disappear! He takes smart friends like Lord Kelvin, flies to Mars, has exciting battles with the aliens' big robots, finds secret underground bug people who used to rule Mars, saves kidnapped Earth ladies, beats the evil Martian king, and makes humans the bosses of Mars. It's like a fun space adventure where brains and teamwork save the day!

Garrett P. Serviss's 1898 novel 'Edison's Conquest of Mars' serves as an unauthorized sequel to H.G. Wells's 'The War of the Worlds,' flipping the narrative by depicting humanity's triumphant counter-invasion. After repelling the Martian horde from Earth through desperate measures, genius inventor Thomas Edison spearheads the construction of a massive fleet of 100 aluminum-hulled spaceships equipped with revolutionary 'disintegrator' rays that atomize matter at a distance. Accompanied by luminaries like Lord Kelvin and a multinational crew, Edison's armada launches from New York Bay, propelled by a novel anti-gravitational force, embarking on a perilous journey across the void to strike at the heart of Martian aggression. Upon landing amid Mars's canal-laced deserts, the invaders unleash devastating aerial assaults on Martian cities and tripod war machines, gradually overpowering the foe through superior technology. The plot thickens with discoveries of a subterranean realm housing the ant-like Selenites—ancient overlords who subjugated the now-degenerate Martians—and the rescue of captive Earth women, including a romantic interest for one hero. Culminating in the storming of the Martian capital and the execution of its despotic sovereign, the novel revels in themes of technological manifest destiny, blending pseudoscience, jingoistic fervor, and swashbuckling action in a proto-space opera that captivated early sci-fi readers.