Black smoke (The War of the Worlds) Black smoke (The War of the Worlds) The black smoke, or black powder, is a fictitious poisonous gas in H. G. Wells' 1898 science fiction novel "The War of the Worlds", used by the Martians to eliminate groups of humans, especially artillery crews, and conveyed by shells fired from a gun-like ""black tube"" carried by the Tripods' whip-like tentacles. Any animal inhaling this deadly smoke is killed almost instantly, but the smoke becomes harmless on contact with water. The Martians would dispel it after each use with jets of steam, leaving only a residual, "cindery" black powder, which reminds the
The War of the Worlds Edison leading a counterattack against the invaders on their home soil. Though this is actually a sequel to 'Fighters from Mars', a revised and unauthorised reprint of "The War of the Worlds", they both were first printed in the "Boston Post" in 1898. Lazar Lagin published "Major Well Andyou" in USSR in 1962, an alternative view of events in "The War of the Worlds" from the viewpoint of a traitor. "The War of the Worlds" was reprinted in the United States in 1927, before the Golden Age of science fiction, by Hugo Gernsback in "Amazing Stories". John W. Campbell, another