Answer:
The War of the Worlds has a pretty old-fashioned plot structure. I would say that the safest general characterisation of the science-fiction tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to H. G. Wells. Indeed, The War of the Worlds is probably the most influential novel of the whole science fiction genre, as well as a significant part of the horror category. I remember reading this short novel as a child and being viscerally engrossed and terrified. Rereading it now made me aware of a few more things. First, I realised how this book sums up and, in a way, accomplishes some of the things H. G. Wells had experimented with before.