Table Of ContentALSO BY ROBERT REGINALD
Academentia: A Future Dystopia
Ancestral Voices: An Anthology of Early Science Fiction Ancient Hauntings (ed.
with Douglas Menville) The Attempted Assassination of John F. Kennedy
BP 300: A Bibliography of the Borgo Press, 1976-1998
Choice Words: Writers Writing About Writing (editor) Classics of Fantastic
Literature (with Douglas Menville) Codex Derynianus III (with Katherine
Kurtz)
The Dark-Haired Man; or, The Hieromonk’s Tale (NE #1) Dreamers of Dreams
(ed. with Douglas Menville) The Exiled Prince; or, The Archquisitor’s Tale
(NE #2) Forgotten Fantasy: Issues #1-5 (ed. with Douglas Menville) The
Fourth Elephant’s Egg; or, The Hypatomancer’s Tale (#4) “A Glorious
Death”: The Human-Knacker War, Book Three The House of the Burgesses
(with Mary A. Burgess) If J.F.K. Had Lived (with Jeffrey M. Elliot) Invasion!
Earth vs. the Aliens (War of Two Worlds #1) The Judgment of the Gods and
Other Verdicts of History King Solomon’s Children (ed. with Douglas
Menville) Knack’ Attack: A Tale of the Human-Knacker War (Book Two) The
Martians Strike Back! (War of Two Worlds #3) The Nasty Gnomes: A Novel of
the Phantom Detective—#2
Operation Crimson Storm (War of Two Worlds #2) The Paperback Show
Murders
Phantasmagoria (ed. with Douglas Menville)
The Phantom’s Phantom: A Novel of the Phantom Detective—#1
Quæstiones; or, The Protopresbyter’s Tale (Nova Europa #3) R.I.P. (ed. with
Douglas Menville)
The Spectre Bridegroom and Other Horrors (ed. with Menville) They (ed. with
Douglas Menville)
Trilobite Dreams; or, The Autodidact’s Tale: An Autobiography Worlds of
Never (ed. with Douglas Menville)
Xenograffiti: Essays on Fantastic Literature
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2007, 2011 by Robert Reginald
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Despite the plethora of indications to the contrary on the Internet, this Borgo
Press edition is the first separate publication of this novel, which has only
previously been issued as part of the omnibus edition, Invasion! Earth vs. the
Aliens (2007). The novel was announced for publication by Underwood Books
in the Fall of 2005 under two titles, War of the Worlds and War of Two Worlds,
the latter of which has now become the series title for this new edition; covers
were created for same, and orders were solicited, but for a variety of reasons
beyond the publisher’s control, the book never actually appeared then.
Ironically, if War of Two Worlds and its sequel, Operation Crimson Storm, had
appeared on schedule, the third book in the trilogy, The Martians Strike Back!,
might never have been written, since its fate was dependent on sales of the first
two volumes. And so it goes!
—Robert Reginald
16 January 2011
PART ONE
THE EARTH IN FLAMES
I am a man.
I consider nothing human alien to me.
—Terence
But who may actually live on
These worlds if they’re inhabited?
—Johannes Kepler
PROLOGUE
BANG! BANG! YOU’RE DEAD!
You Only Live Twice.
—Ian Fleming
A S , 29 D , M Y M C , C , P
LEX MITH ECEMBER ARS EAR I ARIN OUNTY ALIFORNIA LANET
E I don’t know why I lived while so many others died.
ARTH
I should have been killed.
I was chased and bruised and bent and broken and twisted every which way—
and still I survived.
Why?
Why did I live while so many others died?
There has to be a reason.
The blast rolled me into a ditch, along with the tattered jigsaw pieces of my
late comrades-in-arms.
I remember hearing two successive explosions—blam! blat!—and being
covered with dirt and leaves and branches and half an arm, leaving only my eyes
and nose exposed. Then I watched the clouds scudding by above me,
interspersed with wisps of green-and-black smoke, in a world made dim and
deaf by the thunder of war. It was almost scary in a way.
But I wasn’t scared! I don’t think I really understood what was happening. My
ears were ringing with the effects of the after-blast, but despite my temporary
deafness, I could feel the rumble of something very large approaching.
Thud!
The ground belched and bolted and raised itself up. At first I thought
“earthquake,” but then I figured it out: one of the alien monstrosities was striding
boldly over the landscape towards me. I couldn’t see it and I couldn’t hear it, but
I knew it was there nonetheless. I tried to move, but my limbs seemed paralyzed.
My breath caught in my throat.
Thud! Thud!
