H.G. Wells has been called the father of science fiction, and with genre-defining classics like The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, it's obvious why. The War of the Worlds is as vivid and powerful today as the day it was written. In this collection, which also includes the full text of The War of the Worlds, fourteen of science fiction's greatest talents come together to discuss, with insight and humor, one of science fiction's most important works. Essays include: * H. G. Wells' Enduring Mythos of Mars, in which Stephen Baxter provides the history of man's investigators of Mars and explains why Wells was right after all * Just Who Were Those Martians, Anyway? in which Lawrence Watt-Evans explains how ridiculously incompetent the Martians were as interplanetary invaders, and why * In Working's Image, in which Mercedes Lackey takes us to a different alien world: Wells' hometown of Working during the late 19th century * The Tiniest Assassins, in which Mike Resnick suggests that Wells gets one tiny thing wrong * The Hugo-winning The Soul Selects Her Own Society (the only reprint in this anthology), in which Connie Willis describes the unfortunate encounter between Emily Dickinson and Wells' Martians