Recommended reading - The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells (1898):

The War of the Worlds

By H.G. Wells

First published 1898.

ISBN 10: 0451522761
ISBN 13: 9780451522764

Description:

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own....

So begins The War of the Worlds, the science fiction classic that first proposed the possibility of intelligent life on other planets and has enthralled readers for generations. This compelling tale describes the Martian invasion of earth. When huge, tireless creatures land in England, complete chaos erupts. Using their fiery heat rays and crushing strength, the aliens just may succeed in silencing all opposition. Is life on earth doomed? Will mankind survive? A timeless view of a universe turned upside down, The War of the Worlds is an ingenious and imaginative look into the possibilities of the future and the secrets yet to be revealed.

Recommended reading - The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells (1895):

The Time Machine

By H.G. Wells.

First published 1895.

Published by Bantam Classics.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0553213512

ISBN-13: 978-0553213515

Description:

When the Time Traveller courageously stepped out of his machine for the first time, he found himself in the year 802,700 – and everything had changed. In this unfamiliar, utopian age, creatures seemed to dwell together in perfect harmony. The Time Traveller thought he could study these marvelous beings – unearth their secret and then return to his own time – until he discovered that his invention, his only avenue of escape, had been stolen.

H.G. Well's famous novel of one man's astonishing journey beyond the conventional limits of the imagination first appeared in 1895. It won him immediate recognition and has been regarded ever since as one of the great masterpieces in the literature of science fiction.