Edison's Conquest of Mars attempt at fiction, the book was published serially in the "New York Journal". Serviss went on to write other science fiction stories, arguably making him the first American to write science fiction professionally. An early example of what would later be called space opera, "Edison's Conquest of Mars" was also a particularly literal "Edisonade". The book contains some notable "firsts" in science fiction: alien abductions, spacesuits (called "air-tight suits": see Spacesuits in fiction), aliens building the Pyramids, space battles, oxygen pills, asteroid mining and disintegrator rays. The book is set following the abortive Martian attack depicted in "Fighters from Mars",
It! The Terror from Beyond Space the command deck's hull airlock directly to the vacuum of space. A violent decompression follows, and the plan works: "It" suffocates and finally expires, stuck part way through the final hatch. A press conference is later held on Earth, revealing the details of what happened aboard the rescue ship. The project director emphasizes that Earth may now be forced to bypass the Red Planet "because another word for Mars is death". "It! The Terror from Beyond Space" was financed by Edward Small and was originally known as "It! The Vampire from Beyond Space". Principal photography took place over a two-week