Story summary
Samenvatting van Edisons verovering van Mars
- 8 min. leestijd
- 10 parts
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
Edison builds a ship that defies gravity and a weapon that scatters atoms, then sails to Mars.
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Edisons verovering van Mars in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 4 h3 h 10 min fast, 4 h 45 min slow
- Lengte
- 57.100 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Gemiddeld longer sentences, everyday words
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1898by Garrett Putman Serviss
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
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Edisons verovering van Mars in short
Edison's Conquest of Mars is the story of a world that refuses to wait for a second blow. After a ruinous first invasion, the nations pool their money behind one inventor, Thomas Edison, who gives them a ship that defies gravity and a weapon that breaks matter into atoms. A fleet of a hundred ships sails out, and the book follows it from the moon to a comet, an asteroid of gold and the red planet itself.
What Edisons verovering van Mars is about
What would you do if invaders from Mars had just wrecked your planet, and astronomers now saw new lights flashing on the red world? Garrett Putman Serviss gives a bold answer. Strike first.
Edison's Conquest of Mars appeared in 1898 as an answer to The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Serviss was an American science writer and popular astronomer.
Voor wie is het?. You will enjoy this book if you like early science fiction, inventors and their gadgets, voyages across the solar system, and lively battle scenes told with humor and wonder.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A wrecked Earth finds hope in Orange
The book begins after the first war is over. Nearly all the Martian invaders have died of disease, but a few escape in a projectile car launched from New Jersey.
Despair follows. Then astronomers report strange lights moving on Mars. Everyone reads them as the sign of a second invasion, and this time nobody expects to survive.
Yet a few keep building. Then word flashes from the laboratory of Thomas Edison in Orange. He has studied the wrecked Martian machines with Lord Kelvin and Roentgen, and he has found a way to meet the invaders. The news crosses the Atlantic cables in minutes, and a whole planet breathes out at once.
A frightened world finds its courage again when someone shows it a workable answer.
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Edison invents a ship and a weapon
The first invention is a flying machine, a metal car that uses electrical attraction and repulsion to work against gravity.
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The nations pool their money and their hopes
A war on Mars needs millions upon millions, so the cry on every side becomes On to Mars.
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The fleet sails and meets the dead moon
Six months after the first hammer blow, a hundred electric ships float above New York.
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A comet and an asteroid nearly end the war
A day or two after leaving the moon, the ships meet something worse than a meteor.
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Mars wears a war mask and the fleet pays for it
The squadron reaches Mars after twenty-three more days.
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A girl named Aina holds the key to Mars
The girl is slender, pale and dressed in white, and she seems to know the humans at once.
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Science is both the weapon and the hope
Serviss writes as if science were an adventure story.
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War, fear and mercy shape the story
Serviss does not treat the war as a simple adventure.
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A reporter's voice turns a romance into a chronicle
Serviss tells the tale in the first person, in the plain voice of a witness.
Read all 10 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Thomas A. Edison The inventor who builds the electric ships and the disintegrator, and leads the fleet to Mars with calm and quick thinking.
- The narrator An unnamed American who rides in Edison's flagship and tells the story as an eyewitness, sharing the dangers and the doubts.
- Colonel Alonzo Jefferson Smith An old army officer from the western plains who thinks like a scout and acts fast, and who wants to protect Aina.
- Aina A young musician found in a Martian house, who speaks an ancient language and knows the secrets of her captors.
- Sidney Phillips A handsome young man aboard the flagship who becomes devoted to Aina and learns her language as fast as he can.
- Lord Kelvin The great British scientist who reasons aloud, warns the others about space and finds the gold on the asteroid.
- The Heidelberg professor A linguist who acts out words with comic skill and believes Aina's speech is the root of many languages.
How it ends (spoiler)
Aina's plan works. The fleet closes the great gates on the strait of Syrtis Major, and a vast flood sweeps across Mars and drowns most of its people. The Martian Emperor surrenders and swears never to attack Earth again, but Colonel Smith destroys him as the fleet leaves. The surviving ships circle the Earth to cheers, and in New York Aina marries Sidney Phillips while the colonel returns to the plains.
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Vragen over Edisons verovering van Mars
What is Edison's Conquest of Mars about?
It follows Thomas Edison and a fleet of electric ships as they sail to Mars to stop a second invasion. Along the way they meet the moon, a comet, a golden asteroid and the Martians themselves.
Is Edison's Conquest of Mars a sequel to The War of the Worlds?
Yes, in a sense. Serviss wrote it in 1898 as an unofficial reply to the novel by H. G. Wells. It begins right after the first Martian invasion ends and shows humanity striking back.
What is the disintegrator in the book?
It is a hand-held device Edison invents that sends tuned vibrations at an object until its atoms fly apart. Each material has its own rate, so he can tune the dial to it or sweep through the range to find it.
Who is Aina in Edison's Conquest of Mars?
Aina is a young woman found on Mars by Colonel Smith and the narrator. She speaks an ancient language, plays music for her captors, and becomes the expedition's guide to the secrets of the planet.
Is Edison's Conquest of Mars easy to read?
The book has short chapters, lively headings and plain storytelling in the voice of an eyewitness. Its cliffhangers, comic characters and clear science explanations make it easy to follow from the first page.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Serviss, Garrett Putman. Edison's Conquest of Mars. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/edisons-conquest-of-mars.
Serviss, G. P. (2026). Edison's conquest of Mars. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/edisons-conquest-of-mars (Original work published 1898)
Serviss, Garrett Putman. Edison's Conquest of Mars. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/edisons-conquest-of-mars.
@book{serviss2026edisons,
author = {Serviss, Garrett Putman},
title = {Edison's Conquest of Mars},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/edisons-conquest-of-mars},
note = {First published 1898}
}
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