The zap-zit of a death-ray flashed over my head and incinerated one of the
trees down the road, making it a Roman candle of instant flame.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Closer and closer the machine strode. I thought I could hear someone crying in
the distance, but I couldn’t have, could I?
“Help!” he screamed. “Help me!”
It might have been Mayer. It might have been Stromwick. Whoever it was, I
couldn’t save them.
Thud! Thud! THUUUD!
A great metal pad splattered right down on top of me, straddling my narrow
reserve. I could see the cross-pattern, the stitchery, if you will, of its fabric
hanging right above my face. It paused for a moment to release another great
zzzappp!—and someone from our squad replied in turn, the RPG striking twenty
feet away. But the shadow of alien machine’s foot protected me, saving me from
myself. I could feel the vibration of the metal fragments rattling off its armor.
And then it was gone, just like that!
I was free.
But still I couldn’t move.
I felt a pressure on my chest, as if the Martian were yet perched there,
squeezing the life out of me, sucking it from my very heart. I’ll never forget that
moment, however long I live.
Bang! Bang! You’re dead!
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Was it me who was rumbling and rambling—or the alien?
Was I dead—or just barely alive?
Why did I live while so many others died?
Why?
I wish the bloody hell I knew.
CHAPTER ONE
“THE MAN IN THE MARS”
Ours is the invading army.
—Henry David Thoreau
A S , 21 J , M Y
LEX MITH UNE ARS EAR I
N , C , P E
OVATO ALIFORNIA LANET ARTH
Call me Alex.
I want to tell you a story.
“Once upon a time….”
Well, I guess you’ve heard that one before.
No, my story is about life and death and war and peace and all those good and
ugly things.
I could tell you that we won every fight and killed every alien and drove the
dirty buggers right back into space, but it wouldn’t be true.
I have quite another tale to tell, of terror and temerity and tremulousness.
It goes something like this:
In the early years of the twenty-first century, no one would have believed that
our world had become the target of extraterrestrial intelligences vastly older and
greater than our own.
We’d sent probes to the furthest reaches of the Solar System, and they
confirmed the utter deadness of the deeps. SETI, that grand experiment to
identify intelligent life “out there,” failed to produce even one “peep” of
nonsense. We carefully measured craters and rocks and gas. We found no life,
none at all.
The machines told us that Mars once had oceans and rivers and lakes—just like
Earth. Where did the water go? Underground or into the sky, our scientists said,
leaving few traces of its presence in that world’s barren fields and stony red
hills.
Life on Mars, we all said, is certainly gone and dead—if it was ever there at
all.
We were wrong.
We just hadn’t read the signs right.
Our robots woke the monsters from their long, leisurely sleep. We gained their
sudden attention. We aroused their interest or suspicion or who the hell knows
what.
I saw it all first-hand.
I was there when it started.
I was there when it ended.
This is the tale of the War of Two Worlds.
That was the Year we later called Mars One.
I decided to take a sabbatical from the college. I’d had enough of the academic
rat race to last me a lifetime. I would have been happy never to have seen Dean
Broker’s pinched face or my sad-eyed students ever again. The Dean wanted
more students—the students wanted more jobs. The serious discussion of history
and philosophy, of why and how and for what reason, was somehow lost in the
shuffle.
“The problem with philosophy,” one of my coeds joked, “is that it Kant make
up its mind!”
“History is dead,” said another, “so why don’t we give it a decent burial?”
Ahem and amen. For a few months, at least, I had a book to write and grass to
grow under my feet. It felt pretty damned good.
Then CNN reported a series of green flashes on the Red Planet. At the same
time, our satellites around Mars suddenly went dead. The coincidence of the two
events was much commented upon in the media. Carl Rover assured the press
that the President had been briefed and knew what was happening, although she
couldn’t tell the American public—for national security reasons, of course. Fox
News thought this was another liberal conspiracy, and undoubtedly it was so.
Some scientists questioned the existence of the phenomena, treating the sparks
of light like some UFO sighting. “Transient radiation,” a few said. Others
thought that it was the interplanetary equivalent of “marsh gas.”
If I hadn’t bumped into Mindon at the market, I wouldn’t have known much
more than the other boobs. Dr. Min was an eccentric colleague and part-time
lecturer who specialized in astronomy and Native American studies, and claimed
some small percentage of Indian blood himself, enough to qualify him for
membership in the Moroño Tribe. He looked more like a washed-up hippie than
a teacher, always sporting turquoise bolo ties and rings and beads over rather
garish, unbuttoned Hawaiian sports shirts—“gotta rent the rug!” he’d say. He
kept a reflecting telescope in a cabin he owned a half-mile west of his house,
where he sometimes practiced his flute and smoked some Humboldt hash while
