Fighting machine (The War of the Worlds) Fighting machine (The War of the Worlds) The Fighting Machine (also known as "Tripod") is one of the fictional machines used by the Martians in H.G. Wells' 1898 classic science fiction novel "The War of the Worlds". It is a fast-moving, three-legged walker, reported to be 100 feet tall, with multiple whip-like tentacles used for grasping, and two lethal weapons: the heat-ray and a gun-like tube used for discharging canisters of a poisonous chemical black smoke that kills humans and animals. It is the primary machine the Martians use when they invade Earth, along with the handling machine, the flying
The War of the Worlds (radio drama) 24, he was assigned to adapt "The War of the Worlds" for broadcast the following Sunday night. Tuesday night, 36 hours before rehearsals were to begin, Koch telephoned Houseman in what the producer characterized as "deep distress". Koch said he could not make "The War of the Worlds" interesting or credible as a radio play, a conviction echoed by his secretary Anne Froelick, a typist and aspiring writer whom Houseman had hired to assist him. With only his own abandoned script for "Lorna Doone" to fall back on, Houseman told Koch to continue adapting the Wells fantasy. He joined Koch