The War of the Worlds the location of the story to a New York setting. The second version changed the story to have the Martians landing in the area near and around Boston, and was published by the "Boston Post" in 1898, which Wells protested against. It was called "Fighters from Mars, or the War of the Worlds in and near Boston". Both pirated versions of the story were followed by "Edison's Conquest of Mars" by Garrett P. Serviss. Even though these versions are deemed as unauthorised serialisations of the novel, it is possible that H. G. Wells may have, without realising it, agreed to
The War of the Worlds 1900 echo scientific ideas of the time, including Pierre-Simon Laplace's nebular hypothesis, Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, and Gustav Kirchhoff's theory of spectroscopy. These scientific ideas combined to present the possibility that planets are alike in composition and conditions for the development of species, which would likely lead to the emergence of life at a suitable geological age in a planet's development. By the time Wells wrote "The War of the Worlds" there had been three centuries of observation of Mars through telescopes. Galileo in 1610 observed the planet's phases, and in 1666 Giovanni Cassini identified the polar ice