Kelly is an instructor of literature and creative writing at two schools in Illinois. In this essay, Kelly examines the role that is played in the novel by the two women that the narrator's brother meets while fleeing London.

The early novels that H. G. Wells wrote are remembered for infusing a groundbreaking sense of realism into unlikely situations, all the while holding fast to the principles of science. The War of the Worlds, in particular, is considered as "realistic" as a book can be when there are slimy tentacled creatures cutting down whole countrysides with ray guns. The book is apocalyptic, showing a very convincing vision of how the human race could quite conceivably end. It dismisses the most dominant factors of our society, presuming that they would be unable to rise to the kind of challenge presented by a Martian invasion.

The novel follows its...