ection>
ALSO BY ROBERT REGINALD
Academentia: A Future Dystopia
Ancestral Voices: An Anthology of Early Science Fiction
Ancient Hauntings (ed. with Douglas Menville)
The Attempted Assassination of John F. Kennedy
BP 300: A Bibliography of the Borgo Press, 1976-1998
Choice Words: Writers Writing About Writing (editor)
Classics of Fantastic Literature (with Douglas Menville)
Codex Derynianus III (with Katherine Kurtz)
The Dark-Haired Man; or, The Hieromonk’s Tale (NE #1)
Dreamers of Dreams (ed. with Douglas Menville)
The Exiled Prince; or, The Archquisitor’s Tale (NE #2)
Forgotten Fantasy: Issues #1-5 (ed. with Douglas Menville)
The Fourth Elephant’s Egg; or, The Hypatomancer’s Tale (#4)
“A Glorious Death”: The Human-Knacker War, Book Three
The House of the Burgesses (with Mary A. Burgess)
If J.F.K. Had Lived (with Jeffrey M. Elliot)
Invasion! Earth vs. the Aliens (War of Two Worlds #1)
The Judgment of the Gods and Other Verdicts of History
King Solomon’s Children (ed. with Douglas Menville)
Knack’ Attack: A Tale of the Human-Knacker War (Book Two)
The Martians Strike Back! (War of Two Worlds #3)
The Nasty Gnomes: A Novel of the Phantom Detective—#2
Operation Crimson Storm (War of Two Worlds #2)
The Paperback Show Murders
Phantasmagoria (ed. with Douglas Menville)
The Phantom’s Phantom: A Novel of the Phantom Detective—#1
Quæstiones; or, The Protopresbyter’s Tale (Nova Europa #3)
R.I.P. (ed. with Douglas Menville)
The Spectre Bridegroom and Other Horrors (ed. with Menville)
They (ed. with Douglas Menville)
Trilobite Dreams; or, The Autodidact’s Tale: An Autobiography
Worlds of Never (ed. with Douglas Menville)
Xenograffiti: Essays on Fantastic Literature
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2007, 2011 by Robert Reginald
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
To the Memory of
Major Roy Walter Burgess, U.S.A.F.
(4 July 1922 - 16 February 1998)
Pilot and Veteran of World War II and Korea
and
Carpenter’s Mate First Class
Frank Joseph Kapel
(5 December 1913 - 26 April 2006)
Seabee and Veteran of World War II
and for
H. G. Wells and Tim Underwood
Who inspired it!
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Despite the plethora of indications to the contrary on the Internet, this Borgo Press edition is the first separate publication of this novel, which has only previously been issued as part of the omnibus edition, Invasion! Earth vs. the Aliens (2007). The novel was announced for publication by Underwood Books in the Fall of 2005 under two titles, War of the Worlds and War of Two Worlds, the latter of which has now become the series title for this new edition; covers were created for same, and orders were solicited, but for a variety of reasons beyond the publisher’s control, the book never actually appeared then. Ironically, if War of Two Worlds and its sequel, Operation Crimson Storm, had appeared on schedule, the third book in the trilogy, The Martians Strike Back!, might never have been written, since its fate was dependent on sales of the first two volumes. And so it goes!
—Robert Reginald
16 January 2011
PART ONE
THE EARTH IN FLAMES
I am a man.
I consider nothing human alien to me.
—Terence
But who may actually live on
These worlds if they’re inhabited?
—Johannes Kepler
PROLOGUE
BANG! BANG! YOU’RE DEAD!
You Only Live Twice.
—Ian Fleming
Alex Smith, 29 December, Mars Year i
Marin County, California, Planet Earth
I don’t know why I lived while so many others died.
I should have been killed.
I was chased and bruised and bent and broken and twisted every which way—and still I survived.
Why?
Why did I live while so many others died?
There has to be a reason.
* * * *
The blast rolled me into a ditch, along with the tattered jigsaw pieces of my late comrades-in-arms.
I remember hearing two successive explosions—blam! blat!—and being covered with dirt and leaves and branches and half an arm, leaving only my eyes and nose exposed. Then I watched the clouds scudding by above me, interspersed with wisps of green-and-black smoke, in a world made dim and deaf by the thunder of war. It was almost scary in a way.
But I wasn’t scared! I don’t think I really understood what was happening. My ears were ringing with
