Flying machine (The War of the Worlds) Flying machine (The War of the Worlds) The Flying machine is one of the fictional machines used by the Martians in H. G. Wells' classic science fiction novel "The War of the Worlds". It is one of the four types of heavy machine the Martians bring with them when they invade Earth, along with the fighting machine, the handling machine, and the embankment machine. The appearance of this aircraft in the novel is very vague. The narrator's brother, escaping by sea, glimpses it shortly after the implied destruction of the Channel Fleet. The narrator himself sees the aircraft abandoned on
The War of the Worlds Pacific islands. While Invasion Literature had provided an imaginative foundation for the idea of the heart of the British Empire being conquered by foreign forces, it was not until "The War of the Worlds" that the reading public was presented with an adversary completely superior to themselves. A significant motivating force behind the success of the British Empire was its use of sophisticated technology; the Martians, also attempting to establish an empire on Earth, have technology superior to their British adversaries. In "The War of the Worlds", Wells depicted an imperial power as the victim of imperial aggression, and thus