It is approaching the end of the 19th century, the night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. At first, locals approach the cylinder carrying just with a white flag - only to be promptly killed by an all-destroying heat-ray, as the terrifying tentacled invaders emerge. Soon the whole of human civilisation is under threat, as the powerful Martians build gigantic killing machines, tripods that destroy all in their path with gas and burning rays, and gorge on the warm blood of trapped, still-living human prey. The forces of the Earth, however, may prove harder to beat than they at first appear. Mankind fighting back? Or help from something much, much smaller?